How Can I Search For What I Want?

As most of us do from time to time, I misplaced my sunglasses the other day. I could not remember the last time I wore them, nor where I might have laid them down. Looking out the front door, I could see by the intensity of the sunlight that I was definitely going to need them. (Yes, I have a spare but I couldn’t find them either.) First place to check was the car. Why I did that I don’t know because it is a scientifically proven fact that what ever you are looking for will be in the last place you look, not the first. (This is a universal law, not a theory.) If only we could figure out what the last place was, it would save hours of fruitless searching. As you already know, no sunglasses in the car.

I stood there trying to think of where they might have been and wishing I could simply Google it. Wait a minute maybe I could Google it. Not literally of course, but why couldn’t I apply the same principles to my search that Google does when someone attempts to search the World Wide Web for a specific topic? For the unwashed out there, Google is an Internet search engine. It contains an index to perhaps ninety percent of the all the Web sites in the world. There are others, Yahoo, Alta Vista, MSNsearch to name a few, but I happen to like Google and it seems others do as well. How do I know that? More and more I overhear people say, “I’ll Google that and see …..” I have yet to hear anyone say, “Let me MSNsearch that a minute.” So off to my virtual Google search I go to see if I can find my sunglasses.

First thing to do is to pick a topic to search. The topic for me was Sunglasses. So I type sunglasses in my mental Google and trillions of hits come back as to where a pair of sunglasses might be found. There are sunglasses in the house, in other peoples houses, in cars, stores etc. So that search was pretty meaningless simply because it was far too wide-ranging. I needed to narrow the field down by setting parameters on my search. Next I tried sunglasses and my home address. Google automatically puts the word “and” between the search terms and so this search limited my results to possible places to look in my house. (now we are getting somewhere) But this is still too broad a search field. The key to finding specific items is to narrow the search as much as possible.

To limit the field even more, I used the minus sign. Google recognizes the minus sign as indicating an excluded item. So, in my case I typed in, sunglasses address –bathrooms, since I had used the facilities earlier and hadn’t seen the sunglasses in the bathroom. So now I had narrowed the search down to the rooms in my house that were not bathrooms. (getting closer) Next I wanted to reduce my search to an even tighter range. I typed in sunglasses address –bathrooms +countertops. Google sees the + sign as a required search string even though it may be considered extraneous (every house has countertops) and normally might not look for that term. The results told me there were only two countertops in my house. Victory was near!

I was so confident, that before I went to look, I actually sat at my computer and went to www.google.com and this time typed in “Happy Days” using quotation marks before and after. Google then considers the words between the quote marks as a complete phase and looks for results with that exact phrase in it. This search brought up the lyrics to the song, exactly what I was looking for. Singing the words to “Happy Days”, it took me only a minute to search both of the countertops in the house. Sure enough, no sunglasses to be found.

What’s the moral of the story? Sometimes you just can’t get what you want.

If you would like to see a specific topic covered, leave a post with your questions. Questions with general appeal will be included in upcoming blog posts.

Many of the topics covered here can also be found in my new book, Grumbles From The Keyboard or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Computer. It is available at the website www.grumblesfromthekeyboard.com, amazon.com, barnes and noble or request it from your favorite bookstore.

ISBN numbers are: 

ISBN-13: 978-1467985895
ISBN-10: 1467985899

Book Release and Signing

Folks living in Punta Gorda, FL are cordially invited to The Bean on 41, Wednesday February 1st, 2012 for a book signing event. Award Winning Author Court Nederveld will be signing copies of "Grumbles From The Keyboard or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Computer."  It's the book you've sort of built at home. A compendium of 89 columns from the Bits and Bytes newspaper column updated, expanded and categorized. Own yours today..  Live Dulcimer Music. See you there! 

When: 9:30 a.m. till Noon. Wednesday February 1, 2012
Where: The Bean on 41, 2705 Tamiami Trail, Unit 413, Punta Gorda, FL

• Cuisine: Sandwiches
• Meals Served: Breakfast and Lunch

Can't make the signing? Grumbles From The Keyboard is available at www.grumblesfromthekeyboard.com or amazon.com or barnes and noble.

To Your Health: Fire Up Your Computer!

The following is an award winning essay for Costs of Care.org. The site is dedicated to bring transparency and common sense to the myriad test, drugs, procedures and other medical issues that arise everyday for patients, doctors and hospitals. Many times this confusion results in costs to patients that are far outside the realm of common sense. The premise of the essay contest was: “How cost-awareness leads to high value car AND cost savings. “ While the information related in the essay is important, the link to this blog is that the savings were brought about by the use of a computer and the Internet. Never before have patients had access to the medical world as they do today. Knowledge is power, or in this example, not only a significant cost savings but serves to demonstrate that patients need to at the very least monitor their medical care and with the power of the Internet they can actually effect change. So fire up the computer and see if you are receiving the best care for best cost. And if you need some easy reading about what and how to do some things related to your digital domestique, click on the link for Grumbles From The Keyboard to learn about a very novice friendly computer reference book. And it’s fun to read!

