Thursday, January 20, 2011

Day 401

The colder the weather, the geekier I become. Anything to stay inside where it's warm, I guess. Today I looked for lost e-mail. Now that I've got half a dozen devices that can access the Internet, something as simple as checking my e-mail is turning into a real mess. I still use an old fashioned POP mail server and I'm beginning to realize why a lot of people are saying that the newer IMAP protocol is a much more practical solution for the way we live today. Every time I check my mail, it is downloaded to a different device and by the end of the day my messages are as hard to find as the reading glasses I'm constantly losing. Is the message I'm looking for on the iPhone, the iPad, the new computer, or the old computer? Who knows. It sure isn't on the server any more, since the messages are erased as soon as they are downloaded. Maybe I need to ask my ISP if I can switch over to IMAP mail.

Did I mention it was cold today? I put the dogs warmest coats on for their walks, but they still didn't want to go outside. The problem wasn't really the temperature, it was the wind. When you combine freezing temperatures with a thirty mile an hour wind, even your warmest clothes start to feel like an old T-shirt. When I went up to sweep last night's rain off the roof, I discovered I was too late. The standing water had already turned to ice. It will make a nice little ice rink for the possums and squirrels who wander around on the roof at night.

I have my first new business meeting of the year tomorrow. I really need to have a new business meeting every single week this year. Things are so expensive now that I'm really starting to feel poor. My health insurance premiums have gone up over 20% seemingly overnight. Gas is back up over three dollars a gallon. Worst of all, my new Snow Leopard operating system is forcing me to buy my business software all over again. None of my existing software seems to run on Snow Leopard. It's almost as bad as converting a record collection from vinyl to CD and then realizing you still have to turn the whole mess into MP3 files.

I think the dogs have the right idea. While I fret about technology, they just curl up under warm blankets and sleep until it's time to eat again.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day