50% discount on Take Control ebooks

To celebrate the 18th anniversary of their TidBITS electronic newsletter, the folks over at Take Control are offering a 50% discount on all their ebooks through April 29. The half-off sale includes their newest and most recently updated titles:

• Joe Kissell's "Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac"
• Steve Sande's "Take Control of iWeb: iLife '08 Edition"
• Ted Landau's "Take Control of Your iPhone"
• Brian Tanaka's "Take Control of Permissions in Leopard"
• Joe Kissell's "Take Control of Easy Backups in Leopard"
• Matt Neuburg's "Take Control of Customizing Leopard"
• "Macworld Mac OS X Hints Superguide, Leopard Edition"
• "Macworld Total Leopard Superguide"

You'll also find ebooks on wireless Internet security, switching from PC to Mac, and getting the most out of your iPod. (There are even ebooks on booking a cheap plane ticket and planning and cooking Thanksgiving dinner.)

• Take Control of Upgrading to Leopard
• Take Control of Users & Accounts in Leopard
• Take Control of Sharing Files in Leopard
• Take Control of Fonts in Leopard
• Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac
• Take Control of Mac OS X Backups
• Take Control: The Mac OS X Lexicon
• Take Control of Running Windows on a Mac
• Take Control of Troubleshooting Your Mac
• Macworld Mac Basics Superguide
• Take Control of Buying a Mac
• Take Control of Podcasting on the Mac
• Take Control of Switching to the Mac
• iPhoto 08: Visual QuickStart Guide
• Take Control of Apple Mail in Tiger
• Take Control of Spam with Apple Mail
• Take Control of .Mac
• Take Control of Your 802.11n AirPort Extreme Network
• Take Control of Your Wi-Fi Security
• Take Control of Your iPod: Beyond the Music
• Take Control of Digital TV
• Take Control of Booking a Cheap Airline Ticket
• Take Control of Thanksgiving Dinner

Springtime in the garden

Wait...what's that white stuff?

My interesting friends

All I'm doing these days is working and bitching about the cold rainy weather, so let's take a look at what the more interesting friends of the Mysterious Traveler are up to:

The Samurai Radiologist at Not Totally Rad went for a two hour tour of DC on a Segway, figuring he'd either get a great story or some interesting injuries. Find out which.

Over at Daily, Doug Plummer is taking gorgeous lush photos of tulips.

Geoff Duncan of Percolating is following Doug's lead in going for the lush flower shots while emulating Samurai's pursuit of danger. Here's how.

Over at (My New) Life Out Here, Rae is following my advice on men but apparently doesn't share my taste in literature.

At Cornichon, Ron expands on the New York Times' story about food and politics.

Whew! Guys, you are making me look boring!

A neighbor's tulips

Taken with my iPhone

Books, books, books

Another action-packed day:

• Wrangle with mom by phone (multiple calls)
• Follow up on contacts from last night's SEO seminar
• Attempt to write press release for client
• Several loads of laundry
• Turn off TimeMachine to restore normal computer speed
• Order new cat tags for Smokey
• Zorg home early; errands with him in town
• Cook macaroni and cheese using authentic 1960's recipe
• Seattle Friends of the Library book sale at Magnuson Park with book collector friend
• Feed cats for friends who are on vacation

The book sale was a trip; it's going on all weekend, and well worth visiting. Paperbacks, many of them brand new, unread donations, are 50 cents each. Trade paperbacks and many excellent hardbacks are just $1. There is also a Better Books section and a Rare Book section, both with extremely reasonable prices.

I bought lots of foreign mystery and some science fiction collections, along with a few novelty items and a collectible, signed James Blaylock novel.

Detour for sushi

The schedule for today was long, varied, and busy:

• Do yoga at home
• Make a business call on behalf of my mom
• Finish an article and email it to client
• Pack car with clothes for evening activities
• Belltown to conduct an interview for an article
• Back to Ballard for massage treatment for my hip
• Over to West Seattle for a search engine optimization seminar
• Over to Lake City for contra dancing

Unfortunately, a derailment took place at 8:30 p.m. when the seminar in West Seattle (a very good one) ended and I realized I needed to eat. One of the other seminar attendees was a well-known Seattle food blogger.

"Ever been to Mashiko?" I asked him.

"No," he said. "Let's go!"

On my previous visit to Mashiko, I'd simply eaten what the sushi chef recommended. We did this again, and were not disappointed. One dish, with cucumbers, mint leaf, and tiny fillets of fish with bright silver skin, was particularly exciting. And I had a little bit of the cedar-aged saki. Another amazing meal.

If my friend ends up writing a review of the dishes, I'll post a link here.

A sloppy blog post

I've been writing short pieces for clients like crazy, but somehow writing tight professional pieces doesn't mix with personal blogging. And maybe I've been using all my snarky throwaway lines on Twitter, which I really love. You'll find me there as "mystrev" (short for "mystery reviewer").

The garden is off to a slow start this year. It's been in the 40s most days, with sun mixed with drizzle, which isn't exactly ideal for what I needed most to do: organize the equipment and supplies in the garden shed. Today I finally got out there and did a quick clean up, grabbing a lot of mis-filed stuff, putting it out in the yard, cleaning the shed, and then putting only half of the junk back in (and in an organized fashion). The rest of the stuff will be going into a yard sale (my neighbor is having one soon).

Anyone need plants? I have many pots -- large, medium, and small - - filled with Wargrave's Pink hardy geranium plants that I plan to give away or put in the yard sale. Wargrave's Pink grow into big mounds; you cut them down and they grow right back. These are the hardiest of hardies.

I also have available some cedar planters and other pots filled with misc. greenery and some red tulips. And, of course, there are some pots of Spiny Bear's Breech available. Bear's Breech grows into a big plant that's too much for my small borders (but which keeps coming back every year).

If you'd like any of these, let me know before they get yard-saled.

Don't call me, call Orchard Remote

[Ed. note: A slightly more formal version of this has been posted on one of my other blogs.]

So, you're on the phone with tech support (finally!) and the support person is asking you questions.

Sometimes they're downright insulting. (They want to know if your computer is turned on when you've already figured out the problem is a packet-switching error at your ISP's server.)

Other times they're using terminology you aren't familiar with. (Tech support: "OK, open Terminal and SSH into the...." You: "I beg your pardon?")

Oh, wouldn't it be heavenly if the tech support person at the other end of the line could see that problem you're glaring at on your screen? And even more amazing if you could turn over control of the machine to him/her and just sit back and watch while they diagnosed and fixed it?

Well, you can.

"He's was right there on my computer and could literally move the cursor!" is the way Kim Bamberg describes it.

Kim is not hallucinating. A busy Seattle wedding planner, she signed up for a new tech support service called Orchard Remote. Created by Jeff Hopkins, a former Apple Store "genius," Orchard Remote provides, yes, remote Mac tech support via the internet, logging into and literally taking control of a client's ailing computer while the client watches. Usually the Orchard Remote tech support person talks with the client by telephone or VOIP while the repairs are underway onscreen.

Remote support makes perfect sense for Jon Troxel, who runs a nautical charts company on a remote island in Puget Sound. He's nowhere near an Apple store. But instead of trying to describe his computer problems to phone-based tech support, Jon uses Orchard Remote to deal with everything from his website to his printers. Stuck while trying to modify a PDF, he logged into the Orchard Remote website and filled out a request for help. "Within minutes Jeff was on the phone and showing me how to make an adjustments in Preferences," Jon said.

Orchard Remote is in Seattle, but can serve clients just about anywhere—as long as they are connected to the internet. They access client machines using a Virtual Network Computing (VNC) software similar to that in Apple's iChat application; it works on Macs running the most recent versions of Mac OS X (Leopard or Tiger).

"As long as you can get to our website, you can give us remote control of your machine," Jeff said. He works with clients who use cable or DSL, but even has one customer on dial-up.

Service is available seven days a week, 12 hours a day. (Or more. I was amused to note that every time I emailed Jeff with a question for this article, he shot back a reply in just a few minutes.)

What problems bring people to Orchard Remote? Not surprisingly, many of the same ones that have friends who use Macs phoning me at odd hours! (You know who you are.) Glitches with email and calendars are right at the top of the list. But Jeff is game to assist with things as exotic as performance issues in Adobe Lightroom.

"Even if it's software I don't use, I know how to research it," he said.

Orchard Remote clients run the gamut from Mac-savvy business owners who don't have time to deal with technical glitches to non-technical types who get queasy at the mere sound of words like "reboot" "system preferences" and "software upgrade."

