While I grew up on a farm and we always had dogs that worked with the cattle and hogs, I had never seen how dogs like Border Collies and Australian Sheep dogs were trained. I had seen the very complex patterns these dogs can do with sheep, goats and even things like ducks and geese at herding trials. They are able to keep groups of livestock together, move the group from on part of the field to another, move the livestock through gates and even get the live stock to load into trailer or go into holding pens.
I had supposed that all of the herding patterns were the result of some very complex and intense training. Sure I knew that these dogs had been bred for hundreds of years to herd. I saw that there was to be an Introduction to Herding Clinic up in northern Ohio. Got up at 4 AM so I could be there at the 9 AM starting time. Sort of a cold and rainy day but that was OK, the training farm had in indoor training area. People with Border Collies began to show up. Something to note a number of these dogs were “rescue dogs” they had been recused from shelters, some were at foster care, some had been adopted through the rescue organizations. Many of these incredible dogs present would have been put down had the rescue groups not stepped in. Why did they end up in shelters? Shepherd dogs are very active and energetic and also very intelligent. They often are not a “good fit” for a lot of people. There were a number of sad stories about how these dogs ended up in shelters – mostly through no fault of their own but rather the owners not understanding or willing to care for them.
Most of the dogs present had never been exposed to livestock before. Most were also young 6-7 months to a couple of years old. As people arrived with their dogs the first thing I noticed was everyone of the Border Collies were friendly both to the other dogs and to the people present. In the past I had the great opportunity to work with a great trainer in Cleveland Ohio. All types and sizes of dogs came to her training classes. The common thing was many dogs barked and lunged at other dogs and sometimes people others were very afraid and shy around other dogs and people so the first thing at every class was to get the dogs settled down.
The Border Collies are not like this at all, they all were quiet and friendly toward the other dogs and the people, some were pretty shy but seemed to “get over” the experience of new dogs and people very quickly. They pretty much did not pay a lot of attention to other dogs and people. All were on leash which is to be expected at any training event. Really interesting every single dog was “crate” trained. Even the more timid and shy ones would go into their crate or carrier and simply quietly lay down. While I have been around and worked with a lot of different breeds of dogs, I had never been around Border Collies or Aussies. The training facility I worked at was urban and so there were not many “farm” dogs – I had the only “herding” dog – a Tri Color Collie.
There was first of all a class – the dogs had been put in their crates, carriers or cars during the class. Then people got their dogs and we all went to the indoor training facility. They brought several sheep into the training area – this was an open area inside a barn – there was a small area for dogs, owners and observers that had a fence and a gate. While these dogs really had little reaction to other dogs and people just about everyone of them immediately were totally focused on the sheep – really watching them.
This is when the true “magic” started. The trainer captured and held a sheep (note here these sheep are very used to dogs and dogs working with them. I doubt that sheep that had never been around dogs would be like these sheep were. Step one each dog was taken into the training area on leash and brought up to the sheep and allowed to “smell” the sheep’s “back end” – the dogs would take a sniff and then back away. That is all they needed to recognize what “sheep” were. Once done – some dogs were very fast at this recognition others took a bit longer and a couple had to be “encouraged” to get in close to the sheep – the dog was led out of the training area back to the waiting area. One dog at a time was “introduced” to the sheep that the trainer was hold onto.
The next step was amazing. A dog on leash would be brought back into the training area, the owner would walk the dog all around the area past the sheep. This would get the sheep out of the corners and away from the walls. Next the owner would take the leash off and the dog was allowed to simply act. The dogs would approach the sheep and then drop to a down right where the sheep would begin to be in a single group. The dogs would get up and move and again drop to a down or run at very high speeds around the “flock” causing them to bunch together. If you are not familiar with how herding dogs “work” livestock here is a You Tube video (just click the link)
The thing I did not know before going to the herding clinic is these dogs instinctively “know” the stop, down, stalking, and running behaviors shown in the video. This is simply what they have been bred to do. Training is really about “adjustments” and corrections and getting the dogs to do what the handler want them to do. The dogs already know how to do all of this. In the video you can see that the dogs are looking at the sheep – constantly – they are not looking at the handler at all – the whistle signals are just instruction – the dogs already know all of the “moves” – or how to get the sheep to do what the dog want. The Borders and Aussies are highly “biddable” – they Really want to please their owner. Herd training is about letting these dogs simply do what they do naturally with the owner guiding them as to what they want done not how to do it.
What I saw at the herding clinic was dogs that had never even seen sheep before that were able to move and group sheep as well as “hold” them in a position. One dog for exam had be just adopted from rescue and had been with his new owner less than a week. The owner had no experience with herding – the dog had come from a very difficult shelter and horrific life to rescue and had been with a foster home for only a few weeks. This one grouped the sheep, held them, moved them – all of the herding things you can see in the video. He simply “knew” all of this – the trainer was just telling the owner how and where to move – (the owner had had almost no experience or contact with any sort of livestock).
There was of course a range of how well the dogs did in this first session which in many cases was their very first exposure to livestock. Some “got it” and knew exactly what to do immediately, some need some encouragement and guidance – all were allowed to “discover” on their own what they were bred to do.
