From Barbara:
“Christmas shopping in downtown Boston on a Sunday late afternoon / early evening is not as much fun as one might think. By 6pm, it gets dark and cold and Downtown Crossing gets empty. And kinda scary. Thanks goodness for understanding husbands who come out in the December chill to pick you up when you opt to take an earlier train home.”
Lesson learned from Gale:
“From an IBM article I just read…
If your blog or website uses WordPress, grabbing a backup file of all your posts, pages and comments is easy.
In the WordPress dashboard, just go to Tools, Export and choose what types of posts you want to export.
If you want a backup of your entire WordPress database, the excellent WP-DB-Backup plugin can make scheduled database backups for your WordPress site at intervals you choose and even e-mail you the backup”
Now I just have to do it!
Today I learned how to password-protect my wireless router, about 10 years late but what the heck?
Kat and I followed the instructions on HowToDoThings.com, which were much more accurate and complete than the ones from the router manufacturer!
I also learned how fun it is to do techie things with Kat, who got her new laptop running just minutes ago (and wanted to connect to a secure network).
Today I learned that when you are meeting someone in a new place, make sure you have their phone number!
Mary lives on a large circle. There are only houses on the outside of the circle. She lives at #10 in a blue house, she told me . My GPS took me to #11 and apparently said “close enough!’. No, there is no blue house nearby. But I had no phone number for Mary!
Upon closer inspection, the houses are numbered (I kid you not): …7,9,11,13,15, I drove more and then found the even numbers, farther along the circle! Whose great idea was THIS?
So I found #10 and it was blue and I found Mary, but along the way I learned to add the phone number to the contacts and directions, in new place!
Kat taught me that “totes” means totally.
An initial google found a Kardashian reference. I can’t find that now, but I did find that it came from the movie “I Love You, Man” and that the extreme form is:
Totes Magotes!
This is the second time (and please the last time!) that I have learned this: Find out if the line for the bus home is yours or the next one!
This was the second time (ditto) that I assumed that the line forming and waiting was for my bus, only to find out, way too late, that my bus was loading on the platform all that time, and then it left! This time it meant waiting 45 minutes more because I missed a bus for which I was plenty early.
So ASK (there is that ask again!) the people in line which bus they are queuing for!
I have learned that it’s not just the power cords that need to stay with the devices. It’s the little things, too.
The sandbag-based thing to hold the GPS is worthless without the little plastic clip that holds the two things together. They need to all be in the same car.
Today I learned that it can be really bad to leave the vacuum cleaner parked in one place while you use the hose and attachments.
Some vacuums have a separate switch that lets you turn those carpet beater things on and off. This is handy. Mine is not in that price and function range.
While I was using the attachments to clean under my desk (a noble pursuit), the rug beaters were beating the crap out of the pretty fringe on my expensive wool rug!
Park it somewhere safe! Somewhere flat and uncarpeted!
After WAY too long trying to deposit a check using Digital Credit Union’s scan function, I learned a few tricks that led to success.
1. Set scanner to 300 DPI
2. If the program can’t detect the edges of the check, mark then and put a colored paper behind the check to scan. (Who thought of this second part? Sal? Kat?)
3. The biggie: do NOT use Chrome! Firefox works fine, Chrome just does not.
I learned that when you host a Doodle, the notifications of replies can easily go to the Spam folder, so it’s important to check there.
Jane's Lessons Learned 