Why I like a second workstation LCD tracking real time thunderstorm radar

/in /by

July 25, 2015

After a bit of GIMP captioning, here is a screenshot that I captured this evening of my second workstation, Zeus, showing a Weather Underground Radar display of our region.

I normally have the upper screen of my Dual LCD dual workstation setup somewhat like this.  During weekdays (this was captured on a Saturday) I often monitor one or two other WWW items that sometimes change in real time,  like, for example a feed waiting for a Space-X launch…

Of course if the intensity of the real time lightning symbols get too close and intense near our location (the white “+” in a circle south east of Rochester here) I can usually start hearing thunder as a storm nears.  This display gives me plenty of advance warning before I need to take EMP protection measures:   Sanely shutdown my software on my computer systems,  shut down the computers, disconnect its AC power feeds, disconnect the remaining LAN wires, etc.

In the Weather-Underground display of the Buffalo NWS radar that I captured tonight,  the black squares that shrink over time represent lighting strikes.  In this image, there is a moderate intensity of strokes seen by squares near and under the London Ontario Canada north of Lake Erie and Ohio.

While I also disconnect the wired network feeds that could pick up a close lightning EMP transient using the LAN wires / AC feeds as antenae,  I do not disconnect the wireless router itself.  Why?  I can still get the internet feed wire-lessly in my Apple Airbook that runs off batteries while the thunderstorm storm  shutdown is in effect. The only system that I leave at risk then is the wireless router which is of course wired to the power mains and to the TimeWarner cable modem, as well as our higher speed legacy LAN wiring I normally use to feed internet from the wireless router to the computers.

If the router were to get slagged by a close lighting strike its cost of replacement would only be a hundred dollars or so.   In such a case there would likely be a lot worse damage to the rest our home! 

 

Fedora 22 missing printer found after “dnf update” July 24

/in , /by

2015.07.24 — Fedora 22 printer problem solved…   Soon after I installed Fedora 22, I was unable to print on my 2015 purchased HP OJ-P 8620 which is USB connected directly to Thor, my main desktop Fedora Linux workstation.   This is a major gotcha.

Since last installing Fedora 22 this printer hardware had not worked.    Today, I tried the Fedora superuser command “dnf update” to see if any changes had been broadcast.   After maybe 10-15 minutes of downloading then  doing the updates,  I did a power cycle of Thor and what do you know,  now I had printer function back!

When using software at the bleeding edge [AKA Fedora nn] it pays to update frequently!  I imagine that when I next go into the “System Settings” of cinnamon on Thor,  I will find the missing printer is actually there!

 

 

 

2015.07.23—Password Works after all…

/in /by

UC-Gress   I just spent this morning interacting with Mark about the site, as well as changing how Jean and I do our e-mails in the future.

It turns out that I can get into my Word Press Dashboard from the “Meta” area of the home page.

There, either “Log out” or  “Log  in” shows depending on context.

Then I typed the password in the box which shows up, followed by clicking on “Log X” [X is “in” or “out”.]

Now lets see how this plays after I publish this note then log out…

Here is how I actually got here atgain  circa 13:15:

I went to the www.helmers.com site,  then scrolled down to the  “meta” heading at the bottom right

Then I clicked on “login” (which is sometimes “logout” depending on history) under the “meta” heading.

Then I  clicked login in the box that appeared with my dotted out last password entry…

Net result:  WordPress Dashboard appears and (for example) I further updated this note[2015.07.23 @ 13:26]