A Better Dish And Pot Scrubbing Brush

It might sound odd to be excited and post a review of a dish washing brush. However, seeing as I enjoy cooking, and have to do my own dishes on top of that, finding a decent brush that can scrub well is exciting!

It's not so much for doing dishes - a dish cloth is good enough for me, most of the time. However, much of my cooking is done in cast iron, and although it is well seasoned cast iron, there are times when food that gets a little overcooked gets stuck to the surface. In that case, I want a good stiff bristled brush. I won't use any type of steel scouring products or soap on my cast iron. Most of the time, a simple wiping with paper towel gets my cast iron cooking implements clean.

I've been quite disappointed with the standard plastic scrubbing brushes meant for dishes and cookware that have been available at my supermarket. Most of them, the bristles are far too soft and wear out too quickly.

When I was growing up as a boy, I know we had much better scrubbing brushes. How do I know? Well, I was often the one to do the dishes and be responsible for scrubbing the cast iron skillet clean!

The other day, when shopping I came across a brush that had nice stiff bristles. Much better than the other ones that were on display.  And it cost about $4.49 whereas the other ones were about a dollar less expensive. So, as the one I had at home was worn down (after about six weeks or use), I purchased it.

The brand of this brush is "Vileda." It's made in China, but distributed in Canada by Freudenberg Household Products Inc. in the Province of Quebec. On the cardboard packaging, the brush apparently also has "antimicrobial action" with Silver Ion particles inside the brush material. Personally, I don't care much about that; I was my dishes in extremely hot water and they are all given a very hot (close to boiling temperature) rinse anyway. As well, my cast iron cookware is always heated well up before I ever start cooking food in them. So I'm really not worried about the antibacterial action, I'm just happy to have found a dish and pan scrubbing brush with good bristles!

In the US, the same brush is distributed under the "Cedar-O" brand and is available here.

Celery & Buttermilk -- Two Quick Tips

Ah, you know I like to eat food! And because I like to eat good food, I have learned to enjoy cooking and preparing it. Two things today happened, and they are related to the fact I like to cook but are unrelated to each other.

First, a remedy to "fix" celery that has gone limpy in the refrigerator.

Add a couple of cups of very cold water to a pitcher. Throw in a quarter of raw potato. Thinly cut the bottom of the celery stalk and then put the stalk into the pitcher with the cold water and raw potato.

Wait about four hours, and your celery should now be crisp once again.

Bonus Tip To Keep Celery Crisp Longer:  Keep your celery wrapped in tinfoil in the refrigerator. This really does work and will help your celery last longer.

Second, Make Your Own Buttermilk:

I go through a lot of buttermilk. I like to drink it as well as bake and cook with it. At almost $4.00 a quart where I am, that can get expensive so I learned how to make my own.

Today's buttermilk is made from a bacterial culture. Most of it is made from 1% butterfat milk. But you can make it from whatever kind of milk you like, although the more fat that is in it, the thicker it will be.

Use store bought buttermilk as a starter. Add between a half and full cup of buttermilk to a quart mason jar. Fill the rest of the mason jar with fresh milk and give it a few shakes.

Set the mason jar on the counter or table in your kitchen for between 24 and 36 hours. You will now have your own homemade cultured buttermilk for a fraction of the cost that you buy it at the store. Refrigerate and use within two weeks, but make sure you reserve some to make more buttermilk!

You can continue to make fresh buttermilk by reserving a half to full cup from what you've made.

Challenges Of Working From Home

As some readers may know (and most of my friends and all of my family knows), I work from home. Working from home is awesome in some ways, but it can also be very challenging in other ways.

I do not miss the morning traffic and the early evening rush hour, that can last for who knows how many hours, if there is an accident up the road. Not having to commute is a major advantage for me, for working at home.

I also like to cook, but my belly has it's own schedule. That is another thing about having a home office that is nice.. I am not bound by a supervisor's schedule as to when my lunchtime or coffee breaks should be. Heck, sometimes I can even eat my lunch while communicating with a client, or I can take some time away and go have a picnic with my ten year old son.

Those kinds of advantages are pretty awesome to have when you have your own business and don't actually need a physical office, with hours, and commute times.

When I clean my home, I am also cleaning my office.

But sometimes, all those advantages aren't all that great. There is no delineation between home, work, and recreation. Sometimes my job or what I do is recreation, but then I end up not doing what I really want to do, that by working, and losing sight of my goals.

