Norton Backup Discoveries 

 I recently had a rude awakening when I opted to reinstall Windows on my aging desktop PC. I, of course, backed up (what I thought was all the data) using Norton 360 (I was strong-armed into purchasing by my Internet provider, Xfinity). Unfortunately I used the default settings for my backup since Norton indicated all my folders and files would be backed up. So I reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled Windows 10 and then I restored my files from my external hard drive using Norton 360. So far so good. 

When I went to check on the websites I have created however, I found out that the default settings for “files and folders” did not include my CSS (cascading style sheet files). This was a total disaster. My HTML index files were backed up and restored but none of my critical style sheets were there. I was astounded. I couldn’t believe it. I learned a very painful lesson. If you don’t want to lose something, you had better save it several times in different places with different formats. 

 I had no idea Norton would discount the importance of CSS files and ignore them. I have since added “.css” as one of the extensions I want Norton to backup but it will take months to recreate the missing CSS files. I have already deleted about 30% of my websites because it could take years to figure out what the style sheets should include. 

 I was able to resurrect the sites I have previously published on the web since they are stored on my web hosting service and I just downloaded them back onto my PC. But the feeling I have about this mistake is like betrayal and I have no plans to renew my Norton subscription. Along the way I learned another valuable lesson. You should unplug your external hard drive after making your backup avoiding any possibility of a hacker attacking your backup as well as your PC.

Quick Fix for font size problems

I have noticed recently that my vision is not what it used to be and even with powerful reading glasses I was having problems reading many of the warnings the computer was attempting to tell me. In my struggle to correct this (old age) problem I discover Cortana the Windows equivalent of “Hey Google.” When I asked how to increase the font size on my computer she provided this quick solution and I thought some of you might like to know what I discovered. If you also are having the same problem, you don’t have to throw out the computer or give up computing all together although I did consider both. The fix is simple and I am in awe if you knew this already. First, right click on the screen and you should see this dialog box.

Click on the next to last option “Display Settings.” Another tip accessed from this box is the “View.” If you select this option you can change the size of your desktop icons. After selecting Display Settings a new dialog box will open.

Click on the “Scale and layout” option which will open four options. I changed my scale from 100% to 125% and voila all the text popped up in size.

Dr. Fauci finally loses his patience, HUMILIATES Rand Paul at hearing

TV Viewing for What it's Worth

In January 2018, I decided to end my more than 25-year subscription to Comcast’s Xfinity cable TV. My wired phone and internet service are still intact. The main reason for dumping cable TV was Comcast's billing. While the bill was supposed to be $140 a month for the triple play option, it actually oscillated between $160 and $180 per month. After years of this kind of billing, I decided to explore my options for TV viewing.

Instead of Xfinity/Comcast, I chose Hulu Live TV and Netflix which was $49 and $15 respectively. The total was less than what I was paying for cable TV. Now 10 months after the switch I realize that I do not like television commercials. Between Hulu, which I watch for news and sports programs, and Netflix, which doesn’t have commercials, I find Netflix gets more of my viewing time and enjoyment. I now notice the commercials when watching CNN or sports programs. My observation is television commercials are mostly unintelligible nonsense. I realize I used to get snacks when they came on in years past and gained a lot of extra pounds I didn’t want or need.

I find Netflix to be most entertaining now and more interesting uninterrupted with commercials. I add two kinds of programs to my watch list, movies and TV programs broken into episodes and seasons. I watch a new movie every evening and have seen some really good films I would not otherwise have seen. Netflix has many documentaries and also award-winning films produced by Netflix. Movies I have discovered are too many to recount and I have witnessed a few bad ones too. I frequently add new ones to my watch list so I don’t have to spend time searching when I am ready to watch. The TV series programs have been surprisingly good. I am currently watching Person of Interest and many others have been better than I thought they would be.

For my money, I recommend Netflix and whatever streaming program you like to substitute for Xfinity and their abusive billing practices.

I hate complaining

I hate complaining about as much as I hate hearing complaints. I am wading through a fair amount of negative stuff and just need a vehicle to cast off some ballast. July should be a time of relaxing, swimming, BBQs, sleeping in, vacations, and just taking time off.

This has been my usual practice anyway. School is out and the traffic a little lighter so driving up and down the freeway is less stressful.  This July has gone against the grain. One of the reasons I like July, in addition to it being right after Father's Day in June, is it is my birthday month.

As you have guessed by now, it has not gone according to previous years. 

It has been hot temperature wise in northern California this year, after a wet winter and my allergies have been debilitating.  I have had a couple of days I could not stop sneezing and blowing my nose. I took lots of decongestant with no relief.

My auto registration renews in August and this cycle, I had to get a smog inspection. This minor inconvenience turned into a major expense. I took my car to the station that inspected it a couple of years ago and was informed they could not do it because of equipment repair that would take 6 to 8 weeks to complete. That surprised me a bit but I just found another service establishment to do it.

