Yearly Archives: 2017

Protect Your Electronics

By Marc|November 30, 2017|Life|

If you are a practitioner, or a fan, of coding and technology, I am happy to hear from you. Meanwhile, join my blog and help me spread the word to a new generation of programmers. There are many out there that need to be brought up to date. The world of computers is not as undecipherable to the layman as it may seem. The more you learn, the better you can make use of the Internet. Whether programming is your cup of tea or not, surely electronic equipment is. We all have many devices that we must keep in top running condition. We depend on these marvels for many things. Tablets, laptops, iPads, iPods, and whatever you own in the way of a mobile phone are our entrée to the world at large. We keep in touch with people, places, and things through them. My advice today is to keep them clean and working properly. How? There are surge protectors, anti-static cleaning products, and my recent discovery, dehumidifiers.

Electronic gear will not take care of itself. If you drop it, spill soda on it, forget it in the rain, or otherwise harm it, you will immediately miss its services. One way I like to attend to my stuff and prevent theft is to store it in the basement when I am not using it. If it is there for long periods of time, I need to turn on the basement dehumidifier to keep moisture and mold out – I bought it from https://www.humidityhelper.com/best-dehumidifier-basement-reviews/. If you don’t take precautions, your money is going to waste. You will have to run out and buy something new. Protection means many things, but the first order of business is to buy a good case. They come in all sizes, shapes, and colors so you can customize your electronics according to your taste. The better the quality, the longer it lasts. This is vital.

Next on the list of protective measures is a cleaning cloth. While you have to keep your digital friends away from pets, food and water, there are times when it is too late and a cleanup job is in order. Some tips about cleaning: don’t keep gear in the kitchen when you are cooking. In a pinch, a bag of uncooked white rice will do the job of draining away invading water. Hopefully, this will happen before the damage is done. Leave it in for ten minutes or more and then test it. Obviously, the bigger the gadget, the bigger the bag and the more rice you need.

If you are super diligent, you will invest in a cleaning set. For a few dollars, you can acquire a kit that includes a special rag and the appropriate chemical treatment. For smudged screens, a protector is a good preventative. Otherwise you can remove smudges, dirt, and the like with the cloth. I know people who even get squashed bugs on their screens. My, my.

New Project

By Marc|January 7, 2017|Computer Programming|

Computer software programming is a mystery to many. Just what kinds of programs are you writing and why. Are they helping people do more practical things or are they there just for the heck of it, so much has been done, so what’s left? A lot. There is a whole new generation of young programmers looking for projects. It is still a wide open field and can use new talent right now. All the software is by no means complete. New inventions are waiting in the wings. I want to participate and help others move the field forward. I get freelance jobs that are very particular to a business and their products and services. For an investment firm, I created software for an updatable spreadsheet. It contains the clients stock holdings and is linked to data that can update the prices so it doesn’t have to be done manually. But isn’t it time I help myself? Do I need something that practical, too? Yes, I certainly do.

I am talking about my above ground swimming pool. I enjoy the pleasure of the warm water at night and on weekends and it is the focal point of water parties for friends and family. So it gets used and everyone appreciates that it is heated. The problem is that the temperature does not stay consistent on its own. It varies day to day with the outside temperature and general weather. I have to manually reset the above ground pool heater all the time. It is a pain in the butt. I was now intent on writing a software program that would help regulate the temperature of the swimming pool water on its own. It would operate a trigger in the heater so activate it if the pool ever reached a certain level. It worked both ways. It could make it cooler (if it got too hot on a blazing day) or warmer. The software wasn’t hard to write and it was super practical and would make my life that much easier. I love that I could apply my work talent to something at home. What’s next? One of those houses in which everything works automatically if preset. You know. The coffee machine goes on in the morning, the water heater is always full of hot water for numerous showers, the lights go on and off at will, you can shut the garage door from inside the house, etc. It is the house of the future and more and more people imagine having this advantage. They are used to things like starting the car from a few footsteps away or locking the house if you forgot when you are in the car.

Software isn’t just for complicated computer programs. It is for everyday life as well. Just imagine what can be done. This is my goal in life: to use computers to make a better world. Hence I chose the profession. This is true for many others.