Daily Archives: 14/08/2015

Windows 10 – No thankyou, I will wait for Windows 20

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View from plane - flight Zürich-London

Looking out of the window of an aeroplane is probably a lot safer than uploading (or downloading – I never know the difference) Windows 10 on your computer. I must admit I was still thinking about it before take off arrived, so I did not reserve my entrance to the magical world of Windows 10. The little emblem at the bottom of my ageing Acer computer was ignored, left in expectance of a click and reservation.

On the second day of the Windows 10 appearance a colleague proudly showed a screen capture of his newly arrived Windows 10. He is an expert, knows the difference between a download and upload, and it looked very neat. The tiles had been removed and it looked quite friendly, just like my Windows 7, which I love with all my bytes and online feelings. I began to think about it and did a click. Windows told me I was in the waiting line. It might be tomorrow, a week, or perhaps a month and yes I will get it eventually.

Mr. Swiss found he would rather wait, after reading all the horror stories about the privacy sphere, which no longer existed with Windows 10. Windows were collecting vital information about your life from your eating habits, to the way you slept as well as your health condition and were keeping it in their records for distribution to the advertising agencies of the world, the FBI, Deuxieme Bureau and the CID: at least it seemed like it.

I mentioned to Mr. Swiss I was now in the queue and he found “OK, I will wait until you have it, take a look and make a decision.” In the other sense of the word, I was to become the Windows 10 guinea pig.

This is now history and I am still waiting, but no longer with impatience.  In the meanwhile I have read a blog from my blogging colleague with the comments. She knows what she is talking about, having experience with the computer world. In the meanwhile a colleague in Facebook uploaded it. Afterwards his computer refused to work, so he unloaded it, back to his old programme, but the computer decided to strike. You cannot hold a carrot in front of a donkey and afterwards take it away. The donkey wants his carrot and probably this was the feeling Windows 10  had waiting to be eating and digested. Now he has given his computer to the repair shop – an expensive task.

To sum it all up,, when my invitation for an up/down load arrives from Silicon Valley, or wherever the windows central is, I will ignore it. I will not have my Windows 7 machine contaminated with a Windows 10 killer programme that will spy on my secret files to tell Bill Gates all about it. Mr. Swiss finds this a wise decision, taking into consideration how old my computer is.

I can wait until the first computers arrive with a built in Windows 10. By then all the glitches and problems will be solved perhaps by Windows 20.

Daily Prompt: Break the Silence – The End

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When was the last time you really wanted (or needed) to say something, but kept quiet? Write a post about what you should’ve said.

River Aar

Actually this theme for the daily prompt is quite opportune. Not that I am a silent person, I have a loud voice. Over the past couple of weeks I wanted to say a lot but I kept quite, just now and again an outbreak.

Now I have come to the point that I have no longer interest in writing a daily prompt. I have been writing these prompts for at least 3-4 years I think (hope I am not exaggerating, I must be careful what I say, might be misunderstood). Daily prompts are no longer what they were. It used to be fun to write something, and now I have written it all. Running the risk of repeating myself, I began to compose my own theme on the daily prompt. Some like it, some do not, and some classify it as rubbish. I do not really care, but now the time has come to write my own thing.

I am too old for fiddling around with finding the right words to write a prompt, you can please some of the people some of the time but definitely not all of the people all of the time. I will look in on your blogs, I will not totally ignore you, but I now want to do my own thing. If you find my writings in this jungle of WordPress you are welcome, but I am neither hunting for likes or seeking self promotion, I survive quite nicely without that and just want to do my own thing.

Many have tried to build up their own prompts, but up to now they were a success at the beginning and a failure after the first three or four attempts. I even joined in myself in these independent prompts and suddenly they disappeared: here today gone tomorrow.

I also have a life outside of the daily prompt, like housework, cooking, ironing and all those housewife hobbies we have. I look after my garden, bones and joints permitting and I like to take walks with my camera in the countryside and town. I even read books.

I have made some good friends here and definitely do not want to lose contact, but I will no longer be interrupting the flow of the WordPress Daily prompt people who find that the prompts are useful for beginners to practice their writing.

Thank you for following me over the years, but it is unfortunately no longer fun.

I will continue with my Daily Feline Prompt. My felines enjoying their contact with their feline fans and have not yet responded to all the prompts that arrive, but one day they will probably also begin to write their own thing.

Daily Prompt: Break the Silence – The End

The Box Tree Moth

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We have been having a real heat wave, temperatures of over 30°C accompanied, or should I say not accompanied, but rain. It has been dry and hot and seems to be accompanied with all sorts of strange insects crawling around that are rarely seen.

We keep the windows and doors closed during the day and also the blinds. We live in a dark place, but it kept the temperature on a normal almost bearable scaled. When the evening arrived, and the sun had returned to the other half of the world, all windows are thrown open hoping that fresh air would enter the home. Not only does fresh air enter the home but a few flying missiles, known as moths. I don’t mind moths if they are the friendly kind: the months that circle around source of light and eventually turning into kamikaze pilots by burning their wings on the heat. I have no bad conscience, it is there own fault. This week I entered the kitchen and saw this study in black and white sitting on the tiles.

Box Tree Moth

Of course my first reaction was to take my DSLR camera, tune it for a closeup and take the photo of the day. Now what do you do? You feed the computer with the words “white moth with black edges on the wings” and see the result.

You can really always rely on your computer, because I immediately was confronted with photos of my moth and even a name. It is known as the box tree moth. Personally I have no box trees in my garden, but we have a few neighbours that have these specially shaped box trees in containers on their balconies and even some box tree hedges in their garden.

It seems they originate in Eastern Asia, but found they way to Germany and Switzerland in 2006 where they were discovered. I have strong suspicions that had we had not decided to import box trees for decoration in our gardens, it would never have emigrated to Europe packed in a container with box trees. We always have to interfere and have something different to the others. Personally I am not a fan of these spherical shaped little bushes, they are so artificial in their appearance.

I found him quite a pretty moth and so left him (or her) to his monthly activities in the kitchen. There was no food laying around so an opportunity was not given to lay a few hundred eggs and make the family of box tree moths feel at home. Next morning my moth was laying on the floor, dead, not breathing and not flying. I did not kill it, I am innocent, although if it had still been flying around it would not have had a long life.

It was eventually sucked into the vacuum cleaner and I have not seen any further examples since.