tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-117094482024-03-13T00:21:42.745-04:00Traynor MusingsThis is my blog explaining what I have been doing on my Linux & Windows systems and random rants on a number of other subjects.Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.comBlogger210125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-20739917869240043582024-02-20T09:09:00.000-05:002024-02-20T09:09:44.345-05:00That was an expensive project A short time ago the condo corporation sent all of the owners a notice that we needed to provide the ESA certificate that all wiring in our homes was up-to-date. The reason is that the units were built when aluminum wiring was allowed and the insurance company wanted proof that all pig-tailed wiring was up to code.I found an electrician who did aluminum and copper wiring to do an Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-91967678810296001292023-04-24T10:48:00.006-04:002023-04-24T10:50:13.049-04:00House power - Surge protectors, UPS and generatorIn 2022 we lost power in Kanata multiple times. The first time the power was out well over a day. The problem we had was that we had no backup generator and using coolers didn't work very well. After a day the ice had melted and the contents spoiled (very costly). The other outages were short, but we had limited space to save the contents of the fridge/freezer. We Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-78104769509271111552023-03-11T07:40:00.000-05:002023-03-11T07:40:33.748-05:00Deleted my Twitter account With the continual gong show of Twitter and the fact that it is much less than stable I finally deleted the account.First thing I did was to request a full archive of my account. After I downloaded and verified it was good I then asked to have it deactivated. Following that I purged the Twitter clients from my phone, Chromebook and the third party client in Linux.I was getting Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-10633366464611013512022-11-26T08:19:00.000-05:002022-11-26T08:19:35.370-05:00Networking Homework time for a new routerOur home network is good and it reaches the whole house, but, there is a weak zone. My home office has access, but, at times the work laptop cannot find the SSID for several minutes when I start it up for the day. When I check the signal strength it shows as low. The issue is I cannot move where the router is and it works for every other location in the house, only the Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-48242977310855170212022-07-09T20:44:00.002-04:002022-07-15T09:22:46.383-04:00July 2022 Rogers outageA total of 16 hours with no cell phone, no internet and no TV with little to no information on Rogers on what happened. In my not-so-humble opinion that is not acceptable as this is the second outage in about 15 months for Rogers. The start of the outage should have triggered an near immediate BR/DR response and seeing the first update at around 09:00 indicates that someone was Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-17211783310820713572022-03-16T10:07:00.001-04:002022-03-16T10:07:47.051-04:00Two years of COVIDIt has been two years now since we started working at home due to COVID. A few notes on what worked for me.● A separate office area is a must so you can concentrate on work.● A good phone with handsfree. There are conference calls and not having to hold/cradle the phone is a must.● A good network setup. I have a router where I can set up multiple SSID. I have one forThomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-61479493785769218412020-09-07T08:50:00.000-04:002020-09-07T08:50:40.185-04:00A simple change to DLINK router if it feels a bit slowWith everyone at home and online working and playing during COVID you may have noticed that your network connection may feel a bit sluggish. I know at times it is slow for me when I have my personal laptop, tablet, phone, work laptop running. Wife is online too with her tablet and Chromebook. Most days it isn't a problem for me as the connection to work is fast enough. Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-28239384560366695922020-05-25T09:10:00.002-04:002020-05-25T09:10:41.370-04:00COVID and working at home.Start of week 11 for working at home.
I treat working at home as if I am actually going to the work office.
05:30 wake up, breakfast for me and Jane. Prepare the lunches. Shower, shave and dress for work (yes, I wear my work clothes!).
The laptop is turned on as soon as I wake up and I start the VPN. This gives me time for SSC to push through whatever updates are Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-5590162234147142662019-08-18T21:33:00.001-04:002019-08-18T21:33:58.170-04:00Runescape old school and LinuxA while ago the Java plugin I was using in Pale Moon stopped working. Nothing on the part of Pale Moon, but, the plugin isn't supported anymore. That wouldn't be a problem except I play Runescape Old School on it and I was forced to use my Windows 10 machine until I figured out how to get it to work again.
I played around with various settings and even tried to launch it from the Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-91633161240503789482019-08-11T08:50:00.000-04:002019-08-31T22:32:20.006-04:00Fixing up MX Linux application menu entriesLast week I did something that messed up the entries in the application menu. I had the full menu duplicated four times and I don't know what I did to make the duplicates. I looked at the Update Menu option, but, it didn't remove the duplicate entries.
I use MX Linux for the machine now as I want every Linux box in the house to use one distro to make my work easier having only one Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-16923748546079402862019-04-22T08:30:00.001-04:002019-04-22T10:31:09.739-04:00Trying out Lubuntu 19.04This isn't a full review of the distro, just a quick walk-through of a distro I was using over a few years. I moved off to AntiX last year as I wanted to cut back the number of distros I was running at home to make it easier for me to manage my home network. Lubuntu was OK, but, I was looking for a lighter and faster distro for my eight year old netbook and AntiX worked Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-1451778374300906642018-10-14T08:40:00.001-04:002019-04-22T08:47:37.167-04:00Be alert on your email account name For well over 10 years I have been using gmail with Thomas.Traynor and ThomasTraynor without a problem. If you check how they resolve names link here you can see how it is done. I have received emails from others in the past who thought they were contacting another Thomas in Ireland, but, after I point out that I am in Canada they found the real email address of the other Thomas Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-78709237648836512792018-10-08T09:59:00.001-04:002018-10-08T09:59:20.283-04:00Two weeks and counting - we got lucky
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Two weeks ago
tornadoes touched down in the Ottawa area. A total of six touched down in the
region. We were lucky in that the only thing was we lost hydro for
over fifty-five hours, but, others were not as lucky and lost everything. We did lose the contents of the fridge and
freezer as we couldn’t eat all we had fast enough, but, Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-74877612271450611812018-08-05T08:33:00.002-04:002018-08-05T08:33:32.129-04:00Android Google News update - Failure!Google and their minions may think they know better than most of us, but, at times they do fail. This failure in my less-than-humble opinion is the update to their 'Google News' app. The version before was stable (never crashed for me) and allowed me to quickly and easily view news and update my selected sources for offline viewing. I liked it as I could pull articles for Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-40986741504581170552018-05-06T08:32:00.000-04:002018-06-09T07:31:17.069-04:00Looking for a new VPN for my various devicesFor some time I have been making use of the Opera VPN software for my Android tablet and phone. I liked it as it 'just worked' and didn't have a major impact on either device for performance. However, it has been discontinued and I am now looking for a new VPN for my devices.