Essay:

Hypertension was the trigger that forced medical cost awareness to the forefront. My doctor decided that with a rise in blood pressure it would be prudent to proscribe a blood pressure drug and order a nuclear stress test. With only a catastrophic insurance policy with a $5000 deductible it was imperative from our personal financial state that the cost of both the drugs and the procedure be known up front. The prescription was the first thing we faced. The script for Lotrel was written and a trip to the pharmacy revealed an out of pocket cost of $200 for a thirty day supply. This was way beyond my means especially factoring in that this drug would most likely be required indefinitely. Relating this information to the doctor resulted in a prescription for the generic Norvasc and the pharmacy cost was to be $138 for 30 days. Still beyond household finances. I then began to research Lotrel and Norvasc and discovered that they are two old blood pressure medicines, amlodipine besylate and benazepril hydrochloride. I requested that my doctor write the script for these two separate drugs and I now take them daily at a cost of $7 for a thirty day supply of both drugs.

Having successfully challenged the cost of prescriptions my eyes were wide open as I began the quest for a nuclear stress test. My doctor, fully aware that I would be a self-pay referred me to a colleague in our area. A phone call began with introductions and the statement that because I would be a self-pay patient it was imperative that I know the cost of the procedure before hand. The doctor was unable to immediately provide a cost and after checking with staff requested $2500. I reminded him that I was uninsured. He replied that it could be done for $1900.

I told the doctor that I wanted to be sure I understood. I asked, “if I walked in with a check for that amount I would walk out with the test results?” The physician responded that I would need to come in for a consultation first. Cost $250. I asked again, “if I walked in with $2150 would I walk out with the test results?” Again the reply was that there would have to be a follow up visit to review the results. Cost $250. Hesitation must have been detected in my voice or the doctor detected a possible mark, because the doctor then said that perhaps I didn’t need a nuclear stress test and a regular stress test would suffice. Cost $800. Consultation and follow up not included. I then asked what would occur if the regular stress test revealed nothing. His response was that we would do the nuclear stress test to be sure. The inverse was also true; if the regular stress test revealed any anomaly then a nuclear stress test would be ordered to provide further information. Total cost out of pocket would be $3450.

Feeling much like a cow on a milking machine I began to test the theory that medical procedures were money making enterprises and as such should be available as a commodity. Using the Internet to begin my search, the only specific criteria required was that the location of the facility performing the test be within a short drive from home. It took very little time to find and confirm a company that would provide a nuclear stress test sans consultation, follow up and would willingly and promptly forward the results to my primary care physician. To verify that all was understood I informed then that I would have a check for the exact amount they quoted and no further remuneration would be forthcoming. All was as stated and the procedure was done. Total cost was $938.11.

While these two episodes have been the only challenges faced so far, having related these stories to friends and family, they also have begun to challenge costs and procedures with very similar savings.

It will be several years before Medicare is available to me and until that time I intend to challenge every prescription or procedure as to necessity and cost.

Grumbles From The Keyboard: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Computer (Volume 1) Grumbles From The Keyboard

Beeeeep Beeeep have you backed up today?

Beeeeep…..Beeeeep…….Beeeeep. I was sitting in my bathrobe this morning, drinking a cup of coffee and reading the local rag. I mean the Charlotte Sun. When this awful noise crashed into my morning routine. Beeeeeep……Beeeeeep……Beeeeep. There it was again. I jumped up; or more accurately, got up. That early in the morning not everything wants to function quite as sprightly as it once did. I walked out the front door to see what was going on. Coming down our street in reverse was a large moving truck.

Beeeep….Beeeep….Beeeeep. Now I am not superstitious but this was a bit weird. Have you ever had one of those days where at the end of the day you say, “I should buy a lottery ticket.” One of those days when seemingly random events have a recurring theme embedded in them. For example: I client of mine gave me his phone number. Later that day I went to his house and his house number was the same number as the last four digits of his phone number. Then oddly enough, when setting up a broadband account, they asked him for the last four digits of his social security number and, you guessed it, it was the same number.

Beeeeeep…..Beeeeeep…….Beeeeep So here I am standing in my driveway, listening to a truck make that terribly annoying noise and it hits me. The truck is BACKING UP. This is the second similarity in two random events. Not twelve hours prior to this, a business client of mine had called me and told me his PC had crashed during a power outage and now it would not restart. I had run over to help him but the PC was in need of a complete re-installation of the operating system. I looked up and asked for all the BACK UPS so I could rebuild the system for him. “BACK UPS, what BACK UPS?” he said. Fortunately PC CPR (that’s a computer/medical term) was able to get the system BACK UP and limping along sufficiently to do an immediate BACK UP of all critical business information. Happy ending so far.