They stopped for lunch, the dogs were placed back in their crates, carriers and cars. They were given the opportunity “to think about their experience” away from the sheep. After lunch and a new group of sheep – the owners and dogs were brought back to the observation area and the truly amazing things was almost every dog did a lot better the second time out – plus every dog waiting to go into the training area was closely watching what was going on. Training these dogs is about letting the dogs simply discovery what they instinctively already know and adding some guidance to fine tune their behavior.
After all of the dogs that were new to working with livestock finished one person who had an Aussie let his dog in with the sheep. He did not go into the training area at all. In fact the owner was sort in the back behind people up close to the fence watching. The owner is very soft spoken I was standing right beside him and could barely hear him as he told the dog what he wanted – soft spoken words only, no hand signals or whistles – this owner kept his hands in his pockets. The dog some 50 feet away intently watch the sheep and grouped them, moved them, held them, moved them the other direction, brought the sheep up to the fence, took to sheep to the far side, put them into each corner and moved them to other corners and held them. The dog would separate a single sheep away from the herd and keep it separate and them allow the sheep to get back with the herd. This dog did absolutely everything the owner wanted done only from his very quiet spoken words while the owner was in the back, people were talking to each other, the training area was fairly noisy. Really amazing to watch. As it happens this particular Aussie is one of the top competitive herd dogs in the USA. The reality is this was a herd dog doing his job and what he was bred to do – help the owner work with livestock.
It was an amazing day, and I am really glad I got up at 4AM to take a 5 hour drive to go watch some amazingly talented dogs doing what they were bred to do and some owners learning the basics of letting the dog figure out how to do things when it comes to working with livestock. Further training is all about training the owners to start to add commands and start to do some guidance and correction to dogs that are born to do this type of work.
The thing to know is Borders and Aussies are very intelligent and instinctive and so are able to figure out on their own how to do things. They are very high energy animals, while not very large they can be really fast. Around livestock they intently watch the livestock, they do not look at their owners at all. This means that hand signals used with a lot of dog training will not work. These dogs are very sensitive to what their owner want them to do. This all means that these are not the type of dog to have as a family pet that lays around with nothing to do in the back yard, or will not work out living in a city apartment or being taken on leash to the park. In other words these are not the perfect dog for everyone. The sad thing is a number of these dogs end up in shelters because people have not taken the time to understand and work with them. The good thing is the rescue groups are very careful about placing these dogs with owners that can learn to work with them. While they naturally and instinctively work with livestock, they can enjoy things like agility courses – the thing to know is the Borders and Aussies need active things to do.
Next time I go to a Intro Herding Clinic I will bring my video camera. What these dogs do totally based on instinct can be best shown with video. The way to train and work with these breeds is very different from “normal” dog training and obedience.
It is March, the local new feeds and news papers are filled with stories about basketball and of course the “normal” stories about violence and crime. This is a story that was missing and really needs to be shared. It is about kids that are not sports stars, probably are not the “popular” kids at the schools and very well could be subject to difficult to deal with pressure from other students probably get a lot of flake and may be subject to bullying.
There was a very brief article in our local Georgetown KY newspaper “The News Graphic” about a competition held at Georgetown College. This was not one of the dozen of sports competitions that are constantly in the paper, this was a competition involving robots doing very specific and precise tasks. There were grade school, middle school and high school levels of competition. These kids are building and programming robots made from the Lego Mindstorms system. The local newspaper article appeared three days after the event. Had I know sooner I would have attended. I was able to so some internet searches and learned somethings, the most important was that there is a state wide group called STLP (Student Technology Leadership Program) and that they were going to have a state championship competition coming up in a few weeks at Rupp Arena and Heritage Hall in nearby Lexington. (For those of you not familiar Rupp arena is home to the UK (University of Kentucky) basketball team)
The event was held yesterday 28 March 2013, unfortunately there was now pre -event press coverage that I saw, nor was there any coverage at all in yesterdays Lexington newspaper that I saw. (I do not read the printed version of newspapers – just the various local and national “internet feeds”. I went to Rupp early yesterday morning specifically to learn more about the technology (I am a geek, I like technology and enjoy new (to me) gadgets. What I learned was at least a little about the kids in the STLP programs from all over the state. A side note here – I have never had children nor have I ever spent much time around children and in fact am barely tolerant of large groups of children. I am particularly “sensitive” to groups of noisy seemingly out of control children – you know the type of thing experienced at sporting events. I actually went to learn what the STLP kids were doing with the Lego Mindstorm Robots – something that I was only remotely aware of – after hearing about the competition at Georgetown College I was able to find some You Tube videos as well as some articles on the robots, the competition and the kids involved, not much, there just does not seem to be a lot of press coverage.
I got to Rupp early and could see that the parking lot was filled with school buses from all over the state. Heritage hall was filled with kids and more were arriving, not an environment I would normally place myself in. The kids were quiet, focused on putting together their booths and displays. They were setting up computers, laptops, tablets, iMacs, iPads, smart phones, monitors, audio systems as well as digital cameras, video cameras and all sorts of technology. There were young elementary school age kids through high school kids each wearing tee shirts with their school colors. The kids were setting this stuff up, sure there were teachers there but the kids themselves were setting up the displays and the equipment.
The very first thing that was clearly apparent was that these kids were “different”, they were intent, focused and each group had created their own displays. These kids were the “geeks”, “nerds”, “techies”, the kids good at math, science, physics and technology. It sort of reminded me of the regional “Science Fairs” we had some 50 years ago when I was in high school.
