A Little Housekeeping and Other Distractions

Not THAT kind of housekeeping, although lord knows my place could use it. No, this is about my blog site and a message I got from Blogger recently:

FollowByEmail widget (Feedburner) is going away
You are receiving this information because your blog uses the FollowByEmail widget (Feedburner).
Recently, the Feedburner team released a system update announcement , that the email subscription service will be discontinued in July 2021.
After July 2021, your feed will still continue to work, but the automated emails to your subscribers will no longer be supported.

I added this widget quite awhile ago when I realized it was an option. I have a couple of blogs that I follow that I've opted to get notice of new posts or even entire posts via e-mail and had at least one reader that was interested in getting notifications from me that way. But now everyone agrees that Feedburner is dying a slow death and it is time to move on. I don't know if anyone else is using this service to receive my posts but if you are, be forewarned that the e-mails will end in a few months. My recommendation is to sign up for a free blog feed reader like the one I use: The Old Reader. Just pop in the name of the blog you want to follow and like magic, whenever the blogs you have chosen publish a new post, it will show up there. Just one site to go to in order to stay up with all the blogs you follow. Most posts can be read in full right there. A few you may have to follow the link to the post on its blog if the blog owner has it set up that way. And if you wish to post a comment, you just click on the post title and it will take you to it on its blog where you can then comment. Here's a screen shot of what mine looks like when I log in:

 

As for the distractions, there have been many keeping me from any creative progress. It was time to quit procrastinating on doing my taxes which meant I had to quit procrastinating on upgrading my computer to Windows10 so the tax software would run. I'd heard rumors that my aging 3-in-one printer would not work well on this new operating system, and it had already started scaring me with hiccups I had to search online for workarounds. I spent quite a bit of time researching new printers and the new one arrived almost two weeks ago. Really no more excuses not to get on with the upgrade, except for my perpetual fears about losing data, old software not work, or the dreaded computer crash.

Although it was a bit time consuming, none of the above happened when I loaded the software and completed installing Windows10. As expected, many things look different, are in different places on the screen, in different drop down menus so there's been a bit of a stumble and learning curve figuring out where to find how to do even the most basic things such as put the computer into hibernation. But I'm getting there.  I've tested all my old software and every one is working just fine. All the data is right where it belongs. The programs even seem to run a bit more quickly than before. And my taxes are ready to print. Time to unplug the old printer and set up the new one.

I'm a huge Epson fan so I was looking for something in their newer line that would do all the things my old RX500 does (especially sizing copies to enlarge or reduce images) and not more than I need (I'm not running an office here). I found it in this xp5100 which, due to how difficult a time I had finding one I think is an older model not being made anymore. So far I've only run across a few differences from the RX500: It only uses 4 cartridges instead of 6 (eliminating the light versions of cyan and magenta), it loads from the front instead of the back and can print double-sided (yeah!!!), the scanning bed is oriented with the top to the right instead of the left, and it can be connected either by wi-fi or the standard USB cord. I've had multiple people tell me that the wi-fi or blue tooth connections are often problematic but Epson doesn't include a USB cord in the box. No problem. I stole the one off the old printer and it works just fine.

Of course, you don't just plug in and go. There's software to load, which wants you to register the printer and click on multiple options before it downloads.

And there are multiple alignment checks to go through to be sure things print correctly.

And while a bit time consuming of course, I jumped through all the hoops and have a working 3-in-one. Did a test print - check. Printed a double-sided copy from a pdf - check. Scanned an image from a catalogue - check. Still fumbling around a bit understanding how to navigate the functions from the printer screen but I'll get there. Now that it is all set up and performing beautifully, I'm wondering why I put off setting it up for so long! It's really a compact unit with a smaller footprint than my old printer which you can see lurking on the floor to the right, not as high and has a flat, not curved lid. Yup, I'm happy!