Orchard Remote currently offers unlimited support for six months for $99. The fee covers one household computer or one user with multiple computers. (Full disclosure: I have an account with Orchard Remote, and Jeff is also a client for my writing services.)

I asked Jeff if he has any advice for clients, thinking he might recommend a particular Mac book, or suggest that we get in the habit of using our applications' Help files (ahem). But his suggestion was far more basic and practical:

"Get as much RAM in your computer as you can afford," he said. "It makes your computer so much more responsive across the board."

So, guys, I'll still do triage on the occasional cry for help about lost email or sluggish internet connections. But don't be surprised if all I can do is stabilize your ailing machine and refer you to the specialists at Orchard Remote.

Yabba dabba...

I finally made it to Bedrock, the glass recycling shop just off Elliott under the Magnolia Bridge. Great garden decor, plus the raw materials and plenty of inspiration for DIY projects. And a nice snowshoe cat.

What kind of friend are you?

OK, that's a trick question.

I wanted to get your attention to find out if you're a Friend of Folklife. If you've let your Friend of Folklife membership lapse, or you enjoy the festival every year but have never cozied up to it much past stuffing a $10 bill in the donation box, now's the time.

"Now," as in "by April 30."

This "free" festival has a serious budget of about $2 million collars (with costs going up), and relies primarily on individual donations to make the four-day festival happen. (Has anyone seen any big arts grants recently? Didn't think so.)

Unfortunately, Folklife doesn't fit the usual profile of an arts organization or a human services organization or an educational or research non-profit—even though it works in all those areas. And though Folklife does a lot to benefit many of the regional ethnic and folk arts communities, most supporters of those groups tend to fund their own, smaller, projects before thinking of Folklife.

During the month of April, Folklife is doing a special "new friends" campaign to broaden its membership base. Over the years, Folklife has turned again and again to the same core of supporters. The new executive director of Folklife, Rob Townsend, is now challenging the board and longtime Folklife supporters (like me and Zorg) to help him grow that base.

So, I'm inviting you to join Folklife at the $50 level. The Friends of Folklife donation is tax-deductible, so it's a better deal than making $10 daily donations to the cash boxes on the festival grounds.

And, as a Friend of Folklife, when you come to the festival this year, you'll get a special button that will let you into the Folklife Hospitality suite, a large area with free refreshments where the performers hang out and jam. It's nice to be able to wander in there and get a free Coke or cup of tea without having to stand in a long line at one of the food booths; if it's raining, Hospitality is a wonderful sheltered place to come and hear some of the hottest music on the festival grounds.

I suspect that, if you're reading this blog, you already know what Folklife is all about. But, if not, I want to be sure you know that it's not the hippy-dippy fiddle fest that the local news media show 5-second clips of on the nightly news. Folklife's ethnomusicology staff spend years laying the groundwork with ethnic communities in the Pacific Northwest that enable the Festival to bring some fascinating folkways—music, dance, art, and rituals—to the greater community. In many cases, Folklife's interest has helped a community preserve a tradition that had been dying out, passing that heritage on to another generation. This is delicate work that Folklife undertakes; there are internal divisions in some communities and in others there are notions about performance that are very different from the mainstream (for instance, in some cultures, the idea of an artist performing for free, as the vast majority of Folklife performers do, is very odd).

Another unusual aspect of Folklife is that many of the people you see running stages, doing communications, greeting, staffing hospitality, and making the four-day festival run are volunteers. (Even the new executive director was taken aback to discover how much of the work done by hired staff at other festivals is handled smoothly by Folklife's enormous volunteer network.) Without that immense system of volunteers, Folklife could never remain a free festival. It would have gates, security police, ticket takers, and long lines.

As a writer, I don't use the word "unique" lightly. But I have no trouble applying it to Folklife. It's unique: the largest free folk music festival in North American, and easily the most magical.

So, if you've been enjoying Folklife all these years, and want to make sure it continues, now's the time to join me and other Friends in enjoying your very own annual membership and your very own role making sure Folklife continues. Please click here.

Split personality

I start off every morning full of energy, spend the the day writing and talking with people on the phone, and by 7 p.m. feel like a zombie. Obviously I am not quite over the last of the two colds.

Sunday I did yoga and last night I went to belly dance class, which was early enough that I didn't run out of energy—until I got home. The exercise makes me feel quite a bit better, at least for a short while after I do it.

