I needed to do a search for Eagle Creek products in Norway today. I knew there was a store in Oslo that carried probably the whole line, but I’d forgotten the name. So I needed a quick way to find that website. You can go to a country specific search engine, and ask for websites only in that language. But let’s say I needed to find Eagle Creek products in Denmark? I don’t know any country specific search engines in Denmark. However, there’s one thing you can do right in Google, that should get you what you want:

“eagle creek” site:.no

Or, for Denmark:

“eagle creek” site:.dk

Simple, eh?

Update: Even simpler is to use the country specific versions of Google, and then ticking the box for results only from that country.

For oss kristne er bibellesning viktig. Det er en av måtene vi holder vår tro levende.

Men mange har problemer med motivasjonene. I alt stresset i vår moderne hverdag, blir det lite bibellesning. En av årsakene kan være at man går trøtt. En form for utbrenthet.

Noe av det som anbefales når det gjelder utbrenthet, er å gjøre noe annet. Få andre impulser.

Om du er en av de som synes det er vanskelig å lese i Bibelen, prøv med noe annet. Og da mener jeg ikke noe annet enn Bibelen.

Men Bibelen er oversatt til mange språk, og den finnes i mange versjoner.

Prøv en lydbibel - på norsk eller engelsk. Prøv å lese i studiebibelen, og sjekk grunnteksten og hva som står skrevet om bakgrunnen for bøkene i Bibelen. Jeg hadde stor glede av en tegneserieversjon da jeg var tenåring. Og prøv en Bibel på et annet språk.

For min del har jeg fått øynene opp for en engelsk versjon: NIV. Den har et enkelt, godt og lettfattelig språk. Mens jeg studerte engelsk (en del klassisk litteratur, inkludert Shakespeare), likte jeg å lese King James Version (KJV). Den ble utgitt i 1611, og har et veldig gammeldags språk. Noen ord har endret betydning siden den gang, og det kan være en kamp å forstå enkelte vers. Men språket virker for oss i dag som vakkert og nesten poetisk.

Om du ønsker å sjekke disse og andre versjoner av engelske bibler, kan du finne de fleste på nettet, før du bruker penger på å kjøpe en (jeg fant en NIV versjon til 89 kroner, men de fleste er dyrere og har tynnere papir).

NIV - lydbibel, lese bøkene - og det finnes også vers- og ordoppslag

I’m on MySpace from today. Trying to figure it out, so don’t expect anything fancy:
http://blog.myspace.com/annelisabethsongs

Frankly, I wasn’t that concerned with getting a video camera on my cell phone. The still camera was very important to me, but not the video camera. I’ve since realized how useful it is. I’ll tell you why:

My DVD-player was starting to act up, and finally the time came when it refused to read a DVD for the first time. It was time to take it back to the store under warranty. So, what to do. I figured I’d save the store some work, and document it myself. It would sometimes read a DVD, and sometimes not. I simply filmed the whole process from putting in the DVD, until it threw up a “no disc” message. The first time I did it, the player actually recognized the DVD, but some other things were funky. So I deleted the take and tried again, this time starting with the funky bits, then ejecting and re-inserting the DVD. And this time it didn’t recognize the same DVD.

When I got to the store, I showed the video (not very sharp, but sharp enough to see what was going on) to the clerk, and he asked me some pesky questions to see if it was user errors or not. My answers convinced him, and he sent it for repair or replacement.

But the point is, because I documented the error, he didn’t have to hook it up and turn it on, then try to mount a DVD. It saved him a lot of work, while giving me the assurance that he saw what I saw - who knows, if the player cooperated in the store and he was really annoying, he might say there’s nothing wrong with it? I’m guessing some documentation might help people with more timid personalities, because there’s no room for enterpretation if it’s an on again off again fault with a product?

I’ve used the still camera to document other malfunctions before with good results. But for this particular problem, a video camera was the only thing that would really prove it.

I was talking to a chiropractor a while ago. She’d said that it was important to get up and walk or do excercises regularly if you sit in front of the computer for hours. The ideal is to get up and walk around a bit every 20 minutes (and maybe do excercises like neck rolls etc). If you don’t remember to do that, at least go for a 15 minute serious walk one or two times per day.

I made a crack comment about gamers. I’ve got friends who are gamers, and I know they sit for hours on end without getting up. And some do allnighters, especially if their league is in another time zone.

She said parents came to her, with or without their children, distraught about their kids’ health. Serious gamers, and with back problems at a young age.

So I made another crack - with kids, walking around isn’t going to cut it. It’s too dull. How about another game? Buy a dance mat? (Originally developed for Playstation 1&2, there are also versions for the computer) See youtube video of an arcade version, you can have fun even if you’re not good at it!

She flipped over the idea, and is now thinking of getting one for her 8 year old daughter!

BTW, if you decide to get one for yourself check on quality before you buy. A grown up may want a metal or hard plastic version, not those things that slide around. Oh, and a mother who had a seriously hyper 4 year old said the dance mat was the only thing that could tire her kid. After watching this five year old pro, I can believe it.