Beeeeeep…..Beeeeep……Beeeeeep. What was this series of events trying to tell me? As I pondered the question I turned and went BACK UP to the house. Wait a minute, is that the third event? I realized that while my PCs are all supposed to automatically BACK UP all important data, it had been awhile since I actually checked the BACK UPs myself. How do I run my BACK UPs? First, since I have more than one machine networked together, I have software on my machines that takes all the important files from one PC and copies it to the other on a regular schedule. This means that each machine on the network has a complete copy of all the important files on each machine. Lose one machine, no files are lost, and as soon as a new machine is installed, I am BACK UP and running. Second, the critical files or the ones that would be nearly impossible to recreate, are burned to CD ROM from time to time. Finally, on rare occasions I will make an image of the entire hard drive (no this does not mean I take the PC apart and take a picture of the hard drive) and store it on the network.

Now, let’s BACK UP a minute. You don’t have multiple PCs on a network. You don’t have a CD Burner, and finally your camera doesn’t take pictures of bits and bytes. When your PC crashes you want to be BACK UP right away too. What should you do? Go to www.skydrive.com/ and open a free Windows Live Account. (“Did he say FREE, Martha?”) There you can store twenty five Gigs, (that is a lot of space) or the equivalent of about thirty thousand copies of this article for free. Not only would your data be secure and BACKED UP, but if necessary you could access your files anywhere in the world. Isn’t the Internet wonderful?

Need even more space? Take a look at online backup companies such as Mozyhome or Carbonite just to name a few. Many Antivirus companies also offer online storage as does Dell and other computer manufacturers. Prices are reasonable and they load a small software package on the PC that automatically backups all new files. Then should the unthinkable happen, all the stored files can be restored to the new computer or repaired PC.

Hopefully you have picked up the recurring theme embedded in the seemingly random preceding paragraphs. I have to head BACK UP to the office now, but later on, I think I will go out and buy a lottery ticket. Beeeeep……Beeeeep…….Beeeeep!

Tick Tock: Do We Really Know What Time It Is?

Tick tock. Tick tock. “Time Has Come Today” sang the Chambers Brothers in 1968. Chicago harmonized with “Does Anybody Know What Time It Is?” Then followed their question with “Does Anybody Care?” Van Halen’s musical entreaty was “Don’t Waste My Time.” In 1974 Jim Croce sang about saving Time In A Bottle. Time, is something that we either have too much of or don’t have enough of. How many times have you said, “I just plain ran out of time?” Or “I didn’t realize what time it was.” Or my favorite, “Time just got away from me.”

Tick Tock, tick tock. What is time? Time keeps everything from happening all at once. Without time you wouldn’t be able to remember the past. Or for that matter, even with time, why can’t we remember the future? Time also has different speeds. Time flies, or time just drags by. We even say that time stands still. Sometimes we lose time, or gain time. We give certain time specific events names such as Christmas Time or Bed Time or Lunch Time. So with all this importance placed on Time, how do we know what time it is?

Tick Tock, tick tock. Check your wristwatch. What time does it say? Now, look at the kitchen clock. Is it ahead or behind your watch? How about the clock in the dining room? Still a different time? Now look at your VCR. I bet for most of you it says twelve o’clock. (Is he a mind reader Martha?) “So what,” you say? Does it really matter if we are five or ten minutes late or early? Two thousand years ago, two buddies would say, meet me under the big tree at the new moon. So you would get there a few days early, camp and wait because no one could actually tell the exact moment of the new moon. Time then was plus or minus a few days. (So what are five or ten minutes?)

Do you have Onstar in your car, or GPS on your boat? Did you know that your position in the world to within a few feet is calculated by measuring the time it takes for signals to bounce from you to satellites in orbit? Stephen Dick, the United States Naval Observatory's historian, points out that each nanosecond – one billionth of a second -- of error translates into a GPS error of one foot. If the satellite time is off by the same five or ten minutes as the clocks in your house, Onstar might send your tow truck to Tampa, or Sea Tow might be looking in the Atlantic instead of Charlotte Harbor.