Nor everything worked out of the box and these groups of kids at all levels were helping each other get their displays up and everything working. They were trouble shooting and problem solving on the fly. The adult teachers were allowing the kids to problem solve and get things working, not “taking over” and doing it for them as so many adults are prone to do. These kids were fully capable of fixing things “on the fly” and certainly able to make things work. Intent, serious kids working together in small groups getting their projects and displays up and working. Many even at the elementary levels were very complex displays involving multimedia presentations – videos, Power Point, audios, digital photography, digital art done with Photoshop, videos done with Final Cut Pro, Avid, Sony Vegas – Presentations done with iPads and other tablets, lots and lots of computers – very complex video cameras, audios done with some very complex audio editing programs. The thing to know is this stuff is not at all easy. I use a lot of the audio, video and multimedia programs myself, have for a long time and it was very apparent that these kids even at elementary school levels were doing things that were far beyond what I am able to do. I noted a couple of young kids – maybe 5th grade working on a multimedia presentation – updating and modifying a video with new pictures and video clips of their team. There had Final Cut Pro running on an iMac and Avid studio running on a PC and were sharing clips from the PC over to the iMac – I can tell you this type of thing is really difficult to do especially on “the fly” The Final Cut Pro program had at least 4 different video tracks and 4 audio tracks plus several effects tracks.
Out in the front lobby were a number of technical and engineering colleges with information about their schools. There I found some displays of the Lego Mindstorm system doing a number of things. There was one I found totally fascinating – remember the Rubik’s cube?? Yes that totally irritating cube with three levels of colored squares that you can move around in every plane so that the end result is each of the six sides all have the same color. It can take me hours so solve that puzzle. They had a Lego Mindstorm set up to rotate the levels, turn the cube, and again rotate the levels and this robot was actually completing and solving the Rubik’s cube. There was a young student there maybe 10 or 11 years old at the most who explained to me how this amazing device worked, at the time it was not working correctly – it was not moving the and rotating the cube correctly and so this young fellow was adjusting gears and levers and reassembling the Lego parts while he was telling me how the thing was able to move and rotate the levels of the Rubik’s Cube to solve the puzzle. He got it working by himself!!! He was not using any sort of book, manual, printed directions or asking the adults from UK’s Engineering college how to fix it – it fact I doubt that they could have fixed it. The Rubik’s Cube machine the young “geek” explained first “reads” where the colors are on each side of the cube, it then calculates what moves need to be done, this is done with a scanner that recognizes color, position and relationship of the cube. It then moves the rows, rotated the cube and moves more rows and after each series of moves it again scans and goes through more moves. It only takes a few minutes to correctly solve and complete the Rubik’s cube puzzle and stops. It looks like this:
Lego MINDSTORM solving Rubik’s Cube Puzzle
In the same area some high school age kids were setting up a robotics display – very complex – several wheeled robots preformed a number of tasks and several of the tasks involved pneumatic devices others involved electric motors – all of this build from the Lego Mindstorm system. Motors and gears and levers, compressed air (they inflate plastic balls) with tubes, valves, cylinders, levers – all run from “controllers” that are programmed to do each of the many tasks.
In another are there were kids setting up Lego Mindstorm robots for competition that was to occur later on as well as a “race” track to run some small model cars and some robot “wars” robots where the object is to overpower competing robots (these robots were mad of metal not the plastic Lego pieces. I did not get to watch any of this competition but did get to watch some of the set up and testing.
The point is there are small groups of students involved in the STLP program from elementary, middle and high schools from all over the state. These kids already are doing some really amazing things utilizing technology – all types of technology. These kids are “different” – they are the “geeks”, “nerds” and “techies” from the schools. They are probably the “outcasts” as viewed by the other students, they are not the sports stars, nor the extroverted “leaders” rather these are the very kids that will be leading technology advancements, they are skilled with computers, very complex computer programs, high levels of math, science, mathematics, physics, mechanics, media and more. These are the very kids that are much needed to continue to lead the United States with advances in science, technology, mechanics, computer and information systems, engineering and all of the other things that truly makes America great.
This event did not make the newspapers, was not featured on the national news and actually what these kids and the STLP program are doing is pretty much unknown to the general public. I am hoping that people become more aware of these programs, support and encourage this type of learning and let people know that these “geeky”, “techie”, “nerdy” kids are in fact the future of this country.
If you happen to know or have one of these kids, encourage them to get involved in this type of program. If this type of program is not available at your local schools become involved with getting the program established. If you happen to be with the media do something different from the “bad things” going on and do some features on very bright kids doing some amazing technical things while learning to interact with each other, help each other and become highly skilled in wide areas of advancement. These kids deserve to be able to tell the rest of us who they are and what they are learning and doing.
Here are some links and references:
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/StlpKentucky
Kentucky Dept of Education STLP site – http://education.ky.gov/districts/tech/stlp/pages/stlp—what-is-stlp.aspx
The Lego Mindstorm System – http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/default.aspx
Finally whether you have kids, grand-kids or not – make certain that you local schools have the resources and teachers to have this type of program. These kids need access to computers, laptops, video and digital cameras, tablets, the Lego Mindstorm system, good science and physics labs, technology and they also need both the time and the ability to become involved with programs like STLP.
