Archive for July, 2010

Restoring PC Stickies

0
674 days
by in quick tip, tools, windows 7, workflow

I use a program called “Stickies” to temporarily keep track of notes throughout the day (similar to the OS X program with the same name, but for Windows). It creates resizable, styleable post-it-note-esque boxes on my desktop that can be repositioned, deleted, or serve as reminders (visually, and with audible alarms). I restarted my machine a few days ago and was prompted to choose a file from which to restore my stickies settings. My heart sunk as the backup restoration failed – but I knew somehow I’d get them back, and I did. Here’s how:

  1. Right-click on the stickies icon in the taskbar hidden icons area
  2. Select “About Stickies v7.0beta” – yours may say something different
  3. A window will open. At the bottom, click the ellipsis (…) to go to the data directory folder
  4. Right-click again on the stickies icon in the hidden icons area and select “Exit” to quit the program
  5. Go to the data directory folder you just opened and duplicate the last file that contains usable data (you can usually tell if the file size is larger, or open it with a code editor and search for significant text)
  6. Duplicate the backup file by copying and pasting it (ctrl+c, then ctrl+v)
  7. Find the file stickies.ini in the data directory and rename it stickies.ini.old
  8. Rename the file you copied stickies.ini
  9. Restart your Stickies program, and you should be back in business

Summer Updates

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679 days
by in farm, food, inspiration

Nearly six months ago, I moved away from the big city. Seldom have I longed for the restaurants, bike lanes (paved roads, for that matter) and friends, despite the fondness for them that I had developed. I now call this place home—the vast, wide open skies and rolling hills of North-Central Wisconsin—and I couldn’t be more sincere in my love and appreciation for where I live.

Mostly, it’s because I have learned, experienced, and accomplished more things recently than during any other time since childhood. In fact, it often reminds me of that period of my life: constant discovery, invention, failure, and recovery. Never, though, has my learning been in such a different area of knowledge: mostly farm related. I have also learned a lot more about food, programming, and design (three things I love, but already knew a lot about).

To give you a taste of my current life, here’s what I did over the past 2 days:

  1. Tweaked the Barn Dance poster
  2. Cooked a big pot of really delicious soup
  3. Weeded a 300-foot bed of carrots, three rows deep
  4. Integrated a client website with several social media plugins, including a language switching feature (between English and Arabic)
  5. Read a book, the subject of which I am not allowed to disclose
  6. Helped dig a 11′x12′ hole for the foundation of a wood-fired brick oven that we’re building over the next several weeks, pictures to come (the plans for which I modified to make a 3′x4′ cooking area)
  7. Wrote an article for the farm newsletter, entitled “Who’s the Sauce?” (hint: not Tony Danza)
  8. Learned a new song on guitar (Home, by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes)

Since moving here, I’ve also:

  1. Driven a tractor
  2. Produced maple syrup, from tapping trees to cooking down
  3. Learned to drive stick shift
  4. Built websites for several clients, with more lining up
  5. Learned Drupal enough to build high-end, custom website templates and integrate modules
  6. Become proficient with jQuery
  7. Cooked for 50 people (with a little help from my friends)
  8. Learned an incredible amount about organic and sustainable farming
  9. Learned to run quickly through the woods
  10. perfected my bread recipe
  11. handled bees
  12. pulled ticks off a dog
  13. chased pigs and cows back to their pastures
  14. picked raspberries
  15. cooked meals with freshly picked produce
  16. learned to become part of someone else’s family
  17. helped with wine-making
  18. harvested wild ramps from the woods
  19. loaded hay into the barn
  20. learned how to fingerpick on guitar
  21. made nearly 2 gallons of raspberry jam
  22. greatly improved my ping pong and pool skills
  23. learned more about state and local politics than I ever expected to
  24. hung out with a toddler, witnessed him seamlessly attach an initial fricative to the rest of a word which he previously pronounced in a toddler-variety of English.
  25. butchered chickens

I’m sure there’s more that I’ve forgotten, and even more to come.

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