Charles of the 75219

Gayla Peevy [I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas]  gave a delightful interview on 103.7 FM in Dallas this morning. 

Gayla shared a story similar to this found at www.christmas-lyrics.org :

Here's an interesting fact about the popular Christmas hippopotamus song - in 1953 a ten-year-old girl from Oklahoma, Gayla Peevey sang the song as a way to raise money for the Oklahoma City Zoo's first hippopotamus. It became a nationwide hit after that, although John Rox wrote the song "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" in 1950! The song was not written specifically for the Oklahoma zoo, its just that when they needed the hippo the song came out so the Christmas hippopotamus song just fitted in.

Thank you, Gayla, for providing my childhood hippopotamus at the Oklahoma City Zoo.

I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas Lyrics

The MS Office development group “exposes”  something that is not-so-obvious about the ribbon – something that might endear the ribbon to me:

Minimizing the Ribbon is great when I know I won’t be making many changes to the document and just want to focus on the content that’s already there. It’s helpful when I’m looking at a spreadsheet with lots of data to absorb, reading a very long document, or working on a laptop with a small screen size.

Those are all good examples where I’ve wished the ribbon to disappear.

Ways to Minimize (and Maximize) the ribbon:

• CTRL + F1.
• double-click the current tab
• Right-click anywhere on the ribbon > check “Minimize the ribbon”
• In Office 2010, there is a new ribbon button on the far right next to the help button.

Once minimized, to temporarily show the ribbon, just click the current tab.

So an example in MS-Word Print Layout (View > Print Layout) is to get rid of the clutter to concentrate on content:

• Minimize the ribbon as shown above.
• Hide margin white space: Hover between the pages  > double-click the icon that appears.
• Maximize the window: Double-click the title bar of the window.

Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering : Minimizing the Ribbon: Exposed

Do you leave your doors unlocked?  Do you lay your wallet on the restaurant table?  … carry your social security card with you?  If not,  you might be interested in this little utility to help you create passwords. 

You’ve probably been admonished “Use strong passwords” but you wondered how.  Or even if you’ve been told how, the method is hard to remember. 

Some finer web sites provide help now, but if not, you can use the “Password Checker” to help protect yourself the next time you have to change a password.

Strong Passwords | Microsoft Security

Scarlett and Melanie are all decked out in new Windows 7 frocks. Our two Dell machines upgraded in style and grace, so it seems thus far.

Graciously, Windows 7 is a money maker because the new image backup feature in Windows 7 replaced Acronis True Image Home avoiding an alarmingly expensive upgrade. And what would Scarlett say about Acronis True Image if she weren't a lady! The new Microsoft Security Essentials also saves money because it replaced McAfee Virus Scan subscriptions. Free Logitech and HP printer software upgrades for Win7 seem to be working. Although the Windows Upgrade Advisor was wary of the Broadcom software, Windows Update quietly took care of that issue.

Those great features of Vista that tended toward incomprehensible are now more intuitive and visible.  The whole experience is dressed up in Aero and Silverlight.

So, to Scarlett and Melanie we say, "You look beautiful!"

On their blog, the photosynth team announces that a new version of Photosynth was released 07-Oct-2009.  A handy new feature, Overhead View, is not only interesting, but a way to navigate the space of the photosynth.  Search, performance, and internals are improved. 

My latest synth is of the Dallas Pride Parade 2009.

Photosynth works well with Windows Live Photo Gallery.

Photosynth Blog : A New Angle on Photosynth