Everything was going swimmingly. After a short 15 minutes, I received a new smog certificate and a bill for $54.00 with a comment that looked like someone had not tightened the coolant reservoir cap sufficiently. I did not think too much of the warning and drove my car on the 4-minute drive home.

After parking the car, I noticed the fan continued to run after shutting the car off. It was a hot day and I know they have to run the car while doing the inspection, so I did not think anything was amiss. I was wrong. I did not drive the car for a couple of days but the next time I did I went on a very short drive and the fan continued to run after shutting the car off. This is something that had never happened before getting the smog inspection. I began to think about the warning I received at the auto service center and wondered if I had been "had." It would not be the first time I experienced a failure after getting something minor fixed.

I called my Volvo dealer and explained my car was overheating and he told me to bring it in. After inspecting the car and burning his hand on the coolant reservoir cap when he tried to remove it; he sent me home with a loaner car and said he would call with his diagnosis. He called and said he had to replace the radiator, the coolant reservoir, and cap because I had a radiator leak. This was on a Monday and they were extremely busy. When he called to tell me how much it was going to cost, what I thought I heard him say was it would be $477.00. When he called after doing the work, he said the bill was $984.00. This was more than I was expecting.

I visited the emergency room at Kaiser on May 29th and had a few tests done because I was having lower abdominal pain after having a colonoscopy at the VA a week before. I figured I would get a bill for $400.00 or $500.00. When the bill finally arrived and it came in chunks, it was more than $8,000.00. So my budget is hemorrhaging.

Musings on our new president

Avoiding talk about politics or religion is great advice and I've followed it in writing my blog to this point. However, our record-breaking new president provides so much to write about, I just couldn't keep silent.

Donald Trump's antics remind me of two children's fables." The Emperor's New Clothes" by Hans Christian Anderson, and "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" by Aesop. If you're unfamiliar with these stories, the first is about two weavers who convince the emperor they have created an invisible suit for him that can't be seen by stupid, incompetent people and the second is about a Sheppard boy who cries out for the people of a village to help him protect his flock. The villagers tire of the boy's game and do not respond when a wolf actually arrives.

Making America Great Again

Our president finds himself in a precarious position after 110 days in office because he has a very casual relationship with the truth. In his world, it is totally acceptable to stretch the truth or even outright lie in his expression of how great he is and how well he has done. His focus on winning and being successful to the point of being unable to accept failure and loss is complete. His description of the crowd size at his inauguration is a fabulous example of seeing things that don't exist and he was livid when the Park service provided comparisons to previous inaugurations. His explanation for not winning the majority of votes is the number he lost to his opponent were cast by illegal voters.  Few people believe this, but he will not move on to other things. He maintains the reason some people see his foibles is the democrats are sore losers. It appears to me, he is a sore winner.

Conflicts of Interest

Maintaining an untrue position, over time, results in people losing faith and belief in their leaders. President Trump maintains the liberal media is fake and is out to get him. His memory is very short as the institutions he declared to be "the enemy," the intelligence community, the media, the democrats are no longer likely to be friendly, but that is his own fault. Trump ignores rules governing conflict of interest acting as though he is above the law.

Cover Up and Avoidance

His insistence in obscuring reasons for his strategy and beliefs is unfathomable. He denies his campaign or advisors have had any contact with the Russians, but we find out his closest advisors have. Instead of being an open book, he spins lies he has to amend, retell, and amend again. The boy telling the villagers story after story until they don't believe a word he says. 

Lessons in Social Media Belly Flops

Is it just me?

Are you having as much trouble as I am getting the wonderful world of Social Media to work for you? Doing my best to learn every new app for buying, selling, and socializing, I have encountered many obstacles that suggest these businesses are going to fail.

Reddit

The first problem I encountered was with Reddit, as long as you do not count all the times I've had to change passwords because I can't keep track of all of them. Forgetful me, if I don't use an app for several months, I find it difficult to remember what the username and password combination is and inevitably have to ask for a new password or register for a new account. I read an interesting article about using Reddit to post content that would be interesting to likeminded individuals so I posted a link to a marketing blog I wrote. Everything in my blog is original; I wrote it and did not plagiarize anything. Reddit decided I didn't have enough "credit" to post a website URL. You can post URLs, but only after enough peers think you are worthy of that privilege. I thought this had to be a mistake so I asked for a human to read the post and confirm that it didn't qualify under Reddit's rules. Sure enough, a real person got back to me and said it didn't so I deleted the post and have not been back to Reddit since. https://www.reddit.com

Fiverr

Fiverr is a great place for freelancers to get business and for buyers who want to pay a very low price. It gets its name from the fact that everybody offers a minimum service for $5.00. That was probably a great idea in the beginning and a way to attract customers who wanted to purchase a low-cost service. It flies in the face of a minimum wage, however. I suppose some folks offer services for $5.00 that take less than an hour but everyone offers a service for $5.00.