I am so thankful for an old friend of mine who has helped advise me and coach me at times. Tawyna Sutherland is an old friend, and who has also been a coach and advisor to me, and her systems work very well... when I put them place and practice them.

You can learn more if you want to be a virtual assistant and work from home yourself. That is her specialty - the field of virtual assistants, but her skills and knowledge include organizational and other experience in effectively working from and using a home office.

Tawnya is awesome at getting through the "chaff" and cutting to the core to help individuals get to what they want to be.

The Right To Exist

I know there are some major issues going on in the Middle East.

I guess that is an understatement. I am getting a bit tired of people who simply parrot one side of the issue, and seem to go on and on about how Arabs are evil; how Muslims have these terrible nasty things written in their Holy Book, and yet ignore the similar nasty and horrible commands by God in the Old Testament books.

One of the things that I hear over and over is that Israel as a nation "has a right to exist."

Ok... let's forget about Israel for a moment, and focus on this notion of a nation having a "right to exist." What sort of "right" and from where does it come exactly? Do all nations have a right to exist? Or does Israel have some "special" right that no other nation has, to exist?

Perhaps we need to define what "rights" are to answer the question properly. If there is some "right" for nations to exist (and then we need to define "existence" as well), and it does not simply apply to Israel, but to ALL nations, that leaves us with some questions, does it not?

If all nations have a "right" to exist, then why were not other nations fighting for the continuing right of the former USSR, to exist? Today, there is no such political entity as the USSR. But if the USSR had a right to exist, then why does it not still exist?

Why did all the other nations not stand up and when it was breaking up, defend the USSR's so called "right to exist?"

If Israel has a right to exist as a nation, does Lubbock, Texas have the same right? Does the state of Oregon have that right?

So what exactly is a "nation's right to exist?"

Why does it not apply to the Gaza Strip and West Bank? Who is supposed to "declare" the nation for the "right" to be a right in the first place?

Props To A Great Company

I have known the Saunders family for years, who have owned a family business in Toronto for over three generations.

I have to admit that I am not always one to give public "shout outs" to businesses that provide good service. Good service is what you usually expect. Excellent service though is oftentimes hard to come by.

The family owned business is called Britannia Printers and they are located in Toronto, ON. However, they provide printing services all across North America. One of the things that for me is a real asset is that they can print anything! I do know that they print monthly medical journals as well as books, but I get all my business cards and promotional materials from them.

I have never had a problem with their service, ever. The nice thing is that their work is always done on time, and there have been a few times when I've needed a rush job and somehow they managed to come through.

Thanks Les! You deserve some props!

Irish Bread

I love Irish Bread, including soda scones and wheaten. My mother used to make it for me regularly, when I was growing up, and of course on visits to Northern Ireland, it was pretty much expected that wherever we went to visit, there would be scones and wheaten being served.

In some of the "tea shops," you would order tea and a scone for an afternoon snack. One of my favorite places was not far from Dublin, in the Wicklow mountains. I believe it was near Dún Laoghaire.

Yes, I have some very fond memories, including the food and hospitality of friends and relatives. The last time I visited was in 2007. Time for another trip!

In the meantime, I can make my own wheaten bread with this recipe here!

David & Fly Tying

In my earlier post, I mentioned how my son David enjoyed fly fishing with me. Another thing he has enjoyed is tying his own flies. At first, I was a bit hesitant when David was very young and expressed an interest in fly tying. I certainly didn't want him fumbling with his fingers and having the pointy edge of a fishing hook going through. But he did very well! Over the years, we have done some fly tying together, and one of the things I did was to make sure I put the very first flies we tied together into an envelope, never to be actually used.

That envelope sits in my desk drawer and I've marked the date on the front. We've had a lot of fun.

If you want to teach kids to tie flies, you do need to have some patience. They are not going to get it right the first time, all by themselves. In fact, the first several times David tied flies, he actually helped me instead of tying his own at his own vice. When he was three years old, "helping Dad" gave him a sense of pride and pleasure and I let him think he was doing most of the work. If you can start them off at an early age, there is a good chance it will be a hobby they might always enjoy!

When we first started off, there were too many fingers in the way for any hope of tying flies quickly, but I expected that. Instead, you anticipate the fun you'll have with your child, and make the time to absolutely enjoy it! Production fly tying is not what it is about when your teaching your children but forming great memories and having some special collectibles for later in their age.