Maybe, just maybe “that kid” who has become introverted, somewhat shy, and is more into staying in their room playing video games very well could become tomorrows innovator of advancements in science, technology, physics, mechanics, robotics, computers, multimedia and things we cannot yet even imagine if given the opportunity to have the “tools”, the interaction, and the incentive to become involved. These kids are really amazing – it is our responsibility as adults to make certain they get the chance to “shine” in their own way. It is not on a football field, or basketball court, nor are they going to be the “class president” or even associate with the “popular” kids. In my case I took some time out of a very busy schedule to talk with a ten year old about how his Lego Mindstorm machine was able to solve the Rubik’s Cube puzzle. I have gained more than this kid will ever know from the experience. I was able to watch a small group of kids moving through some very complex and difficult to learn video / audio / multimedia programs as they were “tweaking” their presentation. These kids are the future of America and quite probably the world. Support and encourage them in any way you can!!!
this is a test post
It has been a rough couple of days to say the least. Quick Books Pro would not work – it would not even open. I was getting error 3371 – could not load license data. Went to the Intuit site — Intuit and Quick Books Pro are not on my top ten favorite list — more like on my top dislike list.
The fix according to Intuit on line after looking up the error was to download something called Quick Books Repair Utility. Did that but it would not run it wanted Net 4.0 from Microsoft. So I downloaded and installed Net 4.0 and tried the QB Repair utility – it still would not work and would only send me to Microsoft the download Net 4.0.
Went to Microsoft’s support site to see what I needed to do to make Net 4.0 work. Microsoft is a really difficult place to find helpful information.
Finally after several trials with Microsoft Net 4.0 and several more trials with the QB Repair Utility and a number of computer reboots I called Intuit tech support to see if they could fix the problem.
Intuit of course wanted my user name, my account information, my software license key and my software version number. They looked it up and found I in fact had a registered version of Quick Books Pro and sent me to a tech support person. I had to give the tech support person all of the same information. My license key, my version number, my user name. Tech support said that Quick Books Pro 2006 is an out of date version and they do not support this version. That what I needed to do was purchase the latest version of Quick Books Pro – which is a close to $300 piece of software – however since I had an older version they would give me a special deal of $199.95.
I told the support person I was not interested in upgrading I just wanted to know what to do to get my old version working again. Again I was told they do not support older version but finally they did send me a link where I would be able to download a copy of the version I have.
Downloaded it and installed it and it had exactly the same error as I had. A reinstall did not help. So I went looking again on the Intuit site for help. Finally went to the Quick Books Pro forums and after several hours finally found a reference to the error I was getting. The Fix – same as before the Quick Books Repair utility. That is what I had already tried hours before and knew that it did not work. Back to the forum and I found a link to a “white paper” on how to fix that error. The white paper had several things to try. The first one – did not work. The second one – find a particular file – the one that contains my license key and delete it and then run Quick Books Pro. It actually worked the program came up and my pass word worked – it showed my license key and version number and needed a key.
So I had to call Intuit back again (at this point this was the third time I had called them) to get this key – put that in and Quick Books Pro is now working fine again.
End result? 6 hours yesterday attempting to get the repair utility to work and Net 4.0 — two hours today doing the same thing. Two hours reinstalling Quick Books Pro after an hour on the phone getting the link as to where to download it. Then several hours exploring forums and finally tonight I did get it working again.
Why is Quick Book Pro important? My customer lists, invoices, and other business information are there. QB is not my main invoicing system but is a critical one. Did I mention that Intuit is NOT one of my favorite place to get support from?? Did I mention that I do not nor have ever liked Quick Books Pro?? The problem is QB Pro is sort of the standard when it comes to small business accounting and I have been using it since 2006 so a lot of my critical records and information is locked into that program. You cannot see or get to anything unless Quick Books Pro is working. If I knew of an accounting program that could read Quick Books Pro files and or import them I would buy it – however I do not know of nor could I find anything that can do that.
So it has been an eventful two days. All I needed and want to do was look up a customers invoice, and send them a new invoice for some more work done for them This is something that normally takes about 10 minutes. In this case it took over 20 hours.
Tags: Inttuit, lack of tech support, QB Pro 2006, Quick Books Pro, tech support
I have a pair of matching LCD monitors that have been “ON” constantly for five years plus. About a month ago one of them basically quit – it would show power and but not link to the computer. A week ago the second one failed in the same way.
The first question I had is can you take a LCD monitor apart without causing serious damage? The answer is yes but you have to be very careful. There were short connecting wires and plugs that connect the LCD part to the power and signal boards. There is almost no room to get them unplugged. I was able to separate the two halves of the monitor – unconnected the wires and cables and open up the metal case that has the power and display board.
I knew that the most common thing to fail are the capacitors on the power board so I ordered all new capacitors (in this case Digi Key) total cost $19.46 plus $5.35 for shipping. (that was for both monitors) It used to be that Radio Shack had electrolytic capacitors – not any more. It used to be that de soldering parts from circuit boards was pretty easy – now with all the tiny surface mount components it had made this type of thing really difficult. I was able to remove all the old capacitors and put in the new ones.
I then carefully put the first monitor back together – turns out it is more difficult to put the cable connectors back than it was to disconnect them. Plugged it in and turned it on and IT ACTUALLY WORKED!!! So I took the second one apart – did the same thing – took out the old capacitors and put in news ones – put it back together and it also is working.