There's a great caller at the Thursday night Lake City contra dance, so I'm hoping I'll be back up to speed by then and able to go dancing. I am counting on full recovery by Saturday; 31 days of being sick (even slightly) is about my limit!

Lights out

It was rather shocking how many lights I turned out Saturday evening in preparation for Earth Hour. Exhausted after a day spent at the Eastside Upside-Down Sale, REI, and the Ballard Market, followed by a couple of hours in the kitchen making a giant batch of vegetable beef soup, I decided to spend Earth Hour in a hot bath with candles and a good book.

Two candles give plenty of light for reading, I discovered (wonder how many watts that is?). But the big surprise was that the science fiction novel I'd grabbed, Simon Clark's The Night of the Triffids, opens with the protagonist in darkness. He wakes up to discover that the sun has failed to rise—but because he's in a village where many of the residents were blinded decades earlier, they are going about their business unaware that it's still dark. Then the blind neighbors fall silent, and things get even stranger...

A good book.

Cough suppressant

The cold I got last weekend was mild, but every afternoon a dry little cough starts up and just won't stop! After a sleepless night of coughing, I saw my doctor, who gave me a codeine cough syrup. There's not really that much codeine in the cough syrup, and it's been only slightly effective.

It occurred to me that there must be a folk-remedy cough suppressant. To my utter shock, I discovered that there's plenty of research to show that theobromine, an ingredient in dark chocolate, is more effective than codeine cough syrup in suppressing the cough reflex.

Needless to say, I wasted no time checking this out. The recommended dosage is 50 g (2 ounces). So I melted two squares of unsweetened dark baking chocolate, added a little Grade B maple syrup (long story), and am eating it. Full report tomorrow morning.

John Edwards to speak here in September

A client of mine has signed up Sen. John Edwards to speak at a non-profit's fundraising luncheon here in Seattle September 25. It think it could be fascinating to hear Edwards talk on what should be, at that point, a very hot presidential race.

If you'd like to attend (suggested donation to the non-profit public housing group holding the lunching is $150), please let me know. I'm not sure they've announced it to the public yet, so I'm being a bit obscure here. I'll make a second announcement when it officially goes public.

OK, I get the hint

I've been trying to tell myself all day that I'm allergic to something that's blooming, but it's becoming evident that I'm coming down with another cold. Perhaps this is a not very funny way of reminding myself that I owe a client an article on what to do about working out while you're sick.

Zorg has gone off to the Ballard Market to fetch lemon sorbet, chicken noodle soup, and saltines. I plan to stay in bed tomorrow; at least I won't be missing any good gardening weather.

Journaling

Blogging began as journaling, and now that I write for quite a few blogs, this is the one that's really my "home" blog in that traditional journaling sense. Sometimes I'll take a particular incident in my day, or week, and write about that in such as way as to inform or entertain, which is very much new-style blogging. But sometimes I just write about what's been going on in my life. Which is what I'm going to do right now.

At the moment I'm sitting at my desk listening to my email go "ping" every five minutes. You might think this is annoying, but I'll explain why it's pure heaven.

Mac OS X Mail lets you set up sub-mailboxes and then create rules that filter incoming messages to those sub-mailboxes. You can also create rules that can trigger optional sounds and other notifications when mail is routed to any of those sub-mailboxes.

I've set it up so that I hear a "ping" every time an automated ecommerce system registers an order for the ebook I edited that was released this morning. My payment for the editorial work is in royalties, so, along with the author, I'm enjoying listening to the digital cash register.

This is nice because, after working like a madwoman last week, I didn't bill many hours to projects this week. Instead, I dealt with a possible problem with my mom's car (it turned out to be a false alarm), caught up on the belly dance lessons I'd missed, live-blogged (well, Twittered) the Starbucks annual meeting, started my volunteer work at Folklife, coordinated the monthly weblogger meetup downtown, went to the chiropractor (who pronounced my neck pretty much cured); got the electricians to finally fix the sensor on the front porch light; hung out with friends at Jai Thai; went dancing at the Little Red Hen; saw a rare book collection; and got a great massage.