Today, David has his own fly box with a variety of flies that he has tied either on his own or with my help. What a moment it was the day he opened his fly box up and said, "I just love my flies!" And looked at me with pride in his eyes.

Chironomids are actually good patterns to start with when teaching children to fly fish as they are usually fairly simple and don't use a lot of variety of materials. But of course, they may not be as "pretty" as some other more complicated patterns. But that's ok - whatever they tie up, either on their own or by themselves, it will be a joy when they catch a fish with one or more.

Here's the video of David, wanting to teach other kids how to tie up a Wooley Bugger. It was done when he was 7 years old, and there is a bit of coaching by me that you will probably hear in the background, but nonetheless, we had a good time together making it:

Happy Birthday, David!

My son turned ten years old the other day.It's been an awesome ten years, and David Hugh Scott is just a joy and always has been since the day he was born. His website certainly needs some work - but a couple of years ago, (or perhaps it was a year and a half), he approached me and said that he wanted to learn HTML and wanted to have his own website.

We made a list together of some of his hobbies and interests, and started to work on it, but alas we have not done much more. His interests, hobbies and just being a great fellow all round have meant little time for learning more HTML. Perhaps when the summer is over and the weather is less conducive to outdoor activities, we'll get back to the website and update it and get rid of the dead links.

The photo here was taken on David's birthday when he and I just went out together (after all the kid's had left his birthday party) to kick a soccer ball around at a local park (yes I know, for all my relatives in N. Ireland, it's a football, but that would confuse my North American visitors).

We spent a couple of hours after cycling to the park together, just having fun together. At this point in his young life, he's accomplished quite a bit and I'm very proud of him. He took an interest in Karate about 2 1/2 years ago, and since then has gone up through the belt ranks and is now on his Blue (or is it purple?) Belt and in addition, he attends other classes with the sole purpose of coaching others.  His next belt graduation will be the last one where the ceremony is public. Once he receives his brown belt (likely by the end of the year), all the graduations are done after a private grading session with his Sensei.

David is home schooled (mostly by his mom). Due to his interest in Karate, he also developed a strong interest in learning Japanese, so that is part of his home schooling curriculum. It's fun to hear him teach me new Japanese words and phrases every so often. But, I can say I was glad I was born in Northern Ireland and not Japan! I enjoy writing the odd poem but Haiku is not my thing.

Some of David's other activities include Lego building. Ever since he's been about three years old, he's been a Lego monster! I am not sure how many sets he has, but a few hundred at least wouldn't be too far off in my estimation.

Although we haven't been able to get out much this year, David also enjoys fly fishing with me and has tied up his flies as well. That is part of his home schooling - learning about bugs and stuff, although we don't call it "Entomology Class." That is the nice thing about home schooling - kids get to learn about all kinds of things in an environment when they are interested - and with David that's been most of his waking time.

He also enjoys earning money and has a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit, so I think he's well set for life. I purchased a book for him and he did a book review, with all proceeds of the sales as a result of the book review going to him. It was about a fly fishing fly named "Olive" who is is a Wooley Bugger. You can read David's book review here:

http://about-flyfishing.com/library/weekly/olive-the-little-woolly-bugger.html

Anyhow, I love to talk and write about my son, David. He's an awesome wee man that I'm very proud of and very happy he is in my life! Welcome to being double digit in age, David! I look forward to many more to come with you!

Ian Scott On Ross Goldberg's Latest

Ian Scott recently had an interesting conversation going in comment form with Ross Goldberg. It was in regard to a review Ian had written on a Warrior Forum product (they call them WSO's - short for Warrior Special Offer) that Ross had been involved in producing.

Interestingly, Ian couldn't recommend the product outright although he did write that if you wanted to buy it, you should do some research before implementing some of the methods that are in the course.

Not everything in the course is controversial, of course - but SEO these days has changed considerably since Google introduced their Penguin update. The Panda update also had some major effects on rankings for some websites, but Penguin really pushed things along where even high quality websites were, in some cases, obliterated from Google's SERP's.

The jury is still out on what might be the most effective way to get rankings back for sites that were Penguin slapped. There are some in the business who believe this update was all about back link profiles while others are just as adamant that it has all to do with onsite quality issues. Personally, I've seen a combination of factors, and I wouldn't even be surprised if Google added some "randomization" to their algorithmic update just to keep people guessing.

