Turning a Spotlight on Spotlight

May 1, 2022 — Pat Bertram

I came online a while back to post a blog, but the faint thunder and lightning with a few raindrops suddenly turned into a massive storm. It soon passed by, due, I’m sure, to the high winds we’ve been having lately, but I don’t feel comfortable being on the computer in a lightning storm, especially since there’s been problems neither my go-to tech person nor I have been able to solve.

The problems are minor and have nothing to do with how the computer runs, but the effects of entropy (or whatever it’s called when an electronic system slowly builds up errors) niggle at me.

One of the problems is only indirectly involved with my computer. A couple of months ago, I stopped getting notifications on my phone when I get an email from an account I reserve for family matters, and since the app on my computer stopped, too, I missed an email that needed a fairly quick response.

We tried various things on the phone, trying to get the notifications to show, but had no luck. Next we tried to fix the email app on the computer, which always shows that I have two new emails even when I get a new one and even when all are read. Somewhere along the line I got lazy and stopped manually checking that email, presuming erroneously that I’d be notified. We couldn’t find a way to fix the app, either, but it’s not a problem since I don’t like the app anyway. I prefer going directly to the email to check it. (When I remember, of course.) I removed the app from my tool bar and startup, and that’s all I’m going to do. I always see that “2” on my lock screen when I start my computer, but I can ignore it.

That lock screen is the other problem. The Spotlight locked and so I always saw the same picture. I didn’t mind the image, but since I thought the “2” and the lock screen were somehow connected, we tried to fix the spotlight problem, following the very detailed instructions we found on a tech website. But the spotlight still didn’t work. More research told us that it’s a bug in the Windows 10 system, and after a while, almost everyone deals with the same problem. The only way to fix it is to reinstall Windows.

Um . . . no. That’s not going to happen.

This computer is already three-and-a-half-years old, so chances are the machine has reached its half-life. In another three-and-a-half years, I’ll probably need to get a new computer anyway.

Besides, I never did like Spotlight, even though I got used to it. So now I use one of my own photos for the screen, and when I get bored looking at it, I’ll change it. The photo below is today’s screen. I always did like the image of leaves and shadows, so now I’ll get to enjoy it for a few days until I get bored with it.

In a strange quirk, today I started getting notifications on my phone again from the family email account.

Electronics. Hmmph. Can’t live with it. Can’t live without it.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

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Leaping Into the Breach

February 18, 2022 — Pat Bertram

A couple of years after I signed up with my current internet provider, I discovered that a subscription to a virus protection program came with the service. As it turns out, it is the very same protection plan that came loaded on my new computer. After a year of free service through the computer seller, I’d received a good deal on a renewal of that plan because I signed up for two years (though obviously it’s not as good a deal as it would have been if I’d signed up for the protection plan with my internet provider). Even after learning about this benefit from the internet provider, I kept the original program for a while. I didn’t want to lose the money I’d already paid, of course, though it really wouldn’t have mattered since either way, I wouldn’t have to pay any extra and would have still had the same service, but even more than that, I didn’t want to have to download the new program because there are always problems.

I had it marked on my calendar to cancel the original plan this month, but that company decided to auto-renew early via PayPal. I don’t know how that was possible because I didn’t have any money in the bank account associated with PayPal, but it still created an aggravating morning as I got all that straightened out.

Meantime, I’ve had a note by my computer for a couple of weeks now to switch protection plans, but I simply didn’t want the hassle. I also needed to make sure I had a big chunk of free time to get it done so I could solve any problems that might show up. Well, yesterday, I finally girded my loins, faced the music, bit the bullet, sucked it up, leapt into the breach, crossed the Rubicon and seized the opportunity. All those idiomatic expressions are to emphasize the great trepidation I experienced when I finally hit the download button on the internet provider’s website.

After a rocky start (I couldn’t open the downloader and my computer shut itself off out of frustration), things went smoothly. Unbelievable! Even more unbelievable is that after a year of having this whole thing hang over me, it’s finished. Well, finished as long as the internet provider continues to provide the virus protection plan.