I found an editor for the books I have published and she (like many other editors, artists, programmers, etc.) offers to proofread 1500 words for $5.00. I tried this myself and offered to create a blog site for $5.00. The way you enter what service you will perform, also includes two more levels, a medium and premium level and I embellished how much website you would get for more money in each level. The premium offer included a domain name and web hosting. I submitted the form and waited for Fiverr to approve it. I received an email message from Fiverr letting me know that I had violated some rule  buried in the terms of service and after wasting 45 minutes filling out their form, just deleted my offer. I noticed that many other people were offering the same thing the same way but I didn't challenge them any further.  https://www.fiverr.com

Upwork

Upwork is another good online site for freelancers and gets a ton of business from people who want to pay slave wages. It is geared more toward freelancers who bid on jobs buyers post and I actually got a job to write a 1000 word article for $25.00. It took more than four hours to write and my hourly rate is $25.00 but overlooking that, I thought it could lead to follow-on business. I also produced the article five days sooner than the buyer needed it. The problem with Upwork is both buyer and seller rate the experience and while my buyer expressed that she was highly satisfied, she rated me at 95%, not 100% and on Upwork that is the end of the line. She probably waited to see how I rated her before she rated me. I rated her 95% because she was in Spain and I'm in California so time zones interfered with prompt communication. As I said, I completed the work the day after I got the job but she did not respond for 5 days and I remarked that communication was a slight problem.

I bid on several more jobs and noticed the buyers specified they would only work with people who were fluent in the English language and who had a rating of 100%. Upwork has a significant number of tests it offers freelancers to prove their worthiness which can improve one's rating. I took a couple of tests on the English language and WordPress but did not max the tests and found Upwork scored me low enough they didn't think I would want them to publish the results, and they were right. I have noticed since there are many videos on YouTube showing how to cheat and get all the answers correct. I have to say, the tests are skewed in a way that does not make them a good gauge for how well a freelancer will do the work. I found it interesting that most buyers on Upwork, which is a worldwide app, want to pay third world country prices but do not want third world country English language skills. https://www.upwork.com

Facebook

After several years monitoring my websites and reading many articles, I decided to give advertising a try on Facebook. I have to admit, Facebook makes it easy to boost a post or page for as little as $1.00. Once my books were published on Amazon, I tried promoting them on Facebook spending  $44.76 on 6 ads with a reach of 11,000 and zero sales. So I began digging in to find out how to make Facebook advertising more successful. One of the ads I tried was a lead generation ad that generated no leads so I built a Weight Loss web page, wrote an eBook on Weight Loss, and created a list on Mail Chimp to collect my leads. I also added Pixel code to my website that allows analytics to be sent to Facebook. I tried to advertise the Weight Loss ad three times but was disapproved by Facebook because they said I was violating their ad policy.

I read the ad policy three times and could not find a specific reason or rule I had violated so I submitted a request for help. I was contacted by email on a Friday afternoon and told my support person would find out why my ad was not approved. In the meantime, I received another message from Facebook that looked to me like everything was alright and encouraged me to complete my ad submission so I did. It was disapproved 15 minutes later. So while I stewed waiting to get to the bottom of the problem, I searched through YouTube for information on Facebook advertising and found a helpful lesson that suggested if you selected countries like Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nepal, and India you could spend as little as $1.00 and get tons of responses. I followed the advice and promoted three aspects of my Facebook business page getting over 7,500 responses in just a few hours. Then the proverbial stuff hit the fan. I received an email from Facebook billing me for the portion of the $1.00 on all three ads that had abruptly been halted. The following day was Monday when I received an email that explained the reason my ad kept getting rejected.

On my Weight Loss web page the headline read "Want to Lose Fat and Keep it Off?" and the powers that be at Facebook deemed this to be offensive to people so I changed the headline to "Lose Weight and Keep it Off". Now I know why some people get upset about political correctness. Even so, I think this is taken to extreme in this case. I could easier understand if Facebook just didn't want any ads for weight loss but my ad does not say you are fat. It used to say Want to Lose Fat and Keep it Off. I am not making a statement about obesity, I just wanted to share what I have learned about losing weight and keeping it off, something I think a lot of people have trouble with. I was also trying to build an email list but Facebook did not say you can't do that. They said you can't say fat or weight loss plan. Specifically, the email said:

Your ad was rejected because it doesn't follow the language policy of our ad guidelines. Please make sure the language in your ad's image or video, body text and title are all compliant. For instance, don't:
- Use language that is insulting, harassing or threatening to people
- Use profane, vulgar, or threatening language
- Use any word that mentions or targets someone’s personal characteristics (ex: age, gender, race)
- Single out individuals or degrade the viewer of the ad (ex: “Are you fat?”, “Suffering from acne?” “Looking for a weight-loss solution?”)

Facebook locked me out of advertising. Their form for support on advertising requires I provide my account ID but the field is locked in the "No Advertising Account" state and can't be changed, by me. I thought I would give Fiverr a try and submitted a request to get my advertising account reinstated for $5.00, but that request was not approved by Fiverr.  https://facebook.com