I'm still seeing some pretty crappy websites being ranked with low quality content (although some of these have been weeded out, but not all), while others that have excellent back link profiles and are quite aged (we're talking ten plus years old) get hit by the Penguin. I've also seen some recovery with looking at and removing on-site over optimization - and that's all we did. In some cases, diversifying back links including anchor text has helped with other sites.

And then there are some sites where nothing seems to help a site rank for anything important, at least going by what some of the website owners claim in a variety of forums where such discussions take place.

Some folk are claiming that SEO is dead after Penguin. I chuckle at that - some people have been claiming that for over a decade! Search Engine Optimization in some for or other will always be important, and as Ross advises, testing all the time is important. If you're interested to know about the course he was involved in, you can read about it here (and no, that is not an affiliate link).

Was your site affected by Google's Penguin update? If so, what have you tried to do if anything to get it back or are you looking at other ways to generate traffic?

More Of My Hobbies

In my last post, I wrote about my Boston Terrier, and yes, training puppies has always been a passion of mine. I remember getting my Shepherd Lab cross when I was about 25, and how much I thoroughly enjoyed training Tara. She was a great dog and a wonderful companion. But, I have many interests and hobbies. Sometimes, I will become interested in something and read and read and study, and learn as much as I can while I pursue it. I don't get tired of it, but I'll get back to one of my other ones and kind of sink myself into it. Some of the things I've done through the years include home winemaking, fly fishing of course, studying privacy and security issues, and I also ran a business at one point, building custom fishing rods. That started out as a hobby back in about 1984, when I wanted to do something really special for my dad's birthday. He needed a new fishing rod, and I came across the idea of custom building one at the Toronto Sportsmen's Show. I became fascinated with the idea and purchased a rod blank and all the components I needed, and set about learning how to build rods. That first rod was not one of my best, that is for sure, but my father appreciated it and it was well used. Later, I went on to build him a couple of fly rods as I decided to create a business out of the hobby, running the business out of my home. It certainly did not make me rich, but I had the opportunity to travel to seminars and make some new friends, many of whom are still in my circle of friends today. Today, while bouncing around on some web pages, I came across this accurate article on the history of custom rod building. It sure brought back some memories as I certainly remember when the Rod Guild was founded and I think I may even have a copy of one of the first editions of RodMaker Magazine. I have not built rods in quite some time. A marriage breakup which meant having to sell the house and me moving to much smaller digs to be able to afford the child support meant I had to focus on other things. But it sure is nice to pull off one of the old rods I built and fish it, and even come across clients I had 15 or more years ago,who say, "Hey, Ian! That rod you built me - I still use it and love it!" One of these days, I might get back into rod building again, but not as a business, I don't think. One of the things I think would be a lot of fun though is to sit down and build a rod with my nine year old son! And if he enjoys it, perhaps it will become a new hobby that he will want to learn more about and spend time doing.

My Boston Terrier

Taking a little break from the SEO posts as I've been rather busy with work related tasks which is good! I very much appreciate my clients and am glad of the work!

My Boston Terrier is sleeping on a blanket beside me. He is the cutest thing, most of the time. Did you know that Boston Terriers were originally bred to be pit fighters? It is hard to believe that such a gentle and loving breed were once thought to be something that would fight in a pit with so called "gentlemen" taking bets on which one would kill the other.

When they were first developed as a breed, they could be quite large but today, they more commonly grow to between 15 and 25 pounds. Often, they do not look as much as they weigh. When people pick p my Boston Terrier named Beans, they are often astounded by how much he weighs in their arms as he does not appear to be the 25 pounds or so that he is.

A couple of weeks ago marked his first birthday. I remember very well going to see him along with my girlfriend, Colleen Mackenzie, about 8 or 9 days after he was born and his eyes were just beginning to open up. Colleen and I both fell in love with Beans, and decided upon him right away. About 5 weeks later, we picked him up and he's been a great companion to me ever since.

Boston Terriers are a great breed to own if you have children. Although they are small, they are certainly not fragile and with a very spirited and fun nature, they love children! In fact, when my son comes to visit, Beans and David are forever hanging out with each other, and then when David has to leave, Beans cries like a human baby for sometimes up to 15 minutes. The noises that come out of him are hilarious at times!

