What Noisy Cats Are We

I never thought I’d thank a bank, I totally messed up and accidentally set my rent to be paid twice for Nov. in their Bill Pay section, and they stopped the payment (of a paper check) for free, explained the process (that the check had already been mailed and should just be torn up but the money will leave my account anyway), and issued the refund to my account days BEFORE the money came out for the double-check.  They were nice and helpful, and I am pleasantly surprised.

SO good.  http://www.yelp.com/biz/7-subs-brookline#hrid:jj-QTaWj2lSlTnLmtuwbOw

If you’re ever in Coolidge Corner and want a quick bite to eat…  They have a tiny table outside if you want to wait / eat, but no seating inside.

Great book for summer / fall reading.  I love our trips to Maine, and this helped open my eyes a little more about wha’ts going on up there and why.  I don’t really eat lobsters, but still thoroughly enjoyed the book.

Click here for Amazon link - test.

If you look at the blog via a mobile device (Blackberry, iPhone, Treo, &tc.), you’ll see a new interface that is streamline specifically for that medium.  Pretty cool.

"Cannot connect to the iTunes Store.

Can’t connect to the iTunes Store.

I’ve had this issue on my Windows iTunes for months. I was hoping that an upgrade to the newest iTunes would help, but it didn’t. I reinstalled iTunes, I cleared my DNS cache, and I did a bunch of other things.

Finally, I found this time. DELETE YOUR HOSTS FILE! Who knew. Anyway, that solved the issue and I’m a happy B right now.

Done.  I have no idea what it fixed or added but I did it anyway.  Yeah, I’m crazy like that.

One of the best parts of the Summer is taking a trip to the drive-in.  Previously a site of adolescent mischief, now it’s an oasis of entertainment and peacefulness.  It has the fun of going to the movies without worrying about the idiots around you.  You have your own personal space (your car), and you have food (snack bar prices cheaper than regular theaters), and you have the wonderful, starry sky and the outdoors.

Living in Boston, it’s hard to find one that’s still open.  There is one about an hour’s drive out of the city in Mendon, MA: http://www.yelp.com/biz/mendon-drive-in-mendon#hrid:rKPbUVuTdm2-UuJkGEWfQA

I just stopped there for lunch and remembered that it was time I wrote a review.  Here:  http://www.yelp.com/biz/subway-somerville-2#hrid:25Fq9Lihd6vuay0Ttt_Idw

* first off * I am working on a way to get my Nerd posts off the main page of my blog and make them visible only with a Category view.  I’ll toy around with the PHP code later on.  In the meantime, I’m just going to blog my geeky little heart out about very non interesting things right here on the main page.  Suck it.

Our office printer, an HP 2430n, started curling pages recently.  This went on for a month, and the only thing I could do was to replace to toner to see if it had any effect.  It didn’t, of course.  I called HP and the printer was out of warranty.  They gave me a few tips, like to set the fuser temp to low (whch you can do from the printer’s control panel), but it didn’t really fix the problem, and with the temperature so low, the toner didn’t bond to the paper all too well and came off on my fingers when I rubbed the paper.  The prognosis was that the printer needed a new fuser.

The cost of a new fuser was about $230, which wasn’t horrible.  The labor to have our service comapny visit and do the work, though, was more than I wanted to spend for what seemed a simple job.  So, I downloaded the service manual for the printer and figured I could do it myself.  I ordered the fuser from CDW (they had it!  It wasn’t the easiest thing to find at a normal office supply or computer place), and after a long backorder delay, it arrived yesterday.

Four screws, a couple plastic tabs, and three wires later and the thing was replace.  Piece of cake!  After powering the printer back up, I went into the control panel and reset the fuser temp. level to ‘normal’ and it’s printing properly again with no page curling. 

The printer is only about two years old, and as an HP I was a little miffed that the fuser needed replacing so quickly, but at least we didn’t have to buy a whole new printer or spend $ on a repair guy to come out.  Problem solved.

Here are pics of the fuser unit and the printer itself.  Good times.