Author: Carl Page 97 of 153

Remove Windows 8 Wireless Profiles an easier way

On July 24, 2014

This morning a friend Tweeted in horror that managing wireless profiles in Windows 8 required using the Command Line. Windows had decided to hand on to a wireless network so she couldn’t connect to a new access point.

Are you shitting me, Windows 8? I have to remove wireless profiles via COMMAND LINE???? Sweet Thor's nipples, I hate this operating system.— Reesa Herberth (@reesah) July 24, 2014

I was shocked this was the method prescribed by Microsoft so I had to look. And she is right.

Some tasks, such as deleting a profile, must be done at the command
prompt. To do these tasks, open Command Prompt, and then type the
appropriate command from the following table.

— Manage wireless network profiles – Windows Help

At the command prompt you need to type netsh wlan delete profile name=”ProfileName”. This is how you can remove a wireless profile in Windows 8. There had to be a better way.

And there is.

Up to Windows 7, previously connected wireless networks were saved and
viewable via the Preferred Wireless Network List, but this feature seems
to have been removed in Windows 8. Microsoft probably removed it as
they have added a supposedly smart feature, that handles wireless
profiles by how much you connect to it.
— WiFi Profile Manager 8: View Preferred Wireless Network Profiles in Windows 8

Wifi Profile Manager 8 is a freeware application released Lee Whittington for The Windows Club.

The author notes some people have had success with the application while others have not. But if the command line scares you or if you think it’s absurd to have to use it to do something that was very easy in Windows 7, try it out.

The Fresh 20

By Carl

On July 23, 2014

In Observations

Inspired by Conor McClure’s post about the Whole 30, I am sharing what my wife and I are doing.

In an ongoing quest to eat like adults, we tried Blue Apron. The food was good and fresh. The meals were delicious and we’ve saved many of the recipes we prepared.

But eventually we stopped making the food. While they ship everything you need (short of salt and pepper) in the box, there is a lot of chopping and slicing.

The meals were delicious but rarely had enough leftover for lunches the next day. This is the second part of the healthy eating struggle.

Because of this, paired with issues retrieving packages at the condo we rent, we gave up on them. This is not a failing of them. But a failing in ourselves.

We both work full-time. We’d rather collapse on the couch and not cook for hours in the kitchen. But we also don’t want to order pizza every night either.

Enter The Fresh 20

The Fresh 20 is built around a week of meals where you shop for 20 ingredients (which they say can take about 20 minutes). The meals are listed with easy-to-follow recipes. Each of the week’s meals has a list of ingredients with portions listed. Though the very best part is the shopping list they offer.

Last night, we went to the grocery store and found all 20 ingredients. And we don’t shop at a fancy grocery store. We often struggle to find certain common herbs. But we routinely find everything we need with little effort. These aren’t gourmet ingredients we’d have to shop around to find.

There is minimal prep work, usually chopping or marinating. This is all spelled out for the five meals on the sheet with the meals listed so there are no surprises.

We use the Classic menu and I’ve been very happy with the variety of meals each week. There are also gluten-free, vegetarian, dairy-free and kosher meal plans. They also have plans for lunch and single people.

We have been doing this for about three weeks and every meal has been great. Their recipes feed a family of four, which is perfect for the two of us. This gives us dinner and lunch the next day.

Three months of The Fresh 20 will only run you $18. The annual plan is $54. Once you sign up, you’ll not only have access to a new meal plan every week, you’ll also be able to see their entire archive of meal plans. We are eating a plan from early June this week.

To be clear, they do not send you any food. They make simple, easy to follow (and shop for) meal plans. While it’s not easier than ordering pizza, it’s cheaper and more satisfying. I highly recommend trying it out. You can sign up for a free meal plan on their website. And when you fall in love with it, I know you’ll sign up and eat like a healthier adult.

Dispatch from the Trenches #1

By Carl

On July 22, 2014

In Links and Quotes

Count to ten when a plane goes down

This is an incredible story. It’s not long and I urge you to read it. A great story and even better reminder to stop. Stop and think before you react. Information is not immediate. When something happens, it takes time to find what exactly has happened and the first information is not necessarily the best or even true.

On this day, I highlighted her workstation and hit the F6 key to reset. But my screen went temporarily black and then seemed to be starting again. I realized that I had mistakenly hit F7 and reset all the workstations in the embassy. This realization didn’t bother me much, because no one except the Agriculture section secretary was usually on the computer system this early in the morning.

But then all hell broke lose.

A single keystroke can change the course of international events.

So today, in the face of a Malaysian Airline crash in the Ukraine—and with all the associated speculation of 24-hour news organizations and the Tweetosphere, my advice is to take a deep breath, count to ten, and know that there is a very good chance that truth in the matter will be forthcoming very soon. And let’s hope that there is no stupid 23-year-old with his finger on an important keyboard in this information chain.

Let’s Play – Watch Dogs

I enjoy watching guys play various games. I thoroughly enjoyed their video for Watch Dogs. When I learned they could stand on top of cars and not only drive them around, but jump them, was incredible.