While picking up my mom's car, I ran into a friend from college I hadn't talked with in, oh, 33 years (though I've seen her in Seattle-area theater productions). We had a long chat and I'm going to take one of the fitness classes she teaches in Madrona. I was at the Little Red Hen to hear my friend Geoff play bass with the Bouchards; it turned out to be an extremely friendly place for dancing, and I ran into a fellow I used to dance with 15 years ago at the Tractor Tavern. Dancing is certainly much nicer now that the clubs aren't filled with smoke, and I'm hoping to get back to the Hen soon.

I also found out about a third-Friday SF Trivia night at the Wayward Cafe in Greenwood, sponsored by the Browncoats Meetup. Didn't get there this evening, but Zorg says maybe next month.

SALE! (Herban Pottery is closing)

In the mid 1990s, when I had a bungalow in Wallingford, a small garden pottery story opened nearby on 45th St. Run by a young couple, Herban Pottery had simply the most gorgeous, creative, inspiring selection of terracotta and glazed garden pots, everything from the rustic to the sleek.

I spent huge amounts of money there. And I still have many of those beautiful, durable pots.

Of course, the business grew like mad, moving to SoDo and expanding into a couple of warehouse-sized spaces at 3200 First Ave. South.

We just put in a tiny patio addition to our front brick walkway, and I'm looking for a pair of antique-style wrought iron or cast aluminum chairs with a very small matching table. As Herban Pottery wasn't at the Garden Show, I decided to call them to see if they had the furniture. That's when I discovered they're closing soon, and are selling their current stock, much of it at 25 - 80% off, through the end of March.

See you at the sale?

Play "Mousie" for me

I thought letting the two tabby cats in and out of the house every 15 minutes this week was really annoying—until it started raining. Then the big tabby curled up on the bed and went to sleep. The little tabby started fetching her toy mice and bringing them  to me—in the shower, in the kitchen, at my desk. The arrival of a mouse is followed by a 5-minute grace period during which I can either get up and play "Mousie" with her or have my office bulletin board destroyed.

"Mousie" started a few years ago as a game in which I would throw mice down the basement stairs and she would chase them. It evolved into a game in which I would follow the mice down, she would run up, and I'd toss them up to top of the stairs, where the cat would leap in the air and field them.

At that point, the big tabby got involved. She'd thump halfway down the stairs, sit in the middle, and play infield. She is so good at it that sometimes the little tabby gets disgusted and leaves.

But usually I pitch to both the infield and the outfield. Eventually, all the mice are upstairs again and then I toss them to the little tabby as we gradually make our way down the hall and into the livingroom. Eventually one of us gets bored.

But on a rainy day, the little tabby, who has the metabolism of a hummingbird, is ready to play again 30 minutes later. We have played "Mousie" about six times today. There are white and gray mice scattered all over the house. If I see another mouse, I'm going to scream.

More alarms at night

This week is made up of a series of informal meetings, in person and on the phone. Thus far, at least one of the meeting participants has been late and flustered. Half of the time it's the other person; the other half of the time, it's me. Which makes me want to be very understanding and humble in those instances in which I'm the organized, on-time party.

This reminds me of the advice Ernest Thompson, the marvelous dean of Erza Stiles College, gave us in his retirement speech: "Be kind to one another."

Many of the emails I received today were particularly intense. People were reporting deaths in their families, sending me compliments, asking me out to lunch, and offering me assistance. So I spent more time than usual trying to answer attentively and appropriately. I have some amazing friends!

There was an email from my mom tonight that made my hair stand on end. In it she casually mentioned that she'd gotten an odd phone call from her bank this evening and had given out some of her account information before she began to suspect it wasn't her bank, and hung up on them. She said she was going to call the bank when they opened in the morning to see if there was a problem. Eeek! 

I called her in Florida (fortunately she stays up late) and insisted she call the bank's 24-hour 1-800 number immediately to freeze the account. She just called back to say she'd called them, they didn't have any evidence of usual activity, and they had frozen the account. Whew. Now I think I'll just stop reading email for the evening...

It's late

I throw the laundry into the dryer in the basement, then head up the stairs to gargle with hot salted water.

The nightly whisker count: Kaylee is bedded down in the bathtub (the cast iron is still warm from my bath). Zoe is in the basement, looking for Kit Kat (who, sadly, will never appear again). Sheba is in the bathroom, asleep on a towel next to the sink that is designated a cat bed. (Towels for humans hang on the racks.)

A teaspoon of Grade B maple syrup and I'm off to bed. This cold is making me crazy.