I was able to fix both monitors for $12 each – so these did not end up in a landfill – at least not yet. (you cannot just throw monitors in the trash – you have to pay a $10 recycling fee) – there are some very helpful You Tube videos – if you can solder you might just be able to f ix a non functioning LCD monitor.
Tags: capacitors, Digi Key, LCD monitor repair
Normally a computer crash or impending crash can be a major event. At best recovery is normally something that takes hours if not days. My main computer. The one with all my business records, customer lists, email lists, critical emails, photos, tax records……..yeah, “that one” has been working perfectly for the past five years. Turn it on in the morning – it boots and I begin to get the days work done. That computer is normally on all day every day 7 days a week, 14 hours or more every day. This week it did not boot up on the normal first try with power on, push the power switch and not much was happening, the hard drive would start and then quit which is not a good sign. I was having to power it up at first 3 or 4 times to get it to come on and boot. Once up and running the computer was running fine all day.
Not coming on with power up is fairly critical with computers and so as soon as I got it to work I backed up all of the data files successfully to an external hard drive. OK with that type of backup I am actually in a pretty good position in case the hard drive did in fact fail. If you have a hard drive failure and you have no backups the chances of losing your data can be very high. Sometimes the data can be recovered by copying files to another computer, or external hard drive or network server, sometime when a hard drive fails the only way to recover data is send the drive to a recovery facility.
Always at least in my experience a hard drive failure means attempting to recover the data and storing the data someplace else. Then one has to get a new hard drive, install the operating system, get all the drivers to make things work again and then reload all of the programs and finally put the backup data on. This process takes days and normally while you do get the computer to work again things up getting lost or not working. Things like browser bookmarks, emails, settings and a lot more end up taking a lot of time to fix.
I know there are ways to take an image of a hard drive and copy that image to a new drive however in my experience this very often does not work. It the computer will boot at all after attempting to use a cloned image normally thing just do not work or things are missing and you still end up reinstalling programs or fixing the settings.
I did a lot of research and was seeing some good reviews on several new backup programs. Finally decided to give Acronis True Image Home 2012 a try. The computer once booted was staying on and working all day. I had what I knew to be two good data backups so the old way of reinstalling the operating system and then all of the drivers and programs and data was possible.
Went up to Cincinnati to get a new hard drive to replace the one that was failing last evening. This morning I pulled the failing hard drive and installed the new one. Inserted the Acronis boot CD that I had made yesterday – connected the failing hard drive to my cables and power supply that allow a hard drive to run outside of a computer and connect via a USB port and turned on the computer.
Something to note – my computer at this point had a blank hard drive – a different brand and size than the original and I did nothing more than install the HD in the rack, connect the cables and connect the original failing hard drive to the computer via a USB port and force the computer to boot from a rescue CD done in the Acronis software menu the day before.
Even through I did have a full backup I decided to try the Acronis Cloning procedure. Cloning means everything from one hard drive is placed on a new hard drive. I have tried this sort of thing in the past and it has never worked for me before. After the computer ran for a couple of hours the Cloning software said it was finished – remove the boot CD and remove the source HD and reboot.
The amazingly good news is the computer did in fact boot, it had a couple of minor errors which were easy to fix and I rebooted it again. This time it came up fine. The really good news is the Clone worked, all of my programs are working, my email is all there, it knows how to connect to the network, run the printers, go to the internet, and it even has all of my browser bookmarks. In other words my computer with a brand new hard drive looks and works exactly like it did with the failing hard drive. I ended up being back up and everything working before lunch.
The old hard drive certainly did not have much time left before it failed. It was so hot after the clone to the new drive that one could barely touch it plus right at the last of the clone you could hear “that terrible sound” which means a hard drive is going to fail permanently.
All I can say is Acronis True Image Home 2012 did exactly what the manufacturer and the reviews said it would. I was able to back up a failing hard drive and verify the backup. More importantly this morning I was able to clone the failing HD to a new drive and everything not is working, everything is there. I have tried to do this a number of times in the past and never had any luck at all before.
I then of course did a full backup using Acronis on the newly installed HD so now I have two back ups – the one done before replacing the failing hard drive and the one on the newly installed and cloned hard drive. This was just a near hard drive failure with a new replacement hard drive installed. All of the “hardware” was the same. The only thing that was changed was the hard drive.
Acronis has an add on option that can take an image from a failed computer and put that image onto a different computer and make everything work (of course with different hardware one would need to either get or have the drivers) – the main point here is the operating system in this case Microsoft XP Professional actually booted and worked with cloning.
Had I had say a motherboard failure or something that would require using a different computer with the add-on option I would have been able to have everything from the failed computer up and running on a totally different computer. Acronis also works with laptops. Have a totally full laptop hard drive – this program can migrate everything to a new larger laptop drive. What a totally huge time saver.
Tags: Acronis, backup data, clone hard drive, hard drive failure, migrate an entire partition
A number of year ago I got a Mah Jongg set and had always intended to learn to play this “some day” – Along with the set I did get a book and actually tried to understand how to use the set. The book was pretty confusing to say the least. I did talk with a couple of people at a coffee shop once who said they would be glad to teach me how to play, but that never worked out while on similar paths we were traveling in different directions and I was never able to connect with these two.
