Ask MetaFilter posts by Zinger

No assembly required?

Zinger — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:07:21 -0800

Can anyone recommend a good secular homeschool science curriculum package that includes materials needed for experiments? I'm homeschooling my boys but I'm not satisfied with the way our science work is progressing - and I regard science as a critical part of what they should be learning in the 21st century.

Part of the problem is that the books I've been using suggest several demonstration experiments, but they all require various random bits and pieces that need to be purchased and assembled well ahead of time - ie., ziploc bags, which we don't normally have on hand, or iron filings, which are apparently impossible to get from the local hardware stores these days, etc. I'm finding it really difficult to get the time to find and purchase all of this stuff.

So what I'm hoping to find is a complete package where there are books and all the stuff you need to do the experiments in the books all in one box. Right now I need K-8 material. Any thoughts?

IMAP Annoyances

Zinger — Thu, 08 May 2008 10:58:19 -0800

Incredibly annoying IMAP problem - Any ideas? We are constantly getting dialogue boxes popping up in outlook 2007 with the following message:

"Your IMAP server has closed the connection. This may occur if you have left the connection idle for too long"

Under details, the error code is: 0x800CCCDD

These boxes are popping up *at least* every 10 minutes - sometimes you can get 5-6 of these in a row in the space of 20 seconds! They are exceptionally irritating not least because they require us to click OK, but also because they almost always steal focus away from the window we're working in. It's like being poked with a sharp stick all day.

We have tried (based on searching Google):

- changing the Outlook server timeout settings to 10 minutes
- disabling automatic send and receive for the IMAP emails

Neither of these have improved the situation. Help?

Word 2007 Weirdness: help?

Zinger — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:13:53 -0800

Word/Office 2007 Weirdness: Why is Word 2007 showing a bright blue (cyan?) straight line under sections of text in this received document? We've received a document from a client, and we've discovered, when clicking on certain lines of the text, that a bright blue straight underline appears under the text.

The line extends from margin to margin in the text, and that particular part of a sentence seems to be somehow grouped together as a result. If we make a change in the line of text, say to add an 's' to a word, tracked changes shows that Word also makes formatting changes, expanding or condensing character scale in that line.

This is not Word 2007's contextual spelling marker (which apparently uses a wavy blue line), and there don't appear to be hidden fields or codes in the text where this occurs. It's only in a few places in the document, and I can't spot a common factor here. The font and paragraphing styles seem to be the same in these lines and elsewhere in the text where this line thing doesn't show up.

Anyone else ever have this happen? Google-fu fails me in this case, hence my query to the MeFiHiveMind.

Help me figure out who this is for a friend.

Zinger — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:17:00 -0800

Collective unconscious filter: Who is this and where is she from? That is all, thank you.

What's accessing my hard drive.

Zinger — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 07:43:09 -0800

What the blazes is making my hard drive work so hard? My hard drive light on my Dell Latitude D620 keeps coming on every 5-10s - this is making my fan run like mad and is playing hell with battery life.

I'm having a hard time pinning down what's making it do it. I've tried Diskmon from sysinternals, but all it tells me is that there's drive activity every few seconds, which I'd already figured from the light. I've tried shutting down various programs for a while but this doesn't seem to be helping me pin it down. I don't think it's malware or a virus - scans turn up nothing and I have regularly updated virus software on at all times.

Thoughts? This has only been a problem in the last few weeks, yet I've not changed the system configuration.

Help me with wood stain and varnish fumes.

Zinger — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:23:19 -0800

Suggestions for getting rid of the smell of wood stain/varnish? We just bought a nice buffet/hutch for our dining room, and we had it stained to match our existing dining room table. The problem is, it reeks. It's winter here so wide open windows really isn't an option, and so far I've tried: bowls full of bicarb soda, bowls full of white vinegar, and one of those air filter/hepa/ionizer thingies. It's moderately better, but still enough to knock you over. Any ideas?

Much macro madness?

Zinger — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 18:23:39 -0800

Where can I find a repository of Word macros? Can anyone recommend a site that has lotsa Word macros on it? I know macros are generally fairly easy to create, but I need a bunch and would rather not reinvent the wh.eel.

Maybe she's born with it

Zinger — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 21:42:58 -0800

Where can I buy makeup online (Covergirl in particular)? I'm tired of trying to find a particular shade of lipstick, as it's never available in the local stores. I'm looking for a safe (ie., selling genuine products) online makeup retailer, either in Canada or the US. Suggestions? Strawberry.net, which was suggested in a related AskMeFi thread, doesn't appear to carry CoverGirl.

I want my HDTV

Zinger — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 11:22:22 -0800

A/V Question: What do I need to run an HD satellite signal into my computer. We currently have basic analogue cable, which we've hooked up to a computer we use as a media center/tv in our living room. We're thinking of upgrading to Star Choice satellite TV and getting the HDTV option as the programming, receiver and dish are quite reasonable.

What do we need to make the HD and/or satellite work on the computer? Would cable HD be better? Bonus points if you can tell me how to set up PVR on the computer as well. (FYI, computer is standard desktop running Win XP)

AnswersAnswers

Zinger — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 08:09:18 -0800

Yahoo Answers/Quomon.com software clone recommendations? I'm looking for some software that duplicates the question and answer functionality at Yahoo Answers or Quomon.com (or even what happens here at Mefi. Open source would be nice. I've seen Askeet, but it's unclear (to me at least) as to how recently that's been updated and/or whether it's still being maintained.