So, kids, parents, grown up computer addicts: Get moving, before you develop serious problems. I saw a net friend had written a recommendation for a physical therapist recently. I assume his computer use had been at least part of the cause for several surgeries and other back and neck issues. This therapist was working with stuff he could use at home - personally, I like the big excercise balls you sit on (see sissel-online for excercises, or even better, look up an excercise class locally). Great for core strength - fixing up abs and back, so you’re stronger and less likely to get injured. Also, MBT shoes are great for posture or back problems - and especially for store clerks who need to stand around all day.

Personally, I have amassed quite a bit of home equipment over the years. My favorite is the treadmill. Norwegian winters are harsh, and with that thing, I don’t have to worry about slipping and falling, and can walk or run at any speed I want.

I was called in to check on a friend’s WiFi setup. I couldn’t get it to work, and finally told him it looked as though the wireless on his router was fried. I asked him to check the router and continue troubleshooting.

He roped in a friend to help him, and had the friend set up the router at his place. It worked. They took it back, it didn’t work. So obviously, the wireless wasn’t fried. Something was wrong with the location.

So they removed power to circuit after circuit in the house, before walking into the living room. The friend asked “What’s that?”, and pointed to their wireless Audio-Video link. It connected the TV in the living room with the TV in the kitchen, so they didn’t need more than one set top box. When they powered down the AV link, WiFi worked.

They solved their problem by setting the AV link to another frequency. It had a choice of four settings. It had been set on one, and that was apparently the same frequency as the Wifi router.

So, AV links can create interference that makes your Wifi router seem dead. Food for thought!

Sometimes it gets rather funny.

I was talking to a customer who thought my mailserver had “a moment” and rejected his mails. Turns out it was his computer that had “a moment”.

And in the conversation, I mentioned that Outlook can sometimes be a bit temperamental. And he said, yeah, he uses Thunderbird at home. And I said, heh, I use Pegasus mail. And he said he’d heard of that program when he was studying IT a long time ago.

A little game of “mine is longer than yours” relating to e-mail programs.

And Pegasus really is the safest alternative, unless you want to get dirty and use Pine or similar…

So there…

The wand Pusur got for Christmas broke the second day, so I wanted to repair it. But before I got that far, I picked up a ribbon from a gift wrapping and attached that to the wand. Worked really well.

One wand (mine is 20 inches long and plastic, but can be other materials)
One silk ribbon. Mine is red, 1.5 cm in width and 33 inches long as it hangs off the end of the wand
Duct tape to secure the ribbon

The wand with the ribbon works very much like the cat charmer. The cat charmer is better (multicolor striped fleece, ultra light), but this is much better than any DIY wand I’ve tried before (sisal rope). What is better about the DIY wand is that it’s sturdy (Pusur has almost chewed off the end of the cat charmer ribbon), and you can replace the ribbon if your cat is the destructive sort.

So, where do you get the wand? Maybe you have a broken cat toy? If you don’t, look for branches off bushes or trees that work. I’ve had one I cut off a lilac bush for quite a while. They’re easier to skin during spring. If you have ideas for other ways to get wands, DIY, please let me know.

Send me an e-mail if you comment here. I get so much spam, the legitimate comments are hard to spot.

I wanted to give my cat a toy for Christmas, but I knew he was easily bored, and it would take a very special toy to get him excited.

I finally found something I thought would work. It looks a lot like this wand.

It’s a wand with what looks like a long Christmas tree wreath. It’s plastic, with hot pink center and white tips. The wreath is built with a metal thread, so it wafts lazily, a bit like a cat’s tail. And the tip of the wreath has a few feathers with what I’d describe as a light weight. That way, the action is just right. And IT RUSTLES!!!!!

Pusur went wild.

And since he usually goes wild Christmas Eve with all the gift wrappings, I combined the wand with the paper. Instant hit. No risk of me getting clawed by accident, and the rustling combined with the rustling paper got him all worked up.

Poor guy didn’t want to get to bed. He kep looking at me late at night, hoping I’d come up with more fun…

If you want to buy your cat a toy like that, beware if your cat is the destructive type. The metal thread and plastic doesn’t taste that good. In fact, Pusur lets go quickly. He’s not the destructive type. He can keep toys for years without ruining them. But if yours is destructive, be careful exactly what materials, and how sturdy the wand is.

Update: The wand broke the second day, after I wrote this entry. Not because the cat is destructive, but because the wreath was made with metal thread. Metal that thin has a tendency to weaken if you twirl it around too much. A weakness in the design, would be my guess. I’m thinking of repairing it, and putting something else between the metal thread and the wand, to shore up the place where it would break a second time. Maybe a piece of string. But in the mean time, I accidentally made another wand out of a piece of ribbon and the wand.

This trick is for WinXP. I haven’t tried other versions.

Occasionally, we get customers that don’t have Windows CD’s. Some never had them, and some have imaginative stories as to whose fault it is they don’t.

These days most computers have the license key on a sticker on the computer itself, so that bit is (usually) covered. If it’s not on there, then at least WRITE IT ON THERE when you get the machine. A CD marker or a face down sticker might work.

But an OEM license doesn’t work with a non-OEM CD. So just plonking any windows CD in the CD-player won’t work. So what to do?

You could try finding a Fujitsu Siemens owner with the same windows version as you have (home or professional). The recovery CD doesn’t have any drivers on it, and will accept your own license key.

Hopefully some above average end user will appreciate this tip from the trenches…