Wednesday, November 30, 2011

UPDATE: Internet Annoyances

Final Update for The Internet's Little Annoyances Now the dreaded blue bar is gone. Must have been a temporary glitch. Hopefully it wasn't a virus.

UPDATE: 02 Dec 2011:  I spoke TOO Soon the dame thing is back. CRAP! I hate when webservices make changes without giving advanced notice they are making a change. Stupid mofos.

UPDATE: 03 Dec 2011: FINALLY Found a sollution. Had to add some "filters" to my Adblock Plus:How to Hide blue "Click here to start sharing Google+" bar Fenistil's 3 filter solution worked. The "LOG INTO" Google solution didn't as I was already in Google when I noticed the damn thing.

Book Update: November Books

NOVEMBER 2011 BOOKS
Not much this month. I did get another book from the MLB Insiders Club I have to double check to see the title I think it was "Greatest Rivalries" or something of that nature. I'm not really concerned about that right now. Anyway the bulk of what I got I found at decent prices on Ebay since I haven't been to a proper bookstore lately and the ones I've dashed in didn't have these books when I looked.

First up the Novel version of the most recent Star Trek Movie (2009) by Alan Dean Foster. His adaptations of stories for films are usually pretty good. I hadn't planned on getting this book but it is the first book to read for a sci-fi book club I joined at goodreads.com. The schedule for this group as it stands right now seems to be that every other month we will read a book and discuss it while reading it. I think the wide birth of reading time is to give people time to pick up the next book to be discussed.

Next up is the first book based on the Sci-Fi Channel hit show Warehouse 13. Hopefully there will be many more books in this series. This one Warehouse 13: A Touch of Fever by Greg Cox sounds interesting but I'll find out when I read it if it is an exciting enough story to start a book series with. Who knows.

Incoming:
Speaking of "Who" this final one is a more recent Doctor Who book with the David Tennant Doctor (#10). Another book I'm getting via Ebay due to arrive in early December Doctor Who: The Stone Rose by Jacqueline Rayner. It is the second book for my goodreads sci-fi book club which we don't start reading till March. I'm not sure if I can wait that long. The companion for this story is Rose Tyler.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

The internet's little annoyances.

ARGH! Don't you just hate when a website, service or browser you have used forever makes a sudden unannounced change that you can't opt out of?

Take the latest annoyance from Google.


I am talking about the blue bar with this blue bar:

As far as I can tell there is no way to remove the advertising blue bar that wants you to start using Google Plus and ignore anything you are enjoying with the standard Google. Once you start using the regular Google search the thing goes away until you click refresh, or in my case go back to your browser's home page because I have Google set as my Home page.

I use the latest version of Firefox with AdBlock Plus and that doesn't hide the dang thing yet, that I know of.

When will the programers for major internet programs/applications realize that making sudden unannounced changes with no opt out feature really pisses of your customers/users?

UPDATE: Weird my machine at work doesn't show the bar. I thought I had the same settings for both home and work 'puters. Maybe the extra security blockers that my company's firewalls block out have something to do with it. More likely it hasn't hit my work computer yet.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Need to catch up on Book Reviews


I have really fallen behind in my book reviewing. I have 13 books that I have read over the last year and a half (closer to almost two years) that I have not written a "recent read" for. I am trying to catch up on that the next two I have the drafts set up with the book cover image and the publication history info I like to include at the end but I don't have the book quote or the actual review written. So technically the next several reviews will not be "a recent read". Maybe I should do away with the "recent" bit and not bother with numbering my reviews... I might do that when it hits #20. I don't want to have juggle with two review lists the other one would be something like "a classic read" or "a not so recent read" but I'm sure I would soon get confused and also confuse anyone who bothers reading my reviews.

So I will probably just have to title the future reviews as whatever the book title is plus "review" and forget about being anal retentive with numbers.