Still, it makes me feel good that’s it done. It makes me feel even better that I didn’t have to pay the extortion rate the protection plan company wanted to charge me.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

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Facebook Troubles

February 6, 2022 — Pat Bertram

I don’t believe in ill-wishing anyone or anything, but if I were that sort of person, FB is the one entity I would ill-wish for all the trouble they’ve caused me. Luckily, if the rumor is true, they are doing it to themselves without any help from me. (What I heard is that they are having financial troubles.) I don’t care enough to check on the rumor to see if it’s true, but it makes sense. They have a terrible business sense, embracing those who do harm and all but destroying some who are totally innocuous. Like me.

First they banned my blog. They have labeled it spam, which is totally unfounded as well as totally nuts, and there is absolutely no recourse. Next, they banned any URL stemming from my blog. For a while, I let it go, just stayed away from FB altogether, but several friends I’m connected to only on FB told me how much they miss seeing my blog in their feed. And besides, my absence from FB killed all book sales. (That was the only platform that worked for me to sell books.) So I got around their stupid block by reblogging my blog onto another blog, and then posting that link. It wasn’t a total workaround, because very few people saw it, and of those who saw it, very few people bothered to click on both links (the link to the reblog and then to the original blog). Some people did comment on the photo, so at least that was good.

I have the reblog blog set to post automatically to FB, but now, FB won’t accept the automatic post. I have to reblog, then manually cut and paste the reblog intro onto FB (can’t post the whole thing because of the aforementioned URL is included) along with the reblog URL. Then I have to change profiles from my author page profile to my personal profile so I can share the blank space with the URL to an URL.

If you’re confused by now, I don’t blame you. I know what I’m doing, and it confuses the heck out of me! And that wasn’t the end of it.

The photo that from the original blog post stopped showing up on FB because of that devilish URL of mine. I’d post the photo separately for a while, and so did a friend, but that got to be a pain. So now what shows up on FB is a post with a big blank space where the photo should be.

To add insult to their injury, FB keeps sending me notifications of what other authors are doing on their FB pages, and asking why aren’t I? Sheesh.

So, views to my blog are down, limited now to those who go to my blog directly. And book sales never picked up again, and in fact are non-existent.

So, do I care that FB is having problems? A resounding NO!

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in blogging, internet, life. Tags: , , , . 20 Comments »

Interesting Days

February 1, 2022 — Pat Bertram

This is another of those interesting days where a problem looms that takes a lot of time on the phone to resolve. Yesterday it was my water bill — apparently, 19,000 gallons of water have disappeared on my side of the meter. After talking to six people yesterday, I finally found someone who will probe for the leak. The problem is that if they can’t resolve this today, it will continue for the next week or so because a major storm is coming through here tonight and tomorrow, with subzero temperatures and six inches of snow.

Today, I got a message that PayPal had paid my virus protection renewal bill even though it doesn’t come up for renewal for another thirty-five days. I also don’t have money in the bank account associated with the PayPal account to pay for it (I always keep that account almost empty in case of such problems), so that’s another issue to deal with. The virus people were supposed to email me before they renewed, but didn’t, so I didn’t get a chance to stop the auto-renewal. Normally it wouldn’t matter, but after I signed up for the services, I found out I got the same service free through my internet provider, and I certainly don’t want to continue paying for something I don’t have to. I would have stopped the auto-renewal months ago, but they made it sound as if they would immediately cancel all services, and I didn’t want to take a chance. Instead, they decided not to take a chance on me and renewed early.

I called the virus protection people to have them issue a refund, and because of a language problem, they didn’t understand what I wanted. Finally, the word “refund” got through. Now I only have to wait for a few days to make sure that if/when PayPal takes money from my account, it will be refunded, though perhaps there won’t be a problem because the refund went through before the money was debited from my bank.

When all that is taken care of, I will have to contact my internet provider to set up the new protection plan (which actually is the very same one I just discontinued). I don’t want to get started on that until I have a lot of time at my disposal because nothing to do with the computer is ever easy. It should be, but it isn’t. There always seems to be a problem.

These “interesting days” will be continuing, not just because of the switchover for the virus protection plan, and not just because of the water issue, but because of the winter weather advisory and all of the problems that will arise from the storm, such as shoveling the walks and getting safely to and from my job.

But it will all work out, one way or another.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

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Little Things Amuse Little Minds

December 14, 2021 — Pat Bertram

On the entrance to the library, there is a sign that says “Possession of dangerous weapons is prohibited on these premises.” I always have to laugh at that, wondering why a library would ban sharp minds, because truly, there is no weapon so dangerous as that. They let me in, so perhaps I’m not as sharp — or as humorous — as I once thought I was.

