BatteryBar Utility – My Experience

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I decided this morning that I would look for a battery meter for my HP Pavilion tx1410us Vista Home Premium SP2 notebook, as the Vista built-in does not show the remaining time, only the percentage of charge remaining.

My requirements were that it be freeware / open source, and that it provide a read out of the estimated time remaining.

I went to Gizmo’s freeware and searched for battery. https://www.techsupportalert.com/ (Gizmo’s Freeware has shut down)
The first result was:

The recommendation was:

“So, here’s an excellent dedicated free Battery Meter: BatteryBar !
The free version is pre-configured, but still has most/all information one needs.

Pass the mouse over the little display and you’ll see all data it

keeps track of. Click on it and it changes from % remaining to
hours:minutes remaining, all this in a color bar : green, yellow and
red. When it’s blue, battery is charging.

go to

http://osirisdevelopment.com/index.html“

I followed the link, read the information there, checked what others had to say by searching in Google, and downloaded BatteryBar v3.3.3 Free . I scanned the downloaded file with my anti-virus software, and installed it once it showed clear. (System requirements say XP, Vista and Windows 7 supported, both 32bit and 64bit.)

Once installed it showed up as a toolbar showing the percentage of charge left , then when clicked toggled to show time remaining , just what I was looking for.

Also, when I hover over the toolbar with the mouse, more detailed information is shown such as the capacity, charge rate, and battery wear.

There is a “Pro” version, but this does just what I wanted, so I see no need to upgrade.

flickrCC – A Resource for Images Legal for Use on Blogs, Websites, Etc.

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I was going through some of my RSS feeds the other day and one  from Wild Apricot (a non-profit technology blog), entitled “How To Find CC-Licensed Flickr Photos for Your Blog“, mentioned FlickrCC as an easy way to search Flickr by keyword and licensed use.

It looked interesting so I visited the site at .

I was impressed with the ease of use, as well as the information provided for each image found.

I searched for “pelican” with the Commercial check box checked. The first 36 thumbnails found are shown in the left hand pane, when you click on one of them the attribution information is shown in the right hand pane, along with the available sizes.

This is a quick and easy web app for getting photos with a creative commons license, for use in blogs, websites, newsletters, or experimenting with image editors.

Seniors / Boomers And Social Networking – My Thoughts

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What Led Me To Write This

I read an article in the March 25, 2010 issue of the Broward, Florida edition of the Sun Sentinel newspaper, entitled “Social connections key during retirement”, by Janet Kidd Stewart.

I could not find it on the http://www.sun-sentinel.com site, but by doing a Google search for her I did find the same article, albeit with a different title, for the full story go to the following link:
(update: as of August 4, 2014 link no longer valid, could not find another copy of the article via search)

In the article she talks about Penny Hall, who “when she retired about 18 months ago, the 59-year-old had plenty of savings and retirement revenue from real estate investments, but lacked a plan for a social life”.

Further along in the article Hall is quoted as saying “It’s hard because everyone my age is still pretty busy with work”

My Thoughts

As I read this article, it came to my mind that computer user groups, are a great way for people like Ms. Hall to generate social connections, especially with others that are already retired, or soon to be retired.

I know that I have more social connections now, even though I am not yet retired, due to my involvement with two local computer user groups, and most of those in the groups are already retired, some for a good length of time. Others I know, are also members of more than one such group.

The article by Ms. Stewart, came on the heels of a presentation made at the Boca Raton Computer Society (BRCS), which I attended on March 17th. At that presentation, we were given an overview of what social networking is all about, and as I looked around the room I noticed that I was the youngest one there. Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter were the attention-getters, and the most discussed.

Conclusion

Computer User Groups are a great way for seniors / boomers, as well as those even younger, to develop social contacts, and keep up with technology at the same time. Not only are there specific meetings, most form some kind of social connection outside of the group.

So what are you waiting for, find a computer user group near you and get socially active:
Association of Personal Computer User Groups – Find User Groups <http://ugls.apcug.net/>