I don't use VPN very often, just when I am out and I need to quickly check my mail or do a quick web search.&Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-42104613163398104642018-03-31T16:17:00.000-04:002018-03-31T16:17:20.787-04:00Ontario elections web site & twitterEarlier today I saw an ad for the Ontario Elections web site in Twitter. Being paranoid I didn't click on the link and navigated to the site and started the process to verify that I am registered. With all of the various groups who can make something like legit there was absolutely no way I would click on that link.
I found the site easily enough at www.elections.on.ca and I was Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-14092129974222252292018-03-28T08:47:00.000-04:002018-03-28T08:47:23.308-04:00Downloading my Twitter archiveWith all of what is happening on
Facebook and the privacy I was thinking about Twitter and getting a
backup of what I can from that service. I have downloaded my Google
archives and Facebook and started to dig to see how to get Twitter. It
is fairly easy to find!
I am doing this from my
browser and not the app on my tablet or phone so it may be different
there. At Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-16856523284408724502018-03-25T09:32:00.002-04:002018-03-25T09:32:43.984-04:00What are they doing with our data?With the 'breach' at Facebook they won't get my trust back again. They can call it anything they want, but, from my point of view it is a 'breach'. MY data was taken and used in ways I did not give MY permission for. It isn't just Facebook, but, anyone who offers services over the internet that we need to be more aware of what they know about us and are willing to share to Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-17631845453650997722018-03-18T10:27:00.000-04:002018-03-18T18:06:50.544-04:00Looking at one Linux Distro for homeAt home we use Linux on almost all of our computers. The only exception right now is one laptop with Windows 10 so I can run my tax software. Each machine has its own Linux that best works for that device. That is getting to be a bit of a pain as some packages are not available for some distros (like the Pale Moon browser).
My netbook (Acer Aspire One D255E) I bought years ago Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-34858421283922554782018-03-18T08:53:00.001-04:002018-03-18T08:53:23.377-04:00Android and Facebook appAfter a long wait Facebook has finally launched their lite version for Android. The old app was not too bad, but, massive and slow. On the tablet it wasn't all that bad, but, on my cell phone it slowed the device so much I logged out, purged the cache and stopped running. I was running the messenger lite so I could chat with some people when I was away and had only my phone, butThomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-74490203630516256902017-12-30T08:41:00.002-05:002017-12-30T08:42:09.459-05:00Battery issues and the 4th & 5th RIn the last week Apple showed us how not to 'extend' battery life in a machine. There will be a lot of experts and Apple fans who will debate both sides, but, here is my observations of the issue.
Batteries in all devices degrade over time. Give the users a tool to allow them to select the power options and explain in simple terms the implications of using them. I have an Android Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-83095775092150694792017-11-18T08:03:00.001-05:002017-11-18T08:03:12.143-05:00Had to nuke my Win 10 machine This is why I don't like forced updates. The latest version from MS caused my Win 10 box to go into a endless reboot. I would turn it on, get to the logon screen and15 seconds or so the screen will go black, then blue, then reboots. I went to the DELL tools when it started up and did a hardware check and it was all good. Safe mode wouldn't tell me what the problem was, allThomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-33289673489587468122017-10-20T22:11:00.000-04:002017-10-20T22:13:33.592-04:00Lubuntu 17.10 upgrade and Synaptic issue
I did the upgrade to Lubuntu 17.10 and for the most part it went smoothly. The only time I had a problem was when I tried to run Synaptic. It kept complaining about 'zesty' and the latest is 'artful'. I surfed a lot of user groups and did find one reference to /root/.synaptic and to change the line in synaptic.conf to the release you want to use. Rather dangerous, but, I Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-59598828672255992382017-07-22T19:00:00.002-04:002017-07-22T19:00:33.610-04:00Upgraded PCLINUXOS and a new mouseA few things that I had to do for the Linux box. For the last couple of weeks I have noticed at times I would get a double click on the mouse when I pressed only once. I am not surprised there as the machine is used for a MMORPG (Runescape)for at least one hour a day. Reading online forums it is somewhat common and if you are brave you can disassemble the mouse and fix the issueThomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11709448.post-78894737353162150922017-07-16T08:18:00.001-04:002017-07-16T08:18:49.688-04:00A mini-rant on the state of store web pagesToo many stores don't take time to build a web site that is user friendly. They are probably going with the experts who say it is perfect, but, take it from me they are far from perfect. There are a few that I have problems with and it is frustrating in the least when I am looking for products.I check out the online sites to see what products are available, their specs, reviews and Thomas Traynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739882645440298405noreply@blogger.com0