Travel, Tech, Thoughts…

  • Hiking in Silver Springs State Park

    I was invited to give a presentation to a freethought group in Ocala and thought it might be a good opportunity to explore a little more of Florida.  I looked up hikes near Ocala and found Silver Springs State Park.  From what we were told by some of the people where I gave my presentation,…

  • transferring some email between Gmail accounts using Thunderbird

    I have several Gmail accounts for various reasons.  Occasionally I have the need to transfer emails between the accounts.  The only way to transfer just some email between Gmail accounts is to use a desktop email client, like Thunderbird, Evolution, or KMail.  Unfortunately, the process isn’t all that straightforward and can be quite confusing at…

  • Android: Wink Hub and Sprint’s Data Optimizer

    I reformatted my Android phone (LG G3 with Android 5.0.1, software version LS990ZVG) the other day to address a problem I was having.  After reformatting, I reinstalled all of my apps and everything seemed to be working fine until I tried to log into the Wink Hub app to adjust the settings for some of…

  • Linux: Installing Redshift

    There is a growing body of research suggesting that blue light before bedtime can be associated with sleep problems.  I’ve known about this for a while, but have just recently started having sleep problems.  I decided to try some of the programs that make changes to the color of your monitors to see if it…

  • Kubuntu: How to Map Windows Network Share

    My workplace is largely a Windows based institution.  Due to a collaborative project, I was recently asked to access some documents on a Windows Network Drive.  I was sent directions for how to add that drive in Windows.  Those directions were not that helpful as I, of course, run Linux.  As perhaps the only Linux user…

  • KDE – Adjusting the Look and Feel of the Desktop and Application Windows

    I love how configurable KDE is as a desktop.  However, adjusting the look of the desktop is something of a nightmare.  There are five different options to adjust different aspects of the desktop and application windows, each of which does different things, but the labels given to these don’t always reflect what the customizations will…

  • Linux – Kubuntu 16.04 with Plasma 5.5.5 – unable to change file associations

    I just upgraded my laptop (Lenovo ThinkPad T540P) to the latest version of Kubuntu – 16.04 with Plasma 5.5.5.  Everything was running great until I had an issue with Ark, the archiving program that comes with KDE.  It was having an issue unzipping an archive.  It seemed to unzip the archive, but the resulting file…

  • Half Dome – Yosemite National Park

    I was in Northern California on a speaking tour but had a couple of days while I was there that I didn’t have any speaking engagements.  I had combined the speaking tour with a conference I was attending in Seattle, the plan being that I would travel to several locations in California to talk about…

  • Point Lobos, California Hike

    While on a book speaking tour in California, I had a few days where I didn’t have any talks.  One one of those days, while I was staying in Santa Cruz, I drove down the coast to Point Lobos State Natural Reserve.  I was using my down time to get some work done but also needed…