When we first brought Beans home, we decided to feed him Iams puppy food. It is supposed to be a high quality food, however I became a bit concerned when I heard of pet food recalls. After quite a bit of research, I decided to put Beans on a raw meat for dogs diet and he has done so well on it! It is true that this type of diet is not quite as convenient as just putting kibble in a bowl, but in the end, it's not that bad either. Although I often feed him raw chicken including the bones, or other raw meats and bones, I can also purchase this ground up and made into patties that are frozen, at a local pet food store.

Today is liver day! It is important for dogs on a this type of diet to get organ meats for the additional nutrients that are not available in other meats. At the same time, organ meats should not be anywhere near the majority of the type of food they eat.

If you have a pet, you might want to consider getting him or her off a commercial diet!

Fake SEO Experts - Don't Hire One

Frequently, business proprieters get email spam from individuals claiming that they will increase their rankings in the earch engines. Some of the emails have the most ridiculous stuff in them. Promises of a #1 ranking or tons of traffic within days. Can they really live up to their claims after taking your money?

The truth of it though, because business owners crave more traffic and better rankings, these SEO businesses are forming to capitalize on these desires. Some of these so called SEO companies start up with one business name, and then a few months later, after taking money from the unsuspecting, doing a poor job, shut down and then pop up later with a different business name.

SEO is as much an art as it is a science. There are a number of methods that will have your site ranked higher on Google and Bing but you can't just depend on one way, alone. You risk an algorithm change and then your history.

Ian Scott, SEO expert was overheard not long ago pointing out that there are very few legitimate SEO businesses today.Ian has some expertise in the area of providing legitimate SEO services to clients throughout North America since 1997.

It is best to run from anyone that makes ridiculous claims about how fast you will rank #1 in the search engines. Anyone who makes you that kind of guarantee is just looking to take your money and run.

Some SEO companies will promise you page one Google rankings for the most obscure terms. What's the point of being ranked highly for something no one searches on? A fraudulent SEO expert once promised me number one rankings for a crazy keyword phrase about salt water fish in grand prairie.This was to do with a fly fishing site I had. Well, how many fly fishers would be searching that term in the first place? Because it is doubtful that there are any other websites that would even contain that term, it of course would not be difficult to get ranked for it. But what would it matter? What would that get me for the money they wanted to be paid for?

To see really good results that are useful, one must be patient. The work should be done in a comprehensive manner where a number of methods are used. There is no single SEO method that should be relied upon because Google is constantly adjusting the way it provides results. Search engine optimization requires knowledge of many different aspects and if you don't incorporate them all, you could find your site has dropped like a rock in the results pages the next time there's an algorithmic change.

Learn more about Ontario web consulting here

More On SEO

Do metatags matter these days? Yes and no. While they don't do much to help you get better rankings in the search engines, they do have some very important uses. There are so many myths about metatags these days, and if it's a subject that is important to you, you need to get the facts from someone who has been doing SEO successfully for over 15 years - not just theory, but reality.

Ian Scott writes about the description metatag. You should read the article if you are confused by what is important and what is not.

Dealing With Lightning And Youth Sports

At any given time throughout the world, there are a couple of thousands of lightning storms occuring. Each storm on it's own produces an astounding number of lightning bolts. Every bolt of lightning packs enough energy to keep a 100 watt lighbult lit for more than a quarter of a year. Given how often and how dangerous lightning can be, it is a wonder that more individuals don't suffer injury or death by these potent lightning bolts.

It is during the summer months in North America when most lightning strikes the ground. This is the same time when children are involved in outdoor sports.

In these situations, the adults involved -- the parents, coaches, and officials -- are responsible for ensuring the safety of the child athletes. A lightning policy should be in place and someone at the sports venues needs to be responsible for watching carefully the weather conditions and risks. It is not a good idea to gamble on personal observation of storms that might be brewing. The use of a portable lightning detector at the sports venue can provide superior advance warning and ensuring the safety of those involved.

Officials including convenors, referees and others involved in sports of children should be educated on how to ensure the safety of those attending the games when there is risk of lightning strikes.

If you can see lightning or hear the claps of thunder, it is a good idea to postpone the game and maybe even consider canceling it until another day. The kids you are responsible for are already at risk. Even though there may be no raindrops, the risk of lightning is quite high at your location. Many lightning strike injuries occur as the storm begins as many are just not aware of the risks. Some don't know that lightning strikes might occur fifteen kilometers distant from where the rain is falling.

