A Lovely 10C Site!

Solved a major problem for an older Mac User Group member yesterday: Whenever he booted up his 2017 27-in iMac VoiceOver would shout loudly that he needed to enter his password. Plus his keyboard wasn’t working properly, some keys were unresponsive. The Accessibility (onscreen) keyboard appeared at login & he had to use the mouse to enter the password all while VoiceOver was screeching at full volume all manner of stuff depending on where the mouse went.
He had set Mouse Keys on in the Accessibility System Preference. This setting uses keys 7, 8, 9, U, O, J, K & L as cursor arrows & keys I & M as mouse buttons. That’s why his keyboard was malfunctioning.
The login issue with VoiceOver, etc was nothing to do with the normal Accessibility settings, rather the very similar ones in the Accessibility Options part of Login Options in the Users & Groups system preference. See attachment. All those options had been checked, I unchecked them.

He also had two hot corners set up: top left was Desktop. But he had no other virtual desktops active. Top right hot corner was Notifications, but in almost the same location but on the menubar is where you open Notifications anyway. I turned off all Hot Corners.

All instances of VoiceOver, Zoom, Mouse Keys, Sticky Keys, Slow Keys & Accessibility Keyboard were then unchecked and deactivated.

Problem solved, took me about 20 minutes to nut it all out but now I have a friend for life!

@joanna The iOS version of Pixelmator has a reduce file size /change format export setting.

// @nitinkhanna

joanna.10centuries.org.

@variablepulserate Decades, allegedly.

variablepulserate.10centuries.org.

@variablepulserate I paid $25 at ALDI for the Bondic repairer. It comes with a pistol-like over & under tool that has a 4 ml tube of liquid plastic filler below a UV LED thingie. There are comprehensive instructions, a second tube of goop & the whole lot is in a tin box.

Replacement goop is $10 each but various bulk packs reduce that unit price to $6 if you buy 15 of them. Personally, I’d try a different (cheaper) brand of filler.

Having said that, if the coffee maker hadn’t been fixable it would have been over $40 for a new one.

variablepulserate.10centuries.org.

@variablepulserate You can get comparatively cheap ones, do your research. The kicker is the price of the liquid plastic filler that (miraculously) hardens under UV light.

variablepulserate.10centuries.org.

I miss-aligned the slots in the base of my CleverDripper coffee maker while reassembling it after cleaning and snapped the stem of the valve mechanism clean off.
Fortunately I could position the bits correctly to attempt a repair with a UV liquid plastic welder.
Work in layers, apply liquid pastic to the repair area then cure it in 8 seconds with a UV LED. Add more layers, curing each with UV light before reapplying.
All done, fixed & working in 10 minutes.

A tale of two cities (and two rotten relatives!) Perth, capital of Western Australia, lies at 32º S latitude & would be uncomfortably hot in summer if not for a regular southwesterly wind that cools the area.
Ballarat is the largest inland city in Victoria & is at 37º 33’ S latitude. It’s infamous for its cold winters. Today in Perth at 6:40 am it's already the same temperature as Ballarat’s forecast maximum for the day.
Now for the rotten relatives. They are myself & my youngest sister, we have willingly undertaken the duty of informing our youngest niece of this temperature differential as she’s moving from Perth having accepted a job in Ballarat. She grew up in Perth & Karratha, WA (20º 44’ S) it’s where so hot it’s unwise to go outside in the afternoon.
We are willing to keep supplying this service because we care.

Early in my working life my wage was $8000 p.a. I paid $40 once to recover the cracked vinyl seats in the car & thought this a reasonable price.

Spring forward 15 years, now earning $32,000 p.a: had a quote from the same upholsterer to pay $160 to replace cracked vinyl seat covers in another car.

I decided to fit seats from a wreck instead because it was more expensive than it had been last time.

But do the maths & each price was 0.05% of my annual wage.

When I moved away from home in 1980 I took board & lodging in a couple of different residences with different landladies. One provided breakfast & dinner, the other breakfast & sandwiches for lunch. The 1st one didn’t believe in fresh milk, quite a rude shock for a young fellow coming straight from a dairy farm. She would mix Carnation evaporated milk with too much water, it was really horrid. You put this on your cereal each morning and it went soggy & sloppy far too quickly.
The 2nd lady served oatmeal porridge but made it thick with water, oats & a pinch of salt, leaving us to thin it out/cool it with skim milk, evil & horrible stuff.
On the dairy farm I came from we made it properly: the liquid component was ⅓ water/ ⅔ whole milk and it was served with cream & a choice of sweeteners: cane sugar, honey or golden syrup.
Proper thick, creamy & rich in taste & texture.

Visited Mum today. Sister was also there, she went shopping & came back with some very cheap squid rings & farmed Atlantic salmon.

Squid was rolled in salt & pepper seasoned flour, dipped in an eggwash & drenched in breadcrumbs then fried very hot & very quickly, end result: classic tender Aussie dish of salt & pepper squid.
Main course was baked salmon portion served with roasted frozen Mediterranean vegetables.
Last week I scored a fine bottle of crisp dry white wine from a local producer as a raffle prize, that was also served up with the fishy comestibles.
Between the three of us, that bottle didn’t last long at all.