So for years and several moves the Mah Jongg set went with me – I had seen this played in the orient a number of years ago and had even play a “street version” {sort of like Poker} sometimes. So far as going to the Mah Jongg halls I never had the opportunity. Anyway a couple of months back I saw a post on Facebook by a person I know and who is local so I actually see them in person quite often that they had just had some people over to learn and to play Mah Jongg. I asked if I could get invited the next time. Last Saturday night I got a long-standing wish granted. I went to their house – there were several other people there. The experienced players went over how thing work in a practice session and then there were enough people to have two Mah Jongg sets with 4 people per set.
While I am still a very long ways from learning how to play this very old game I was able to begin to understand some of the basics. I am hoping to be able to continue to learn and hopefully be able to get invited to where others are playing. I was able to learn some things that I will share.
Mah Jongg is played normally with four players, the game is played with 136 tiles, there are a number of ways or styles that this game is played, even the number of tiles has variances. I had thought this to be something that was played only in the orient at least that was the only part of the world I had ever seen Mah Jongg halls (sort of like coffee houses – in way except there are a number of tables each with four people and a Mahjong set) – the Mahjong halls or houses in the orient are closed in so far as they do not allow people to come in just to watch. I had seen people playing Mahjong in a few big city coffee shops here in the USA – the type where people are playing Chess, and Go and other “intellectual” type of games but Mah Jongg is not very common at least in my experience. Also sort of like the Chess players the Mahjong players were there to play and really did have an interest in teaching people how this game is played.
First of all the computer games of solitaire Mahjong have almost nothing to do with the four player game that uses real tiles. In the computer solitaire version all one does is match pairs and they are removed from the “pile”. The only similarity is the Mahjong tiles used in the computer game are marked the same as the ones in the “real” game.
The most interesting thing is that Mah Jongg (BTW either spelling is correct) has been played in the United States since the 1920s. There is a really interesting article here on Wikipedia – There are several different ways to play and it appears to be regional – here in the United States there are actually two organizations Mah Jongg – Worldwide Site and The National Mah Jongg League - As i write this the National Mah Jongg site is not working.
The people I met and got to learn some of the basics from are connected to the National Mah Jongg League – this organization has been around here in the USA since the 1920. The people who play the League’s way each have cards which has a number of way to win or complete a “hand” of Mahjong. The cards are the same and each player studies their cards attempting to find a “hand” from the list that they might be able to attempt to play out. Part of this game is skill for certain and part is the luck of the draw. The League produces a new game card every year and each year the ways to win are changed. The cards cost $7.00 and buying a card gives one a years membership to the league.
The League’s site has a number of things for sales – the playing card or guide for the year, Mah Jongg sets, and a lot more. There is also a software simulation ($40) that can be purchased and downloaded – while I have not had the time to really get into the software game play – there are 4 players, 3 are computer generated and yourself. This seems to be a really good way to learn and practice how to play.
The game on the League’s site is sort of outdated so far as computer games go, however they are working on an updated version. You cannot play this game on you computer by itself – you must be online and connected to their site to play. Getting it downloaded and working is not necessarily easy – it took me several tries to finally get it working and while I am not a computer “gamer” I am very familiar with online software and computer software.
For now I will attempt to learn from the league’s online game. Mostly because at least with the group that I met up with they use the Leagues rules and standards as well as their annual “game cards” – the online version on the leagues site uses these same “standards”.
The main thing I have learned is attempting to learn Mahjong from a book and having 4 totally inexperienced people attempting to follow the book is not the way to go. I had tried this approach several years ago with my set. The way to learn is to find people who are playing and join them live. The real plus is if one or two of the group take the time to teach new players. This is a complicated game, and being able to watch people play plus being able to work with people willing to teach how to play is a huge plus.
It looks like once one has learned the basics then working with the online simulation appears to be a good way to continue to learn. I have looked and am not finding any sort of directory or listing of people or places where one can go to learn or play Mah Jongg – it seems to be just word of mouth. There are no links that I can find anywhere that lead to instructors, groups, players, places to learn or places to play.
The thing to know is that there are different ways to play and differences in the various Mahjong organizations. Learning the play here in the US the Leagues way may not be helpful if you happen to end up in the orient at a Mah Jongg hall or house.
In my case I am just grateful to have had the opportunity to finally see how this is played and to have been invited to sit in on a beginners session. Finally after years of owning a Mah Jongg set I have begun to start to understand how this very old game is played.
Tags: Mah Jongg, Mah Jongg Word Wide, Mahjong, National Mah Jongg League
I apparently am having one of the “computer days” – It began last night, one of my main computers could not get to my email and had to “re index” the Thunderbird inbox. This happens from time to time and is usually “automatic” however last night it was taking an extremely long time. I checked and found the hard drive was almost full, so I moved a number of large files to my network drive. Got that problem solved – got caught up with my email – turned off the computers and went to bed.
This morning my second main computer would not boot up, I finally got it going and found my internet security software was failing and not allowing Window to boot. After doing the normal security system “fixes” none worked. So now I am in the process of removing the security system totally and re installing it. That is not a big deal – what takes time is re downloading all of the updates and then running a full system scan.
Pretty interesting day when both of my main computers decide to give me difficulties with the same 24 hour period.
I have learned far more than I though I needed to know about DSL and other High Speed Internet (Broadband) options for people in rural areas.