All right, how do I actually know what time it is? The genuine official keeper of time is the United States Naval Observatory. Here they currently have fifty-nine atomic clocks from which they calculate an average and answer Chicago’s question. This is the official world time. And here is the answer to your next trivia question. Of the fifty-nine atomic clocks currently used, ten of them are hydrogen masers and forty-nine are HP-5071 cesiums. (Gesundheit!) No, I don’t know what a hydrogen maser is either. But, these clocks must be accurate because it is predicted that the average of these clocks will be off by one second every six million years. So…

If you are running Windows XP, double click on the time in the lower right hand corner. A dialog box will open up and there will be a tab labeled Internet Time. Click on it and put a check in the box that says automatically synchronize with an Internet Time Server. Below that you can see two servers listed, time.windows.com or time.nist.gov. Choose which ever you wish and let your computer set its clock with the atomic clocks and display the most accurate time currently possible. (Now go set the rest of the clocks in the house.) For those using Windows Vista or 7, click on the date and time in the lower right corner. A box opens up displaying a clock and calendar. Click on the link labeled “Change Time and Date Settings. A new dialogue box opens and there are buttons to change time and date and time zone. At the top of the dialogue box are some additional tabs one allows us to display multiple clocks and the other allows us to change the Internet time server that our prompt digital domestique uses to keep accurate its clock.

Until next time. And, oh by the way, don’t be late.

Books by Court Nederveld available below and at Amazon.com

Grumbles From The Keyboard or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Computer

Epicuria: Adventures That Really Cook!.

Book Release And Signing

Folks living in Port Charlotte, FL are cordually invited to Miller's Murphy Bed Outlet January 11th, 2012 for a book signing event. Author Court Nederveld will be signing copies of "Grumbles From The Keyboard or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Computer." Wine and Cheese will be served, Live Dulcimer Music and a visit from Rodger Dodger Dog between 6 - 7 p.m. So bring the cameras and the kiddies. Jan Britland author of the Rodger Dodger children's books will also be there. 
When: 6 - 9 p.m. Wednesday January 11, 2012
Where: Miller's Murphy Bed Outlet 4014 Tamiami Trail, Port Charlotte, FL
Can't make the signing? Grumbles From The Keyboard is available at www.grumblesfromthekeyboard.com or amazon.com or barnes and noble.

A Computer Can Make You A Space Scientist!

Have you ever noticed that when people are introduced to other people, the intro goes something like this? This is John Doe, he is a pedicurist, or meet Jane Doe, she is the head of marketing for the Women’s Fashion Department at Wal-Mart, or this is Sam Doe, he is retired but is consulting for the golfers at Riverside. Now what did that all mean. John paints toenails, Jane sells women’s lingerie and Sam is a caddy at the golf course. How people see us is defined by what we do. And if what we do isn’t sexy enough, we change the description to give it a bit more pizzazz.   

How would you like to be introduced this way? Hi, this is Susie Brilliant. She is a researcher for SETI, the very important project that searches the heavens for extraterrestrial intelligence. Your mother would probably shorten it to “My daughter the space scientist.” Think about sitting at a bar and listening to endless chatter about how many barrels of beer were delivered or how many orders were processed etc. You slightly nod your head and mention, “ by the way I processed several megabits of data from the Arecibo Radio Telescope today and found several promising anomalies that may be indicative of extraterrestrial intelligence.” (What did he say Martha?)

What does all that have to do with computers? Most of you, especially those with broadband or DSL connections, use only the bare minimum capabilities of your computer. How often have you seen the screen saver pop up and run for hours while you are off doing something else? To prove my point, if you are running Windows XP, perform a CTLR/ALT/Delete to bring up the task manager, then look at the performance tab and the section that says CPU usage and I am willing to say that it displays no more than four to eight percent of total capacity. This is especially true of those that use computers just for email and surfing the web. Why not put this ninety to ninety five percent idle computing power to good use?

 Now you can. SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence uses the Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico to collect gazillions of bits of data representing radio signals from all over the galaxy. Within these radio signals they are looking for the one signal that might say “Hello Earth, this is Tau Ceti II calling.” Normally, this would require massive supercomputers to sort and define these signals in an effort to find the one signal that might represent a hello from ET. The cost however would be prohibitive. SETI has developed a method where by pieces of this data can be downloaded from the Internet to millions of personal computers. Once on your computer, instead of your screen saver coming up during idle time, a small program analyzes and reports back on what it finds in the data downloaded from SETI. The program immediately gives up the task if you come back and need to use the computer to read your email.

Imagine your excitement if you happen to be sitting in front of your computer and all of a sudden a message pops up “TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER.” What would ET know? ET is from out of town so you could just say, “hey, you are speaking to him.” Wouldn’t it be fun to be Global Potentate at least for a day?  To learn more about this project go http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/. There you can download the program that looks like a screen saver as it crunches data from Arecibo. You can join the other five million plus researchers from around the world and maybe, just maybe, you (or your computer) will be the one that first says hello to ET.

Don't forget: Grumbles From The Keyboard is available now. Click on the Buy Now button to purchase yours today!