Louder or more frequent thunder means that the storm is approaching, increasing your risk. When the delay in time between lightning bolt and hearing thunder is less than 30 seconds, your kids should be in a safe place already, or rushing to get there!

Having around weather warning devices including weather radio is important as a credible SkyScan lightning detector. However, do not let this information override good common sense.

Large buildings provide a much safer environment during a storm than smaller ones. Small structures like gazebos and cabanas should be avoided during thunderstorms.

Learn more about the ews pro lightning detector.

It's Not White Lightning - But It's A Killer

One of the most enjoyable things about my business is the wide variety of clients I have. With each one, I get to learn new things, discover things I never knew before and had no idea about.  One of our most recent clients deals with lightning detectors - not the "white lightning" sort but one of the most dangerous weather killers - those electrical storms in the sky that strike the earth.

Did you know that lightning is the second highest storm killer in the United States since 1959? I had no idea that was true, until I started working with SkyScan International, a distributor of the SkyScan brand of lightning detectors.

Up until working with this business, I did not even know that there was such a thing as lightning detectors, and now that I do know, I wonder why more organizations that have employees or run sports programs outdoors don't have them. Instead, they rely on weather forecasts which cannot accurately predict electrical activity in the atmosphere, or they use what they believe to be "safe" ways of counting the number of seconds that pass between a flash of lightning (who knows how far away it is exactly), and the sound of the thunderous boom.

There have been a number of tragic deaths reported in the news in recent years about people being struck by lightning with tragic consequences. Perhaps if a lightning detector had been close by, those tragedies might have been prevented.

Although there are companies that work in mining, forestry, gas and oil, and the military, who have an interest in protecting their employees that work outdoors, lightning detectors are not only for them.  With both permanent detector installation as well as portable lightning detectors like the EWS-PRO, schools and both amateur and professional sports organizations should have them at their venues.

In fact, there are some portable lightning detectors that are quite affordable for many people who enjoy outdoor family activities while camping or hiking - $179.95 for this portable lightning detector isn't a whole lot of money when it involves protecting loved ones while participating in activities during those months of the year when lightning could strike. With the ability to detect lightning within a 40 mile radius, that's a lot of safety time built in.

I think I'll make sure I have one at the camping trailer next summer. And the nice thing is this one is portable and I can take it where ever I go!

Does your school, organization or company that has a lot of outdoor activity going on have access to lightning detectors? Is there a policy in place about what to do under a variety of situations when electrical thunderstorms are in the area?

I had never thought of this myself until I began working with SkyScan International - and that's one of the reasons I love what I do!

 

 

A Radical Change In Search?

I came across an article in CNN this evening that discusses what some are calling a "radical change in search" in the way Google may deliver some search results to you. What's all the fuss?

Well, now if you are logged into your Google account, when you do a search on something, Google will also provide you with what they call your "personal results" as well as other more generic and organic results. Sounds like an interesting concept. Google is talking about it like this on their own blog:

"But clearly, that isn't enough. You should also be able to find your own stuff on the Web, the people you know and things they've shared with you, as well as the people you don't know but might want to ... all from one search box."

Words can often mean different things. In this case, "radical" isn't quite the word that describes what Google is probably hoping for, and I am personally a bit dubious that this addition of "personal search results" will greatly transform the general internet user's way of searching.  I have several reasons for this dubiousness.

The first one is that I think Google obviously has some work to do on this "personal results" area. I have a Google account (which I will discuss later) and logged into it to see what I could see. Sure enough, when I went to Google.com, and typed in 'fly fishing', I was given an option to see my so called "personal results." All 300 of them, apparently. So out of curiousity, I clicked.

Somehow or other, Google thinks I should be interested in some individuals named "Ed Burgass," "Dean Burris," and "Shannon Long." With all due respect to these three individuals, I have no clue who they are or why Google thinks I should either know them or want to know them, other than that they have some fly fishing related images up somewhere. But surely there are some others interested in fly fishing that might have images up as well? Indeed, while playing around with my Google + part of my Google account, I have friends there that I know quite well and have even competed with in fly fishing competions.

And yet these people are not there in my "personal results" even though in their own web wanderings, they have uploaded fly fishing images (using their Google Account as well).

