When it rains, it pours.

No this isn't a post about the very late season winter weather we are having in Denver. This post is about the joys of PC ownership, and the lost weekend of restoring my computer.

This computer is the workhorse of the Centennial State Geocaching Podcast. All recording and editing happens on this machine. So any downtime is not good for our product.

The symptoms appeared almost all at once a few weeks ago. I lost the SD card reader, fingerprint reader, webcam and touch screen. After a few e-mail exchanges with HP customer support. It was determined that a restore to 'the original factory settings' was necessary to determine if there was a hardware failure.

I scheduled this past Saturday to perform this task. We were expecting a blizzard over the weekend, so this was a good indoor activity. The restore was going to erase all I had on the computer, so I performed a inventory of the software on the computer, insured that I still had access to the programs, and backed-up the documents folder to our home server.

Late in the morning, after a quick prayer, I executed the complete restore option. In short order, I had a 'brand new computer' with all the missing functions successfully restored. I spent the remaining day copying back the saved documents and installing most of the software. I shut down the computer that evening, feeling confident that all was well.

That was until Sunday afternoon. Upon bootup, the built-in wireless connection failed. After spending most of Sunday in correspondence with HP support (via a wired connection) we got nowhere. The driver to run the build in wireless would not install. I shut it down, defeated.

This morning, I stopped in the the Office Depot near the office and purchased a USB wireless adaptor. (Consider it mental health insurance.) Was on sale for $40 US. I just finished installing and now have wireless again.

I'm waiting to see if I get any further reply for HP. I expect to have them say I need to restore to original factory settings. If that happens, A executive carpet bomb will be happening.

There, I feel better...

Will a pillow fight ban 'flash mobs'

One of the blogs I follow has a post from the pillow fight we discussed on show #15. Of all places, it is a blog on the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile. The blog post has pictures from the event.

A po

Consumer Electronics Examiner: Garmin to update Oregon series GPS with camera; Geotaggers rejoice

Update to the post yesterday on the new Garmin Oregon Models


Consumer Electronics Examiner: Garmin to update Oregon series GPS with camera; Geotaggers rejoice

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New Garmin Oregon Models?

Received this link via Twitter this evening. It appears Garmin will introduce two new models of the Oregon GPSr model. The new features will include a built in digital camera to allow geotagging of photos. We will update as additional ifor comes out.

March 2009 12 of 12

Here is my submission for the March 2009 12 of 12. This month, I did a theme of Coffee shops in Downtown Denver.

The Social Side of Geocaching

This is a post on two examples of the social side of geocaching.

Yesterday, we attended the third annual Geocaching Colorado Geochat. This was a opportunity for geocachers throughout Colorado to meet the new Board of Directors, fun and fellowship. We played a icebreaker game of Geo-Bingo. One of the squares was to find a cacher who had found a Project A.P.E cache. Luckily, we had one there, but the price of having him sign the square was to wear a pair of Groucho glasses that was a travel bug. You can see our suave look above. I recommend events as a way to meet fellow geocachers and learn more about the sport we all love. Besides, you may win a raffle item like a new unactivated geocoin! Yea, us.

This morning, I happened to be looking at the Facebook application on my IPod Touch. Listed was a request from Cliff Ravenscraft a podcaster from gspn.tv asking "I NEED HELP! Family wants to go GEOCACHING for the1st time. How Do I Do It?" I quickly fired up my computer, and I a few minutes I was live with him providing advice on how to get started. He wanted to use the 3G features of his Iphone, and recommended that he start with the Geocaching.com application, a low cost barrier to entry at $9.99. I gave him a few suggestions, pick a larger, traditional cache, with a low difficulty and terrain rating. I look forward to hearing his experiences in his podcast "My Crazy Life" show #373. It always amazes me the social media tools that are now an integral part of the day to day networking I experience. This meetup and short discussion on geocaching would not have been possible a few years ago.