Hotwire

During out trip to Yellowstone we used our laptop with wireless to check hotel rates on Expedia and Hotwire. If you are willing to chance a lousy hotel, the hotwire deals were phenomenal! We took 3 star hotels for 65, 65, 82 and 92. Three were Holiday Inns with decent pools (a couple were being remodeled and a couple were way in the back of the hotel, but it was better than the $99-$149 "best" rate! It also beat the AARP, Entertainment and AAA rates. On our way home, we were about 20 miles from Sioux Falls and decided to check hotwire. A 3 star hotel was $53. We booked it. All said and done, with tax and fees, it was $65! We found out we were in a 3 1/2 star Sheraton which was beautiful. It was a little out of the way, but it was worth the extra 5 miles or so.

In Cody, where we wanted to stay in a particular hotel, I used Expedia to check the rate using the hotel's wireless network!

http://hotwire.com
http://expedia.com

Dishwasher has cloudy dishes

Well, we figured out the dishwasher this week. We ran vinegar through it, dishwasher cleaner, switched to powder and nothing. We took apart the traps and filter. Angel cleaned the upper spray arm out after a simple pull to pop the arm off the top.

Picasa and Facebook

How do you upload photos to Facebook or Google?

I use a free tool from Google called Picasa3 to edit and upload all my pics. You can find it here:
http://www.google.com/picasa/

Once you have installed picasa, point it at your My Pictures folder and it will read them all in. Picasa provides rotating, cropping, red eye fixes, changing to black and white etc. The only thing I don't find in Picasa that I go elsewhere for is more sophisticated filters like watercolor.

The number one reason to use Picasa is that with a simple install to Facebook, you can upload your photos with a couple of clicks. Download and install the picasa uploader. http://apps.facebook.com/picasauploader/?ref=ts

Now select the photos from Picasa and then click the Facebook button. You will need to sign into Facebook the first time and choose the album name and then the pictures will all upload! The captions from Picasa are transferred automatically.

Let me know if you have questions.

Tom

Resetting a Vonage Router, specifically the Motorola VT1005

I've called Vonage a number of time and get asked to reset my router. Each time they send me to the admin page and have me reset the factory defaults and then reboot the router. I always seem to forget the address, so here it is:

http://192.168.102.1/admin.html

After you are in you need to click Factory Resets, then click on "Reboot".

One catch to doing this, you must be on a PC that is behind the Motorola router, in other words it needs to be connected directly to the port that says PC or to a router that is connected to the PC port.

Figure it Out

I spend a fair amount of time working on solving problems. As I am approaching 40, I feel like I'm spending more and more time trying to remember how I figured something out. Therefore, I'm creating this blog to post things that come up periodically.

Thoughts on future posts: Using Picasa to organize my photos, Using Mediamonkey to handle MP3's, how to backup your important files, why you should use pivot tables and more!!