My DSL internet connection has been going through periods of the DSL internet dropping out several times an hour and sometimes several times a minute. The DSL light would begin to flash and then the internet light on my DSL modem would go Red which means that the internet is not available. Phone calls to AT&T mean getting through their voice mail system and then waiting to talk with a technician. I have had the phone line people come out 3 times so far this month and the DSL technicians also have been out 3 times this month.
DSL only travels a certain distance from where ever the exchange is. DSL 6M has the shortest travel distance around 1 1/2 miles from the exchange – 3M DSL travels farther and 1.5M DSL the furthest. I do not know the distances but what I have been able to learn is that I am about as far from the exchange as is possible to receive a stable 6M DSL signal.
In the process of my phone line going totally dead and my DSL on that phone line being totally unstable I have learned about something new – at least new to me. The major cellular companies offer something called MIFI or Mobile Hotspot or it also can be called Mobile Broadband. Here is what I have learned – AT&T offers this service – you have to sign a two-year contract for $50 a month for 5G of data. I already knew I had a very good AT&T 3G connection at my house so I first went to AT&T. They are easy enough to deal with they just add a $50 a month data plan to your AT&T mobile account and you get 5G of data – if you go over 5G in a month they charge $10 for each additional 1G. They charge around $120 for the device which you pay upfront. There is a $50 mail in rebate and they said I could return it within 30 days but there would be a restocking fee. I was fairly desperate – I really needed to get online work done and orders on line processed so I added the $50 a month to my data plan, signed a two-year contract and paid for the device.
I brought the package home. Enclosed is a very small electronic box which is about the same size as a smart phone. Turned it on (it runs on an internal rechargeable battery) and within minutes my MAC Pro and one laptop was connected to the internet. These devices put out a WiFi signal which any laptop with WiFi and deal with-just go to your WiFi panel find the device and enter a security code. I caught up with some much-needed on-line work (I am an online marketer that had been without a working phone line or DSL for 3 days) The MIFI box can connect up to five computers or devices at the same time. If your computer or device has WiFi you can make this work. With the AT&T box if you are using a desktop that does not have WiFi you can plug the device to your computer with the USB cable that is included. In this configuration the AT&T device will only run the computer it is directly connected to so when directly connected you can run only the computer you are connected to.
I was able to run several speed tests – the AT&T devices was getting 1.7M to 2.1M on AT&T 3G. This is somewhat faster than I get with my iPhone from the same location. The box will run AT&T 4G LTE but I was not able to test this – 4G LTE is not available at all anywhere near where I live. AT&T is saying “LTE will be available any day now”.
Does this thing work? Yes it actually does, I had a total of four computers connected to it and the speed was certainly usable.
How much is 5G of data? That is really a very key question, for every 1G you go over 5G in a month there is an additional $10 charge. I had one computer playing an hour-long video webinar, another one streaming an internet radio audio channel, and was using the other two for “normal for me” online work, this includes web surfing, uploading images, website development, invoicing, printing shipping labels and so on.) The AT&T device has a meter that show how much of the 5G is available. During the 24 hours of having the AT&T device and using it fairly heavily for 12 f those hours the meter was showing 4.5G remaining. So I used 0.50 G. So in a fairly normal 6 day work week I would be using somewhere around 3G or somewhere around 14G in a month which means I would have to pay an additional $90 a month were I using this full-time in my normal work environment.
I got to thinking about the coverage I get with my iPhone and took the device and a laptop to an area where AT&T 3G is not available – that is pretty easy to do – all I have to do is go down the hill to where my driveway connects with the road. Edge is 0.4M to 0.6M which is totally unacceptable, this is just a little bit faster than dial-up. I then was reminded that a number of places where I go to several times a year my iPhone either will find no service or I get only Edge or I am roaming and have phone but no data service at all.
OK the AT&T box works, it got me out of jam, AT&T 3G is giving me somewhat less than 2G speed – it will in fact run at least 4 computers at the same time fairly well. I decided to run back into town and talk with Verizon – knowing that Verizon has better coverage in the areas I have to travel to several times a year. Verizon has MIFI the deal is about the same as AT&T – $100 for the box – $50 a month for 5G of data- $50 rebate – Verizon does have a 10G plan for $80 a month plus they have some no contract option – you pay around $300 for the box and $30 for 300M – that might work for a home user that is not doing much with their computer it certainly would not work for me.
The thing to know with these boxes is you must know if they will work where you are going to be using your computer and the only real way to know that is to get the device and take it to where you will be using it and give it try. So I signed up for a Verizon MIFI box and took it home. While the plans are similar Verizon has a huge plus – they let you try it for 14 days, if you do not like it or it does work for you you can bring it back and there is no restocking fee.
I had no idea if the Verizon box would work at my house or not. Turned it on and it connected to Verizon 3G – here is something to know Verizon 3G is sort of like AT&T Edge – I was getting 0.4M to 0.5M – Verizon 3Gs numbers were very close to AT&T Edge, not much better than dial-up. I did find that by changing where the Verizon box was located I was able to get Verizon 4G LTE and was getting 4-6M in both download AND UPLOAD – Verizon 4G LTE is nearly twice as fast as AT&T 3G. I took my laptop closer to town and began seeing 8-10M speeds on 4G LTE. Now that is really fast – cable internet runs at speeds like that.