I’ve been seeing all sorts of “boycott Kellogs” notes online, and I have to laugh at that, too. Even if I wanted to find out why I should boycott (I am still on my news fast, eschewing all news), and even if I did find out and want to boycott, I couldn’t. I don’t buy any of their products. Not one. So who would know if I boycotted or not? I also find it ironic that Kellogs — the company that manufactures such delicacies as Pop Tarts, Pringles, and Froot Loops — started out as a health resort. Dr. Kellogs’ invention, cornflakes, was one of the early health foods. (Graham crackers and the first cereal called “granula” predated cornflakes.)

I am also amused by all the return address labels I get. What century do those people live in? Haven’t they ever heard of texting? Email? Not that I want them to spam me — I certainly don’t them sending me emails or texts. I’m merely pointing out that hardly anyone uses return labels any more. I use maybe one or two a month. It used to be I didn’t use any until the appearance of The Bob temporarily closed the office where I paid my utility bill, and I got into the habit of mailing it. (Silly, really, because it’s only three blocks away. Luckily, the local mail stays in town, so it gets there quickly. When I lived on the western slope, my local mail went first to Grand Junction, the next county over, then back to the town where I lived, which sometimes took a week.)

Because of all the begging mail I get, I would have to live ten lifetimes to use up those address labels. And perhaps by then, even texting will be passe. We might all have implants that let us transfer information to one another instantly without resorting to such unwieldy tools as phones and computers.

I hadn’t realized so many things have been amusing me lately, but apparently, I amuse easily.

This reminds me of my eight grade teacher who would stand in front of the class and reprimand us for playing around at our desks. As she was warning us that “Little things amuse little minds,” she’d be fiddling with a pen, which always made me want to laugh.

I started out talking about smart minds and end up with little minds. I better quit before I start talking about things I never mind.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

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Fair Game

December 6, 2021 — Pat Bertram

Although I am trying to change passwords on sites and accounts that have personal information, for the most part, I tend to think that no matter what you do to protect yourself, if it’s on the internet, it’s fair game.

This was brought home to me last night when I tried to place an order from a company that had a couple of clever gifts I wanted to get for people who are hard to shop for. Generally, I don’t do a lot of gift-giving, but these people were especially kind to me this year, and I wanted to show my appreciation. Hence, the gifts.

I tried to put in the order online, but there was no place to enter the two different addresses, so I called their customer service line. They asked for my account number, which I didn’t think I had, but she said the account number was on the catalog even though I didn’t tell her I had a catalog. I found the number and gave it to her, and it turns out they already had all my information. Apparently, they set up an account when they sent the catalog.

I ended up having to pay the shipping costs on each item rather than only once if I’d done it online, but that was okay. The real issue is she told me that they would send me the tracking code when the orders were shipped, but she never asked for an email address. When I queried her about that, she rattled off my email address. Huh? Where did she get it? Now that I think about it, it was probably on the mailing list they bought for sending out their catalogs.

When I said she rattled off the address, that wasn’t exactly true. She very laboriously read it off to me. Considering her thick accent and her inability to understand me, there is a chance that these people will get the gifts I ordered, their names will be spelled right, and the brief message accurate. On the other hand, who knows what will happen. Your guess is as good as mine.

Normally when things are this difficult, especially if it’s something for me, I just forget it. It’s not worth it. But I did say these people were hard to shop for, right? So I stuck with the process and am keeping my fingers crossed that everything will be okay.

But yikes. Here I am trying to streamline my presence online, and it turns out there are all sorts of accounts in my name that I didn’t even know about. Yep, if it’s on the internet, the information truly is fair game whether we want it to be or not.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in internet, life. Tags: , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Spinning My Wheels

December 3, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I spent a considerable amount of time today trying to update and streamline my online accounts. I’ve found that I can’t delete some accounts — even going through the entire site map, there’s no place to delete. In one case, it was a store I’d ordered from a couple of times, and I don’t remember ever signing up for the site. I never made a note of the account information (user name and email). Nor do I recognize the password. It makes me wonder if they set up the account? Even if I did it, which is possible, it still seems strange that there’s no way to delete the account. I suppose they find it unbelievable that any customer would want to leave their establishment.

In a couple of cases, I couldn’t update the password. I kept getting error messages. In another case, I had a hard time getting my phone to recognize the new password.