At the top of the results are "Images for fly fishing." The very first image in the row is an image of a wine bottle beside a wooden fountain pen case sitting on my desk. Sure, it's my image, and it's on my home winemaking site, but it's certainly got nothing to do with fly fishing or my fly fishing site!

The title and file name have nothing to do with fly fishing either. So I am puzzled as to why it would appear there when there are so many other images that I do have that ARE related directly to fly fishing.

The next result in my "personal results" is a link to my above mentioned fly fishing site, but the rest of the results don't make sense to me other than the fact they were "shared" by the above mentioned people, Ed Burgass, Shannon Long, and Dean Burris.

More Dubious Reasons That "This Is Radical"

Personally, more of my friends don't have Google and Gmail addresses than do. I realize that there are lots and lots of individuals that do have Gmail and thereby a Google Account, but from my own unscientific studies, the majority of average internet users do not. They don't see the need for another email address; they are quite happy with what they have.

Don't get me wrong, I love Google and all the nifty features they offer along with a Google account. But there are so many, I really don't even have the time to explore them all! I don't think the average internet user has the time either.  As well, although I have a Gmail account, I use it in a very limited fashion. It's where I subscribe to newsletters like Dr. Mercola.. who has some quacky ideas, but I'm sometimes interested in his quacky ideas but don't want his emails polluting my primary email address and distracting me from my work and close friends.Sometimes there are websites offering "free reports" which might be interested in reading but I don't want to take the chance that they will send me daily email once I subscribe.

I also use when I need to test and diagnose an issue between email servers. And that's about it. I check my gmail address maybe once a week at best.

Having said that, I do use some of the other features of a Google Account regularly.

I also will often create Google and Gmail accounts on behalf of my clients and provide them with the login credentials out of transparency, but I know for a fact they have no interest in logging in. They just want me to do the work I have promised and send them reports. They don't have time to mess around.

Finally, Google+ is so unintuitive in my opinion, that the average internet user will not ever really use it to it's full potential. I'm pretty smart and internet savvy, and I even get confused and am sort of "not quite getting it" as far as how Google+ is organized, or what's going to happen if I share "publically" or just in "circles" or what have you.  There really isn't much reason for the average internet user and consumer to jump into Google+ and leave Facebook, in my opinion.

However, we do know from seeing some search results, that Google appears to have at least a litte bit of ranking built into their algorithms that they use Google+'s even in their organic search, and not just in what you and your friends may have "plussed" while logged into  Google accounts. So for those of us involved in search engine optimization, we need to learn as much as we can and make adjustments - but at this juncture, I'm not so sure we're going to see any "radical" changes in the typical meaning of the word.

 

 

 

Linux, A Laptop & A Laser Printer

I don't own a USB printer other than a fairly poor quality Lexmark which is an ink jet printer. I really dislike using it, and it won't run under Linux which is my preferred operating system on my laptop. So when I need something printed in good quality, up to now I've been emailing the document to my business partner who then prints it off on her printer.

However, I do own a huge Tektronix Phasar 560 laser printer which, except for its size, I like. It is very fast and does a nice job for my needs. But, it uses a parallel port which my laptop does not have.

I have managed to get it working though! I need to print a large number of documents over the next several days so I was looking for a solution and discovered that I could purchase a parallel usb converter cable. I did not know that such a thing existed, but they do. After purchasing the cable, and with a bit of research, I managed to get the laptop with the Linux operating system to print to the Phasar.

In case anyone else has a similar issue, I am providing the solution here. First, I needed to download the driver for the printer. My version of CUPS did not have it, but I found it here.With the print configure tool in OpenSuse 11.2, I installed the driver, but that was not enough to get the laptop to recognize the printer. The operating system did detected that there was a printer but it was in an "unknown location."

So my next stop was to manually enter the device uri location like this:

parallel:/dev/usb/lp0

After doing that, the laptop was able to communicate with the printer, and I can now print!

For some reason though, the operating system changed the device uri location to:

usb://Tektronix/Phaser%20560P which I don't understand, but I don't really care as long as it works.

I was thinking that I might try to sell the Phasar as I thought it was going to be useless to me with my laptop.  However, I also have several ink cartridges for it, and they are very expensive but last a long long time.

So, if anyone else has a laser printer with the parallel port, you can still keep it and make it work with your laptop's USB port.