Author: Julie

NeedleNerds meet on Monday, May 5th, from 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm, at Panera Bread

Our NeedleNerds May meeting is Monday, May 5th, at the Panera Bread restaurant on 2868 Chapel Hill Road, Douglasville, GA.

I hope to see you there. Be sure and bring pictures or items you’ve been working on!

Please Note: I’ve stopped using MailChimp to manage and send NeedleNerds email messages. This and future emails will be sent directly from me from one of my personal email accounts (I’m still figuring out how to work this out)

Knit in Public Day 2025 is June 14th

At our last NeedleNerds meeting we talked about the annual Knit in Public Day that occurs every June. I think it would be fun to coordinate a time and place for us to gather together to knit or crochet or tat or embroider in public on June 14th. I am aware of 3 or 4 different groups that meet around the county at various days and times during the month and think it would be fun to include these groups into this coordinated event.

Several NeedleNerds thought we could meet up at O’Neal Plaza in downtown Douglasville for this event, but we’ll need to check with the Convention Center first to learn if anything has already been planned at the Plaza on that day. Even so, we could probably still meet up there unless something private is going on there – if a festival is taking place there on that day, we could bring our yarn & needles and enjoy the show, but I don’t think we’d want to crash a potential wedding if that has been scheduled there on that day.

What do you think?

Reading: Caesar’s Women

I’m currently reading Caesar’s Women, the 4th book in Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series:

  1. The First Man in Rome – spans years 110 through 100 BCE
  2. The Grass Crown – spans years 97 through 86 BCE
  3. Fortune’s Favourites – spans years 83 – 69 BCE
  4. Caesar’s Women – spans years 67 – 59 BCE
  5. Caesar – spans years 54 – 48 BCE
  6. The October Horse – spans years 48 – 41 BCE
  7. Antony and Cleopatra – spans years 41 – 27

I collected all of the books in the series and started reading them, in order, several years ago. I’ve read books 1 through 3 and am now reading my way through book 4. My reading has stalled due to personal reasons and my attention has gotten pulled into other activities, but I’m back to reading and hope to finish this book soon.

Moving things around

I signed up for a paid account at ProtonMail last weekend, set up my own email for my personal domain (funfoodlife.com), and have been having a gay ole time changing all my logins to my new email or to a new alias email addresses.

This is going to be an ongoing, lengthy process but my goal is to migrate my files, email and other cloud oriented things away from Microsoft and Google and regain some control of my online presence & privacy.

I’ve already removed most of my personal files & photos from my Google & OneDrive accounts, and I look forward to the day when I can delete my Microsoft accounts (I have 3 of them) and turn off all the free emails addresses I currently use.

(I was a Microsoft MVP for 8 years so I’ve had a heavy investment and dependency on all things Microsoft for a long time).

NeedleNerds meet on Monday, April 7, from 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm, at Panera Bread

Greetings and Happy Spring!

Our monthly NeedleNerds meeting is this Monday, April 7th, at the Panera Bread restaurant on 2868 Chapel Hill Road, Douglasville, GA.

I look forward to seeing you there. Be sure and bring pictures or items you’ve been working on!

Please Note: I’ve stopped using MailChimp to manage and send NeedleNerds email messages. This and future emails will be sent directly from me from one of my personal email accounts (I’m still figuring out how to work this out)

Moving away from Google

I’ve used an Android phone for several years and over time the number of files and photos that were synced from my phone(s) to Google became quite large. I’ve never been a big proponent of Google services and try to limit my exposure to Google to a palatable level, and I was astounded to find out just how many of my personal files were stored in the Google cloud.

Since I wanted to get a better handle on my files and photos, I decided to move most of them off Google so here’s what I did:

I logged on to Google from my desktop computer, then I went to Google Takeout, scrolled through the long list of items that vould be stored on Google and selected the items I wanted to download to my computer.

 

Google provides a lot of services I never used and the Google takeout list is enormous, but I scrolled through the list and only selected Drive and Google Photo. Then I clicked on the blue “Next step” button found on the bottom of the screen.

I selected my preferences on the next screen and then selected the “create export” button.

 

Since I had a lot of photos and files stored in the Google cloud, about an hour later I received an email from Google that indicated my files were ready to download to my computer with a link for me to click to retrieve my files.

There were a couple of zip files that I downloaded to my computer. I unzipped the files to some folders I created on my computer and reviewed them to confirm all my documents and photos were there. Then I went back to my Google account via my desktop browser and deleted the files that were stored on the cloud.

Managing Google Cloud Services

Since I use an Android phone, I still use some Google services, but I won’t allow my files and photos to sync willy nilly to Google any more. I disabled the backup option in the Google Photos app on my phone. (open app on phone, tap the gear icon in top right corner)

 

I also don’t share many documents to Google Drive via the app on my phone. If I create or download a file or photo I want to keep, I’ll selectively choose the file and upload it to Google Drive or to one of my other cloud-based storage accounts.

I installed the Google Drive app on my Windows desktop computer, so I can view and manage any files or photos that I choose to keep on Google Drive. Since the files are now also on my computer, it’s easy to move them away from the Google cloud and back them up to my external hard drive.

December 6, 2024

The Secret of Orange Cats Finally Uncovered After 60-Year Search : ScienceAlert

Here’s an Interesting read for those of us who have loved orange cats.

https://www.sciencealert.com/the-secret-of-orange-cats-finally-uncovered-after-60-year-search

This article brings up some compelling points to consider. I am currently thinking about where I get my news and considering shifting my support away from these mainstream media publications to some not for profit publications.

The publisher is always right

 

My Favorite Podcasts

When I had long commutes to work, I often listened to podcasts on my phone. Now that I mostly work from home, I listen to them during my daily walks. 

Here’s a list of the podcasts that I enjoy:

Breakdown, Atlanta Journal Constitution

This is Criminal, VoxMedia Podcast Network

Everything Happens with Kate Bowler, Lemonada

In the Dark, The New Yorker

Invisibilia, NPR

Life, Craig Harper (inactive)

On Being with Krista Tippett

Poetry Unbound, On Being Studios

Serial, The New York Times

The Clark Howard Podcast

The Matt Walker Podcast

The You Project, Craig Harper

This American Life

This is Love, VoxMedia Podcast Network

I created an OPML file that includes subscription information for all of these podcasts and have uploaded the file to Dropbox to share with my friends. You can download the file and then use it to add the feeds for these podcasts to whatever podcast app you use.

Download Julie’s favorite podcasts RSS feed (OPML file) from Dropbox

#podcasts #RSS