But other than that, I am moving right along.

Some sites I don’t care about, of course. Like Pinterest. I never understood the point of the site, never liked it, never saw that it gained me anything, but there’s no reason to delete it or to change the password. It’s rather innocuous, with no personal information and no links to personal information, so I don’t much care. I’m mostly concentrating on places that do have personal information — social security number, bank routing number, debit card information. And I’m concentrating on my paid accounts — this blog and my website. (Although WordPress is a free service, I’ve been paying for an upgrade so you don’t have to deal with a bunch of ads.)

The task isn’t something that can be done quickly. In fact, it could take me as long to undo or redo all the sites as it took to set them up in the first place. Although I was a latecomer to the internet, it’s been fourteen years since my first foray, and I tried many different sites in those years, so there is a lot to review. But I’ll keep chugging along.

Some sites, of course, are now long gone, like Gather, the best social networking site for authors ever. (In fact, that’s where I met most of my online friends.) Other sites I’ve forgotten about because I never use them. (I used to like Canva, but I find that it’s a lot easier for me to use Photoshop elements than an online site, and anyway, come to think of it, I no longer do the sort of promotional graphic that I did on Canva.)

Writing all this down makes it sounds like a lot of rigamarole, as if I’m spinning my wheels and going nowhere. And no wonder — that’s exactly how it feels. I doubt it’s important to get rid of defunct online accounts, and I’m not sure it’s necessary to update my passwords since who cares about a rather obscure author in a rather obscure corner of the internet.

But you never know. It doesn’t hurt to be more security conscious, and that’s reason enough to go through all this trouble.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in internet, life. Tags: , , , , . 5 Comments »

About Passwords

December 1, 2021 — Pat Bertram

A couple of days ago, I got a security alert email from Google with a list of my duplicate passwords as well as those that were weak. This includes most of the sites I’d signed up for over the years. I suppose it really does behoove me to delete any site I have no more use for, and to update passwords. How kind of Google to send me a list of all those sites as well as the passwords!

I do have two concerns. If Google is privy to all our passwords, does it really matter what the passwords are? Even if they are unbreakable, they are obviously searchable if one has access to the Google cloud or wherever it is they store all their information.

The other thing is that once I have all those unbreakable passwords, they have to be stored somewhere because there is no way they can be stored in my memory — my brain memory, that is. That means they need to be stored on the computer so I can easily copy and paste as needed, which means that all those passwords are doubly vulnerable.

They’d eventually all be stored in my browser, which makes it simpler for me, but makes the sites more vulnerable. Even so, I’d still need a master copy of all the passwords because glitches do happen.

Despite my lack of concern, I did spend some time today with an online random password generator, which means that now there might be a fourth place where my passwords would be stored — on the generator site. Obviously, if they did store the passwords, it’s not that big of a deal since they wouldn’t know what site the password would open. And anyway, that part is easy enough to fix — just change a letter or a symbol. (This is an example of the passwords that were generated: eHLq-B9W. See what I mean about never being able to remember it? They did give a helpful memory hint, but I’d never be able to remember that either: egg HULU LAPTOP queen – BESTBUY 9 WALMART. Sheesh.)

I’m not sure what anyone would gain by breaking into any of my sites. Any online ordering I do is through an account that I keep empty until needed, so there is no way anyone can clear out what little money I have. Only two sites have my social security number (well, any number of sites would have it because the IRS and other government bodies have online sites, but those sites are not under my control, so I’m not going to worry about it). One of my sites already has a strong password, and the other will have one soon.

Other than that, despite my once active presence online, there really is not a lot of my personal information out there.

Apparently, though, stealing personal information is not the only reason sites get hacked. They use the hacked sites for phishing schemes, generating spam, installing malware, and a host of other not-so-nice activities. (At first, when Facebook blocked my blog for being spam, I thought it might have been infected, but if so, Google would have put a warning on the search result as they did once when a bit of code got mistakenly inserted into one of my posts.)

I’d started this article by thinking I’d ignore the password situation and stick with what I have (on the assumption that if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it), but now that I’ve looked further into the matter, I see that it would be a good idea to better secure my sites.

I’ll do it first thing tomorrow.

Or the next day.

Or maybe the day after that . . .