Two downsides with the Verizon MIFI box, first it does not have a usage meter – the only way you can tell how much data you have used is to go online to the Verizon Website in into you account. Verizon emails you when you usage is at one half (2.5G) and again when at 3/4 used. The other down side is the Verizon box will not connect to your computer when using the enclosed USB cable – all that cable does is recharge the device from a USB port and allows access to the settings inside the box. To connect to the Verizon box you computer must have WiFi. Verizon does have a tiny device for around $20 that goes into a USB port and gives a desktop WiFi – both boxes run N wireless and so does the little USB wireless device that Verizon has. So yon can connect a desktop to the Verizon box. Like the AT&T box the Verizon box will run five computers.
Verizon has a lot more places available for their 4GLTE than AT&T does and cover a lot more of the country. I took the AT&T box back – less than 30 hours after I got it, they did cancel my contract and they did charge me a $36 restocking fee and are funding the rest.
Something to know is if you are considering an iPad the data charge is $25 or $30 for 2G of data and iPads that are come with the cellular radio cost a lot more than iPads that just have WiFi. With one of the MIFI boxes you can use your iPad and get 5G of data for $50 a month or you can travel with both you laptop and you iPad and use the MIFI boxes to run them both.
The really important thing to know is these things work. If you live in an area where DSL is not available (of course those of us in the country will probably never get cable TV so the cable option is simply not available) you might want to try out MIFI. I do suggest you try Verizon first – they have a better return policy than AT&T and they have a lot more 4G LTE coverage than AT&T has. If it works where you live this little device could give people high-speed internet service where it has not been available before. I did not try Sprint – I am certain they too have a MIFI option. I know that where I live Sprint phones show that they are on digital roam which I would guess they are roaming on Verizon.
This is an interesting option and it will depend on if you have cellular service or not and what level of data service you have. I have used “Air Cards” in the past with laptops, the price is about the same as MIFI but they only will run the computer that they are connected to and by what I was seeing the MIFI cards work better than Air Cards. I always had some major speed problems with Air Cards if I was any distance at all from the cell tower, often they would not work inside the house – just outside.
So for those of you still on dial-up in rural areas the MIFI box is certainly something to try. Also if you happen to have to stay in hotels that charge $12 to $15 for 24 hours of high-speed internet service the MIFI could be a very interesting option. Something to note is that is you do travel and you use WiFi on public WiFi spots – you know, the airport, the coffee shops, the bookstores, hotels and motels with these MIFI cards you are on your own secure cellular connection – you do not have to worry about the near by hacker getting into your laptop or mobile device. Public WiFi is often the only solution for a lot of people. These devices offer another option which is more secure and probably faster.
Tags: at&t, broadand internet, high speed internet, iPad, MIFI, Verizon, WiFi
A few day ago I called Central Payment to inform them that I was closing my store and no longer needed the Merchant Credit processing. I was told to fax in a notice to them that I wanted to cancel. A day later I got a call from one of their representatives who told me that there would be a $300 cancellation fee and that fee would be automatically taken out of my bank account. The representative said that if I got my landlord to submit a letter to them that I was closing they would refund $150 – making the cancellation fee come to a total of $150.00 – I had been a customer for 5 years and had not problems with this company - this cancellation fee made no sense to me and certainly seemed to be a total rip off. What I got back was an email from the representative – restating what had been said on the phone:
Dear Ronald Headly,
Per our conversation. In order to reduce your early termination fee of $300.00 to $150.00, we need a signed letter from your landlord stating that the business is closed. Once information is verified, we will be able to reduce your fee.
Best Regards,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Merchant Relations
1-800-449-8012 ext. xxxx
Needless to say I was “not a happy camper” in fact I was furious – some of you may have seen the original post, and tweet – it just did not make any sense to me that I was going to get hit with a cancellation fee with a company I had done business with for 5 years and that I would have to get my landlord involved by writing them a letter that in fact my business was closed just to reduce the fee by half.
I am HAPPY TO REPORT that everything changed today!!! I got an email from Nery Espinal – Merchant Relations – Central Payment asking me to call. I phoned him —– He apologized and offered to remove the cancellation fee TOTALLY – THANKS SO MUCH NERY ESPINAL.
I can once again recommend Central Payment as a Merchant Credit Solution for in-house credit processing as I have in the past – there was a problem and Mr. Espinal made it right. Here is the email he just sent me; plus he spelled my last name correctly-that is good customer support and paying attention to details:
Mr. Headley,
It was a pleasure speaking with you this morning. I appreciate your remarks and am glad we were able to correct any misunderstandings. As per our conversation your account has been closed with no cancellation fee. You will only be responsible for the monthly processing fees for the month of October 2011.
If you don’t mind, please email me when you have addressed the postings online so that I may update my executives. Feel free to keep my information in your records should you find the need to accept credit cards again in the future.
Best regards,
Nery Espinal
Merchant Relations
Central Payment
Phone: (800) 449-8012 Ext 7369
Fax: (866) 618-8284
Email: nespinal@cpay.com
The entire post has been updated with the original link in tact so anyone clicking on the link will see this update rather than the original post – so far as I am concerned I am happy to report I have had a change of mind and the Mr. Espinal has made that possible today.
Tags: Appology, Central Payment, rip odd
