Right now NE Iowa is in a very cold spell, this after a short interim of mild weather. I am in the process of replacing my old Mac Pro, nearly done but waiting on a few cables to finish. To save space on my host service I am trying a new photo format. There are a few things to cover!
I am writing this on January 24th. Wind chills this morning were -35° with an actually temp of -20°. Yesterday, the 23rd, the morning wind chill was -45°. It is frigid, and will continue that way for most of the upcoming week.
Thursday morning I was outside clearing a few inches of snow that had fallen Wednesday night. The snow was light and like powder, making shoveling a bit easier than normal. After a short problem with the John Deere LX 176 was solved (it required a new spark plug), it was put into service clearing sidewalks, our alley garage access, and around the mailboxes. Cat paths were cleared by hand, including those around the bird and squirrel feeders. All in all, the work took about 3 hours. Needless to say, I did not stay outside continuously during those hours.
I purchased a new Mac to upgrade my computer system. The new unit is a base Mac Mini M4, and along with it I purchased a Minisopuru brand expansion dock. The dock gives me a few extra ports where I can plug in external devices such as my scanner and external drives and allows me to use my existing mouse and keyboard.
Apple includes a utility program called Migration Assistant that is used to transfer programs and settings from one Mac to another. This worked quite well, taking some time and a few tweaks, but the majority of my programs and all my settings (passwords, links, bookmarks) transferred just fine. A couple utility programs had to be reinstalled or upgraded to take advantage of the new operating system, but these tasks also went well.
The biggest problem is the change in cable styles. My old Mac Pro used the common USB-A connections while the new Mini M4 uses USB-C. While I am making do with the old cables, running through an external hub for now, I am waiting on cables that can connect my external devices to the newer USB-C ports without using the external hub. The new cables will enable me to remove some cords, power supplies, and clutter from my work area.
I will use this new setup for a couple weeks then wipe the old Mac Pro and list it on eBay. This will help recover some of the upgrade cost and allow me to buy a few more upgrades, including a wireless keyboard and mouse.
As you can tell, tech work took up much of my time lately. Here is another tech upgrade I have been working on: photo formats.
For a long time, most photos I use, including those in various galleries, have been in the .jpg format. This is almost universal in web pages, not just mine. Technology changes, however, and a few years back Google introduced the .webp format. This technology yields high quality images at lower file sizes and is supported by web browsers since about 2020.
My web hosting service cost is based on capacity; currently I am on a 10gb plan and have used about 8.8gb. Saving space by going to lower file sizes is attractive, and I have begun converting iGallery images to the .webp format. The space savings averages about 40% per image. As an example, my “Yule” gallery images, in .jpg format, ran about 104.5mb. This was reduced to 62.3mb when converted to the .webp format.
Web pages using the .webp images load faster as a result of the smaller file sizes. It takes me less time to upload the images as well. Please let me know if you have any problems viewing these images!
We have settled into a winter routine. Pam maintains a food/water station for the outside cats and monitors heaters in the catio, as well as regularly letting the dogs outside and limiting their exposure times. (Plus cleaning indoor cat boxes and refilling their feeding station, of course.) I attend to the various outside feeders. Recently I finished distributing our fall-gathered supply of acorns and switched to putting out peanuts for the squirrels. This has not worked out as planned; Blue Jays take most of the nuts and fly off with them, leaving few for the squirrels! I may not be putting out more if this keeps up. The squirrels will have to make do with their cobs of corn for the rest of the winter.
One medical note: I had a 6-month diabetes check up and my A1C has fallen to the lowest level since I was diagnosed many years ago. The lab came back with an A1C of 6.0. I am quite pleased with this reduction and hope to go even lower in the future.
So, that has been it for the last couple weeks; tech upgrades, house cleaning, caring for pets and critters, and keeping warm. Hopefully this will be the worst of the cold for the season! Frigid weather “bursts” started around Thanksgiving, meaning we’re getting pretty worn down by the cold as it extends through January.
That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!
Pam’s Penny
Only strictly controlled strength of will motivates me to go outside during subzero weather. If the catio and outside cat feeding stations were not operational, I would just monitor the dogs’ outside exposure. Period.
However, January is reliably an ugly weather month in NE Iowa. Mentally, I try to project forward through the month, appreciating how the daylight finally starts to last longer into the evenings. Looking forward to Winter Olympics coverage in early February.
Rock on, Minnesota. Stay strong in the frigid temps. Remember, in 1776, the Continental Congress was grappling with escalating violence as well.
Today’s Humor:
