CCleaner is a marvelous freeware program that deletes the numerous unnecessary disk files cluttering your system disk. The typical CCleaner run will free up a half a gigabyte of disk space. It's safe, I run it every few weeks and never a hiccup.
In this day and age of 200 Gigabyte hard drives, why do we care? Zapping clutter off the hard drive makes file searches go faster, makes anti virus runs go faster, makes Windows Explorer load faster and paint new screen faster. It makes browsers go faster. Viruses (Virii) malware has to hide on your hard drive somewhere. It's easier to hid in a few gigabytes of clutter.
Google will find you a download site for CCleaner. The site will attempt to sell you a fancier version that costs money, but the free one is all I need.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Running out of hard disk space?
Try WinDirStat. It can be down loaded, Google for a download site. Windirstat looks at every file on your hard drive and draws a cute graph showing how much space each file is sucking up. Rolling the mouse over the file symbol in the graph calls up its name in the bottom text window. Gives you a a good feel for where to look for fat to cut.
First place to go is Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Add & Remove Programs. That pops up this window.
It lists every program on your machine. Now is the time to zap all those craplets and games your machine came with and you never use. Be careful, this window lets you zap darn near everything on the disc, including parts of Windows itself, your browser , MS Office. It's like a chainsaw, cuts fast and cuts anything. Useful to be sure, but you gotta be careful. The Programs with the MS icon of a Computer Monitor, CD and CD Box you mostly want to keep.
When you click on anything to remove it, it will tell you how often you used it and when it was used last. Things that haven't been used since the bought the machine can probably be spared.
First place to go is Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Add & Remove Programs. That pops up this window.
It lists every program on your machine. Now is the time to zap all those craplets and games your machine came with and you never use. Be careful, this window lets you zap darn near everything on the disc, including parts of Windows itself, your browser , MS Office. It's like a chainsaw, cuts fast and cuts anything. Useful to be sure, but you gotta be careful. The Programs with the MS icon of a Computer Monitor, CD and CD Box you mostly want to keep.
When you click on anything to remove it, it will tell you how often you used it and when it was used last. Things that haven't been used since the bought the machine can probably be spared.
Cannon Mountain Ski Weather
We got a measly inch and a half of new snow last night. It's cooled down to right around freezing. That's marginal for snow making. I'm told the guns will snow at temps up to freezing due to the chilling effect of the compressed air expanding, but you get better snow when its solidly below freezing, in the twenties, which it ain't right now.
The Hobbit
We saw it last night. To give some perspective, I am a long time Tolkien fan, I read Tolkien as a child, I read Tolkien aloud to my children when they were young, I saw all three Lord of the Rings movies in theaters, and I have DVD's of them as well. So I was going to see this movie no matter what.
Criticism of movies based upon widely read books is tricky. Many will trash a flick for the smallest departure from the words of the book, no matter how much sense the change makes from the standpoint of a movie. Movies are different from books. It's much harder for a movie to show a character's thoughts than it is for a book where the author can go on for pages expounding upon inner most thinking. Whereas a single movie shot of landscape or interior or street scene can replace pages of descriptive text.
This movie has the sets, the costumes, the scenery, and many of the actors that made the LOTR movies such wonderful viewing, and so true to the original. It's long, three hours. It only takes the story up thru chapter 6, out of 19 total, so there is plenty of room for more movies before Bilbo returns to Bag End. It moves slowly, scenes are longer than need be, too many scenes are flashbacks or side issues that don't move the plot forward. The movie bungles a couple of beloved scenes from the book. Gollum mumbles his lines so badly that I couldn't understand the riddles he was posing to Bilbo. My children have better table manners than the dwarves in the movie.
The widely hyped 48 frame per second filming made no perceptible difference to my eye. We chose to see it in 2D over in Lincoln rather than 3D in Littleton. Focus was softer than it ought to be for a movie. I don't know whether this was the fault of the Lincoln projectionist or the 48 frame per second process, or the 3D filming.
Anyhow, it's enjoyable. Take the kids.
Criticism of movies based upon widely read books is tricky. Many will trash a flick for the smallest departure from the words of the book, no matter how much sense the change makes from the standpoint of a movie. Movies are different from books. It's much harder for a movie to show a character's thoughts than it is for a book where the author can go on for pages expounding upon inner most thinking. Whereas a single movie shot of landscape or interior or street scene can replace pages of descriptive text.
This movie has the sets, the costumes, the scenery, and many of the actors that made the LOTR movies such wonderful viewing, and so true to the original. It's long, three hours. It only takes the story up thru chapter 6, out of 19 total, so there is plenty of room for more movies before Bilbo returns to Bag End. It moves slowly, scenes are longer than need be, too many scenes are flashbacks or side issues that don't move the plot forward. The movie bungles a couple of beloved scenes from the book. Gollum mumbles his lines so badly that I couldn't understand the riddles he was posing to Bilbo. My children have better table manners than the dwarves in the movie.
The widely hyped 48 frame per second filming made no perceptible difference to my eye. We chose to see it in 2D over in Lincoln rather than 3D in Littleton. Focus was softer than it ought to be for a movie. I don't know whether this was the fault of the Lincoln projectionist or the 48 frame per second process, or the 3D filming.
Anyhow, it's enjoyable. Take the kids.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Death Porn Control
The MSM have been in a total feeding frenzy over the Connecticut massacre since Friday and there are no signs of it dying down yet. Death porn. The perp, who sounds like one of those total losers, has now achieved national and even world wide notoriety. Which is probably what motivated him in the first place.
One reason we have these horrible massacre is the media hype them so mercilessly and that attracts the unstable losers, who see themselves transformed from faceless non entities to world wide celebrities with a pull of a trigger. They used to pot shot presidents (Lincoln, Garfield, Kennedy, and Reagan) but the Secret Service has tightened security and it's pretty tough to score these days. Elementary schools are softer targets.
We ought to do what we can to curb the flow of death porn. The offenders should be mocked, and sponsors should make their voices heard too. Fox TV News has gone pretty far overboard this time, with ceaseless drivel. I'm not ready to scrap the First Amendment, so we can't make laws against death porn, but we ought to try social pressure. It would be more effective than another "assault weapons" ban.
One reason we have these horrible massacre is the media hype them so mercilessly and that attracts the unstable losers, who see themselves transformed from faceless non entities to world wide celebrities with a pull of a trigger. They used to pot shot presidents (Lincoln, Garfield, Kennedy, and Reagan) but the Secret Service has tightened security and it's pretty tough to score these days. Elementary schools are softer targets.
We ought to do what we can to curb the flow of death porn. The offenders should be mocked, and sponsors should make their voices heard too. Fox TV News has gone pretty far overboard this time, with ceaseless drivel. I'm not ready to scrap the First Amendment, so we can't make laws against death porn, but we ought to try social pressure. It would be more effective than another "assault weapons" ban.
More Cannon Mountain Ski weather
It warmed up and rained. It's raining now. It got so warm that the snowmaking crew knocked off early last night.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Cannon Mountain weather
We got an inch of snow last night, but it is warming up. It was 26 early this morning and now it has warmed up to 34, too warm to make snow. The weather forecasts are flaky, using words like warm and rain.
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