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in blogging, internet, life. Tags: , , , , . 2 Comments »

Facebook’s Vendetta

November 30, 2021 — Pat Bertram

Facebook is continuing its vendetta against me. It still has my blog URL banned, still say my blog is a spam site, and there is no recourse since they don’t answer emails, snail mails, or online help messages. For a while, I just let it go, figuring if they didn’t want me, I didn’t want them, but a few people mentioned how much they missed seeing my blog on their feed, so I got in the habit of reblogging this blog onto another blog — Dragon My Feet — and then posting that URL to FB.

That worked for several months, but suddenly, all photos that had been part of that reblog — the photos I use to illustrate my posts — disappeared from Facebook going back to when I first started reblogging. I experimented with uploading the photo directly to Facebook, and also uploading a new photo to the reblog, and those photos are still on F. So now I know — they have extended their ban of my URL to any reblogged photo that originated here.

I thought of continuing to upload a duplicate of the photo from this blog to the reblog, but then I rethought that idea. It’s only a matter of time before their bots notice that my so-called spam URL is posted on the reblog, and then they will ban that blog, too. For now, I will continue posting the reblog URL on FB, but for those FB friends and acquaintances who want to read my blog, now would be a good time to sign up to get notifications directly to your email address. (Scroll down to the bottom of the left-hand column and click on “follow.”) As with FB, you can simply “like” a post if you want me to know you were here and don’t want to leave a comment, but of course, I am always appreciative of any comment.

If it weren’t for those friends and a group or two that I keep up with, I’d be done with FB. One of the groups I keep up with is my own Suspense/Thriller Writer’s Group, though I am considering disbanding it or at least denying members the ability to post. It used to be a fun group, but less and less as time goes on because of all the changes FB makes. In fact, FB has been messing with the groups again, so I had to change the group from “public” to “private” because if a group is public, now anyone can join without being okayed, and most of the people who want to join are spammers. Real spammers, not people like me who got caught in the FB fly trap. The problem with disbanding is that first I have to remove all 3,500 members one at a time. I did that for another group I had and it’s no fun.

It’s getting to the point where this blog is my only interaction online. Twitter is absurd, LinkedIn is worthless for my needs, and if there was ever any possibility of signing up with Instagram, it ended when FB bought site. I also lost interest in Goodreads when Amazon bought it.

I suppose I should go through and delete some of those old accounts (Google just emailed me and told me I had too many weak and duplicate passwords, and most of those are for accounts I haven’t visited in years.) Though chances are, I will do the same thing with those accounts that I do with FB — just keep on doing what I am doing . . . or not doing.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in blogging, internet, life. Tags: , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Peace and Lies

October 21, 2021 — Pat Bertram

It turns out I am not the only innocent writer being blackened by lies of being a spammer. A friend, the woman who started the Blog4Peace movement, had her site removed by Blogspot for being spam. She’s fighting it, of course, and I hope she has more luck with Google than I did with Facebook. After almost two years of protesting and letter writing, FB still claims my blog is spam. Luckily, all they can do is prevent me from posting my blog link on their site, a ban I get around by copying the link to another blog, and then posting that blog link on FB. I wouldn’t even do that but several people like to see the link in their feeds, and besides, some friends I only “see” on FB.

My peace blogging friend, on the other hand, had to create a whole new site, then replace the defunct URL with the new URL on all fifteen years worth of postings. Ouch.

I had to do that when my original publisher changed websites. Took me months to replace all the URLs on my various sites as well as individual blog posts. (His IT person lied and said they couldn’t do a redirect, but she was just too lazy to do it.) When he did the same thing a few years later, I  gave up and did what every other author does — used the URL for my books on Amazon. At least that URL never changes.

As I have learned, the internet gives and the internet takes away. I did as my friend asked and edited my post about blogging for peace to reflect her new site. I am also posting the information here, so if you want to join us in blogging for peace on November 4, all you have to do is:

  1. Choose a graphic from the peace globe gallery http://peaceglobegallery.blogspot.com/p/get-your-own-peace-globe.htmlor from the photos on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BlogBlastForPeace#!/BlogBlastForPeace/app_153284594738391 Right click and Save. Decorate it and sign it, or leave as is.
  2. Send the finished globe to blog4peace@yahoo.com
  3. Post it anywhere online November 4 and title your post Dona Nobis Pacem (Latin for Grant us Peace)

Sounds cool, doesn’t it? See you on November 4!

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in blogging, internet, life. Tags: , , , , , . 2 Comments »
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