Take Time for Living

Are you also tired of hearing about the coming ‘DTV’ big deal?

It seems unlikely to me that anyone who watches television in America and who's older than about eight years of age doesn't know about the coming "revolution" in digital television. You know what I mean, don't you? In February 2009 analog television broadcasts will be history. All television broadcasting will switch over to digital format.

In reality, most people watching television except in rural, isolated areas, probably already "do" television digitally. Well, actually, rural areas probably get most of their television via cable or satellite dishes -- which are digital. Only those using an external antennas, or "rabbit ears" or whatever pick up analog signals.

But, since there are still several thousand people out there in the good old U.S.A. who DO use older, analog television sets, the government and every television station in the country insists on running crawl lines and television commercials over and over and over and ...

I'm really tired of watching them anyway, and I suspect most of you are, too. I suspect the people who do still have older, analog televisions, probably aren't paying attention anyway and will rush around at the last minute. In a world where folks are far more excited about flat-screen televisions, LCD televisions, a good plasma mount for their latest big screen set, and all the bells and whistles -- few people are paying that much attention to the basics.

Oh, one other thing: DTV (digital television) will be there for everyone able to receive it; HDTV (high-definition digital television) is different and requires high-definition televisions to receive it. So don't confuse the two.

If you really aren't clear about all this and you really are afraid you might lose your television reception when the February 2009 cutoff gets here -- by all means call one of your local television stations, check your nearest "big box" electronics store, and get it all clear.

It's only television. You shouldn't lose any sleep worrying over it!

Technorati Tags: DTV, HDTV, digital television, analog television, take time for living

If only we could even out the drought with the flooding …

I'm not even living near the Mississippi or Missouri River drainage regions, and I guarantee you many of us here in southwest Missouri are ready to get out the plywood, 2x4s, etc., and start building life rafts if not honest to goodness Arks!

We've had rain and thunderstorms every day for more than a week, and I think most of them zero in on my old house and backyard. The sump pump in the basement continues to do it's job, so for now we're good to float -- uh, good to go.

Many of my neighbors here in the Missouri Ozarks haven't been so lucky. Some of them are far more worried about just keeping a patio than worrying over things like patio furniture! To be honest, we've not suffered having entire neighborhoods and towns under water like the good folks in Iowa and northern Missouri -- but it hasn't been any fun.

If only we could collect several million gallons of our flood and move it to the sun dried, parched drought areas in the southwestern states. Hmmm ...

Technorati Tags: flooded areas, drought regions, weather woes, take time for living

Do you use Mac or Windows as your preferred computer?

Consider this a sort of informal "survey." I'm curious about those of you out there visiting us -- do you generally use a Windows computer or a Mac computer? Or both? Or perhaps something else, like Linux?

I ask because I keep seeing all those clever Mac commercials on TV and I wonder how much 1) truth and 2) impact they're having on the average computer buyer/user out there.

I know for years the preferred "weapon of choice" for people who tackle graphics-oriented jobs has been Mac. Because of the abundance of software and relative cheap hardware, Windows has always "owned" the business world.

At the dawn of the PC age (almost), I worked on the editorial staff of a weekly magazine. Chiefly at the recommendation of the magazine's graphics artist and the people in the production area and pre-press area, we used Macs. I recall the two biggest hassles way back then was the huge amount of Mac memory needed to do even simple stuff, and the unreliability of Mac hard drives. But I know such things have improved radically.

I still find it hard to believe that so many people, according to those famous, laid-back television commercials, are switching from Windows to Macs.

So what do you use most? Mac? Windows? Other??

Technorati Tags: Mac, Windows, PC buying, PC usage, take time for living