Category: paranoia

The Dream

In the dream, Trump ordered the creation of a new $200 bill, with his face on it. The bills were larger than regular bills, and made of plastic so the couldn’t get wrinkled. But no one would use them and no stores would accept them, because no one believed they were real.

International Shipping

So UPS, let me get this straight.

Someone ships an express worldwide package — 58 pounds — to Ghana, Africa, using my UPS account number, but from an origin that’s about 2,000 miles away from where I live. The bill for the shipping is over $1,000. I almost never ship anything, let alone anything to Africa.

You don’t see anything just a little bit odd about that scenario?

Texas Monthly

What I’ve learned in the last year of reading Texas’s premiere “lifestyle” magazine: Lots and lots of people have been horribly murdered in Texas over the last thirty years, and virtually none of the people incarcerated (or executed) for the crimes have been guilty. So, where are all the real killers?

Columbine at 13

Everything you remember about Columbine is wrong. A new book out reminds of what really went down. One interesting tidbit from this page:

Myth #5. There were no warning signs that could have prevented the Columbine massacre.

Truth: Other parents had complained about Eric Harris, multiple times. Both Eric and Dylan had been arrested before. Thirteen months before the shooting, investigators discovered evidence that Eric was building pipe bombs. Dozens of pages of obscene threats on the internet were also documented. The sheriff’s department covered up the initial evidence that signaled the threat.

Outlook vs. iCloud

This is probably only going to be of interest to a few dozen Googlers who happen by, but here goes:

Outlook 2007 and iCloud 2.0 don’t get along. If you have email stuck in your Outlook outbox (particularly scheduled items), uninstall iCloud. Everything will work suddenly work fine after a reboot.

If You Use Firefox, Install This

Lazarus has saved my butt many times. What it does: It recovers text you have filled out in Firefox forms or text boxes so when you accidentally close a tab, or if a login screen suddenly pops up when you’re in WordPress and you save a document… only to discover that, no, WordPress can’t save a thing if you’ve been inadvertently logged out. Lazarus fixes all of that with a simple plug-in.

Get it now before you need it.

WordPress and CAPTCHA Systems

Just installed my first CAPTCHA antispam system on Drinkhacker.com today at the behest of my web host. (We don’t get much spam, but, well, long story.) Installed SI CAPTCHA and it seems to work as advertised, page loads aren’t significantly impacted, and the images are easy to read. Anyone else have in-depth experience with CAPTCHAs on WordPress? Anything I should look out for?

How to: Change All Files from “Hidden” to “Unhidden”

Vestiges of a virus left a computer with most of the files in the My Documents folder invisible, so the malware creator could make it appear that files were damaged (and magically “repaired” once you paid for the software to fix things).

I removed the virus but the files stayed set hidden. Online advice about fixing this didn’t work, but I stumbled upon the correct solution myself. Here’s how to fix this issue if it happens to you. This should work in most versions of Windows, from Windows XP to Windows 7.

Find the folder containing the files you want to repair in Windows Explorer.

Right-click on the folder and choose Properties.

The “Hidden” box will (probably) be clear, indicating all files are “unhidden” — which isn’t correct.

Check the box so that it has a check mark in it (not a square). Click Apply and select “Apply changes to this folder, subfolders and files.” Click OK.

It will take several minutes for all files in that folder to be updated. They will now all be hidden. Don’t panic.

When it’s done, UNCHECK the “Hidden” box so that it’s clear, and click Apply again. Select the “Apply changes to this folder, subfolders and files” option again and click OK.

Now, all files will — finally — no longer be hidden.