Last year after Europe seemed to have been hammered pretty well, I decided to put my 2011 Roth IRA contribution in Vanguard’s Total International Index. This turned out not be so great because Europe continued to have problems and a tsunami clobbered Japan. US stocks (where the rest of my money is) stayed about the same, but it was a roller coaster ride. Continue reading “Roth 2012”
WordPress
Jeb has moved the family blogs from Movable Type to WordPress. He did a great job of moving over my hundreds of blog posts which includes tons of pictures that also needed to come over. I hate to think what all it took to bring everything over. I found a couple of problems where pictures didn’t show up, but for the most part everything looks intact.
The appearance of the blog is pretty similar except that the picture at the top of the screen is huge, wider and much taller than the pictures I had on the old blog. I was able to fix that eventually (towards the end of this entry).
Continue reading “WordPress”
Wiki Image Maps
Image maps are pretty cool. You can turn any image into a link on a web page, but an image map allows you to have different links depending on what part of the picture someone clicks on. On the covered bridge web page, I had an image map of the United States with links to each state that had a covered bridge web page. I found the picture and code on another site and then modified it for my use. That way I didn’t have to program in the shape of each state since they were there already.
McAfee
I have been using commercial antivirus software for a while. I don’t know that it is necessary to do this because Windows has some decent protection as part of Microsoft Security Essentials or Defender or whatever they are calling it. Plus there are some free tools that are pretty good. But Fry’s always has antivirus software that you can buy and then get a rebate for the entire price, making it free. So far I have always gotten the rebates, but twice I had problems, once with Kaspersky and once with Norton, where they told me I didn’t fill in the submission correctly. However, after I complained they sent me the rebates anyway. Sometimes I will get a couple of products the same year just to try them out. I had written about past experiences a few times already. Right now I like Norton the best because it only scans when I am away from the desktop whereas McAfee takes 8 hours or so to scan on my laptop (better than Kaspersky which I gave up on after the scan took many days).
Katie’s New Shoes
Recently Katie has had a hard time walking. Indoors her back legs will slip and sometimes she will collapse. Outdoors we went for a walk and her back right foot would drag a little, causing a scrape on the top of her foot. I don’t think she is in pain since the damage seems to be neurological, but falling down and getting scrapes can’t be good either. I do think the exercise helps. I had some of that tacky stuff that goes underneath area rugs to keep them from slipping so I put some of that underneath towels and comforters so she could get some good footing in places. But I couldn’t do the whole house. The comforter in the living room has become almost like a pen that she doesn’t want to leave. When I come home she stands up and stands at the edge, waiting for me to come pet her.
