Hey-J, My name was supposed to be Twin-Cities-Bike-Club-Cowboy (tcbccowboy). Someone mistyped it, using an 'S' instead of the 'C' for cities. I started using it that way and have never changed it. So it could stand for tabasco too. Bunnycat, Spring - only five months away: Gunsmoke 4/26/07 6 nice eyes Gunsmoke 4/30/07 Whiskey Sour 4/30/07

CD storage is ok if burned to a quality CD. A few years ago, some inexpensive CDs had a problem with the reflective backing. Also, you must protect CDs from elevated temperature. Higher than normal room temperature may allow the media to relax and dull the data pits. Copying data to a new CD every 5 years is recomended practice. Archival quality CDs should be used if you can find ones with this identification. Your instructor recommended flash drives (AKA thumb drives). I disagree. Flash drives are only a little better than CDs. Flash drives may have evloved since they were first introduced, but I have not heard anything to the contrary. Before I retired, I watched their development in trade magazines and this is my information (15 years old). Flash drives have a "keep alive" battery inside. A voltage source is required to maintain the states of the storage junctions. The current draw is very little, but the data will dissappear if the voltage fails. A lithium-ion battery technology was chosen because it was one type that can hold a charge for a long time. Typical life is 10 years. After that, the thunb drive may become unreliable. Recommended practice: Copy data to a new flash drive every 7 years and toss the old drive (after it has been cleaned of data or destroyed). When buying a flash drive, make sure it is a new one and not one that has been sitting on the shelf for several years. Keep in mind that the life of the unit depends on the life of the internal battery. The jucntions of flash drives do wear out. A junction is good for about 10,000 rewrites and then it may fail. To address this problem, there is an algorithm built in that causes data writes to move around the chip such that all of the storage area gets used equally. Therefore, your archived data should be put on flash drives that are not used very much. Flash drives used as a hard drive experienceing thousands of writes/rewrites will eventually fail. The smaller the capacity, the sooner it will fail. Very large capacity drives will last longer since each junction gets written less often. Do not store your data on a flash drive that is used for games. Thousands of rewrites can occur over the life of a game. Static charges imparted to the electrodes of a flash drive can destroy it, or at minimum, corrupt the data.

A bit of trivia - traditional landlines, also known as POTS (plain old telephone service), USED TO use exclusively analog technology end to end. Folks who are old enough will remember poor quality long distance phone calls. Since several decades ago, POTS calls have changed, they do most of their traveling though the telco systems over digital links, including the Internet. That's why a cross country call or even an international call can sound like someone next door, the signal doesn't degrade with distance. But the so-called "last mile" of POTS service is analog over copper wire. Digital signals (like DSL) traveling over analog circuits have distance limitations. Those who have cable-supplied phone service or other VOIP have an entire digital path on their end for voice calls. Internet service is digital. When DSL service was first "released", only customers located within 12,000- 15,000 feet (measured by the length of the wire) of a telco office could get it. That's because distance limit of digital signals over copper wire intended for analog phone calls and that the analog to digital conversion equipment was only housed in the central offices. The telcos had large build-out projects to string fiber lines out in hub and spoke configurations (with an office as the hub) to broaden the areas where DSL could be offered. In my area (telco formerly called Pacific Bell), there was a web page that listed their construction schedule and showed the dates for when particular neighborhood work would be done and where the sites were located. I remember when it was started for my area, I went to visit the guys at the local neighborhood drop as they added the needed equipment. PS - satellite internet is for areas where no other internet service is available. Most will not offer service to a customer having an alternative. Satellite service tends to be very limited (only a few GB per month), expensive and has high latency (delays) because of the distance the signal has to travel. TV service of all kinds is distributed by satellite. Whether the ultimate signal a user gets comes from a cable, from the phone company, or the obvious satellite providers, satellite transmission is used. If you pass by a regional office of a cable provider, for instance, you'll usually see large satellite dishes. I don't know all the details.

I'm like mushcreek a lot-we had to outfit the whole house with lights by the final inspections, and after researching the subject-I realized my only way to get stuff I like and not go broke is to buy vintage. So everything was bought on eBay, Etsy, Craigslist, except for can lights in utilitarian areas, under cabinet lighting(these were part of the builder's quote), dining room light, one of the vanity lights(had another plan but had to tweak the last moment), and some lanterns for the backyard. So..except for these new the rest are vintage-two chandeliers, 2 flash mounts, 3 pendants, two vanity lights, one wall chandelier(there is a thing like that apparently)), 3 sconces..we already had table lamps and couple floor ones. I have a big aversion to fans I must say, and also don't really need them in the very mild climate of coastal So Cal. We did have them in our previous home and I was always afraid to turn them on:) (kids did love them though). So no fans. The house is also on the cooler side I'd say. One story. In the previous home upper floor got hot in the summer..here, no such problem. Was able to talk my family out of using fans here. It took a lot of time and energy to source the lights and some needed tweaking. It was not serious tweaking, no rewiring was involved (but for one light) but some parts were harder to get since they had to be European this and that. Eventually we were able to track these in local high end lighting stores, and on Amazon UK. My DH did all the tweaking. Frankly I d rather pay someone since he had enough of his plate, but he was very stubborn about it. I mostly found buying from individual sellers a good experience. They were attentive, responsible, and usually pleasure to deal with. Of course had to pay shipping costs(unless it was a Craigslist find)-but even with this, much much cheaper than buying very ordinary but new lights. Some fixtures were relatively expensive but it was balanced out by all that were dirt cheap. What I'd do differently? Well as much as it was long and tiresome..Nothing probably. That was my way to get the lights that I like for the price that we could bear. Also I know now much more about what questions to ask..what's the diameter of the canopy? does it have a crossbar attached? things like that. because I was asking about wattage and voltage and wiring, and had no idea there are small things that have to be there and due to the age and provenance of a light, they'd be different from standard here. In a fantasy world I'd probably still use internet-and this wonderful high end store where the selection was impressive as were the owners and the sales people who knew what they were selling, and were very helpful, tiny stuff or not.