This is something I’ve tried in various games through the years. And failed every time. I’ve tried in Halo, Saints Row, and Grand Theft Auto. None of it works. Each time the rider falls off, even when the passenger is in the bed of a truck or somewhere a person could be.

I’m happy to see this mechanic built into the game, or maybe it’s a lack of mechanic to throw people from the moving vehicle. Either way, it excited me. Is it worth buying the game for that alone? Certainly not. But it would be hours of laughs.

Deconstructing Twitter

Does Twitter confound you? David Pogue has written an excellent primer explaining the gibberish squeezed into 140 characters.

This single example contains four examples of Twitter conventions:

• @SFGate. The @ symbol indicates a Twitter member’s name. I’m @pogue, for example. This tweet also mentions Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors. His Twitter name is, of course, @elonmusk.

• RT @SFGate. RT stands for retweet. So Debbie here is repeating (that is, retweeting)somebody else’s tweet—in this case, she’s retweeting something @SFGate said. (SFGate is the online edition of the San Francisco Chronicle.)

People use RT as a courtesy; it’s giving credit to the original author.

• sfg.l/1t4EIEd. That’s a URL—a link to a Web page. URLs are super common in tweets, since one key use of Twitter is sharing things found on the Web. Here, if you clicked the link, you’d go to the SFGate article that’s being quoted here.

• #Tesla. The # is a hashtag. It’s a label for your tweet. Other people can search for these hashtags—or click them—to see more tweets on the same subject. If you click on #Tesla, you’ll see a whole list of tweets, all pertaining to the Tesla company and its cars. (You can also go to Twitter.com and type the hashtag into the Search box.)

This has been the first Dispatch from the Trenches. Part of what will (hopefully) be an ongoing series of things I find interesting enough to share and comment on.

Microsoft Security Essentials

By Carl

On July 17, 2014

In Observations

Please top me if you’ve heard this one before.

I have _________ anti-virus installed on my computer but…

But I thought the subscription was up to date. It wasn’t and I got infected.
But I thought I had paid for protection. But I hadn’t and I got infected.
But I got a virus anyway because it wasn’t up to date.

Stop paying for Anti-Virus protection.

Microsoft has a product called Security Essentials. It’s free to download and install. The updates are free and they are pushed along with Windows Updates. You are installing Windows Updates at least once a week, right?

Download Microsoft Security Essentials.

This will keep your computer protected against viruses. Your updates will never stop. You never have to pay for them. As long as you’re updating your computer, your anti-virus will stay up to date too.

Stop paying for what you can get free. Don’t find yourself paying a local computer tech or bribing a family member to clean the virus off your computer. Don’t allow yourself to be without your computer because it’s infected.

Download Microsoft Security Essentials and don’t give it another thought.

Adulting

By Carl

On July 14, 2014

In Introspection

When I was a teenager, being an adult frightened me. I had no idea how to be an adult. All of the things I would have to manage as an adult seemed overwhelming. There was just so much and it would never stop. It would never get easier.

Now that I’m in my 30s and can look back on my teenage years and with my 20s fading into my past. I am less afraid. But I still have no idea what I am doing. But that’s the thing. No one has any idea what they’re doing. We are all doing our best. We are all figuring out this thing called life one day at a time.

We are all faking it as adults. We all struggle.

No one has everything together and I want to say that out loud because it helps to hear it.

Recently, I read a post called Supposed to be where the author talks about his struggles with depression and weight.

So the first time I took a walk in the summer heat aimed at ‘starting a program’ I actually hoped I might die. I’ve written this before elsewhere and told people, but I’m convinced their reaction is to think I’m being dramatic. I’m not. I shuffled along those pretty wooded trails in that hilly park by our home in Georgia and by the time I reached a ridge where there was a slight breeze and the peaceful rush of the Big Creek below, I thought, very clearly, hopefully I’ll die here. A man the size I was at the time, with my uncontrolled hypertension, well, I was supposed to die in that situation.

He struggles and he succeeds. It’s not easy. But he finding success with hard work and determination. He is doing his best. We are all doing our best. This is something worth repeating.

We all struggle. We all do the best with the life we have. It’s hard for everyone. No one has a perfect life where they face no adversity. We are all trying our best. In the age of social media where everyone posts their highlight reel for their friends and family to see, we don’t post about the rest of our days.

Recently, I saw a video that puts this into perspective. It asks a simple question:

Facebook can be depressing because everyone else’s lives are better than yours… But are they really?
httpv://youtu.be/QxVZYiJKl1Y

We don’t post about our sadness.
We don’t post about our failures.
We don’t post about the days we’re too sick to get out of bed.
We post the best parts of us.

But it’s not the whole picture.
We all fail.
We all struggle.
We all have bad days.

But we don’t share those. We fear if we do, people will stop following us. We’ll lose friends online. We will be facing a truth no one wants to publicly admit.

Life is hard.
We’re all in this together.
Let’s try to help each other.