Do we want a Making Life Easier thread?

[agate]

Interesting how-to (and how not-to) videos. Looks as if using a strap wrench always involves using two of them, and they're always sold as a pair? Definitely worth having for anyone needing help opening jars. Rapping a jar against a counter doesn't always work for me (but sometimes it does).

A strap wrench unfortunately wouldn't help me with one of my most annoying problems--opening a 59-oz. box of orange juice. It's a fairly large and weighty box, and you need to unscrew the cap, THEN find a plastic ring that is hiding inside the spout and pull on it with all your might and main while holding onto the carton.

I consider myself very lucky if I can get that ring out after a few tries and very lucky indeed if I can do that without spraying orange juice all over.

[flatcap]

Glad you got your internet back!

Strap wrenches are usually, if not always, sold in pairs. You don't always need to use two at once, but you would if opening a jar or other similar container.

The 12-second video I posted shows a few applications where only one strap wrench is required. It also shows two used to open a stainless steel container.

Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register...

I know what you mean about those boxed juice containers. The spouts can be pretty hard to dig out and deploy.

[flatcap]

Password Management

Nearly everyone has a lot of online accounts these days, and managing user names and passwords can be a chore.

If you don't have a password manager in the cloud and would prefer to have a resident app on your Windows PC, I recommend KeePass. It is OSI-certified freeware and safe. I have been using it for many years and always update it when new releases become available.

The only thing I can point to that some users may not like is the interface. I have no problem with it, but it looks like Window 7 apps used to: very clean, but somewhat sterile. It runs on Windows 10 just fine, which I think means it will also run on Windows 11.

Hope this helps.

Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register...

[agate]

For quite a while I used Dashlane, then LastPass, and lately I've just been letting Google do the job. It tells me I have no problem with passwords, and that is encouraging, especially since I went to the trouble of clearing up a bunch of them a while ago.

It's nice to know about another option. Thanks!

[flatcap]

I live in a 55+ apartment building. When I first got here, I put out the word that I could help people with their computers.

A good portion of the time, the problem was that they had somehow lost their password(s). I was usually able to get them out of it, but I became frustrated over time how often it all boiled down to lost passwords.

None of these people were ever willing to start using KeePass at my advice or anything other than a piece of paper to record their user names and passwords. The only thing I could think of for a backup was to create a text file with all their info and place it on their desktop so they couldn't miss it. That was as much for my own benefit as theirs because I knew it would come up again, and sure enough it did. Repeatedly.

I should probably have more patience but I don't. I pretty much quit the business of trying to help people with their computers for this reason. That was at least four years ago, and I am still occasionally asked for that type of help. Luckily, a youngish retired teacher in the field moved in here, so now it's me who has the backup: I send them to him.

Sometimes that works out, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I am asked to step in again, sometimes I don't. Sometimes when I do, it's passwords all over again. I think you can see why I quit.

Then there is my own cognitive decline. For example, I have to write my posts offline in Jarte, which is basically template for WordPad. I use it because I am used to it and can at least spell-check what I write before posting it. Then I read it over and over again to try and make sure it at least makes sense and after that, I look at it again one last time in the preview pane before I press go.

At least nine times out of ten when I do, I see afterwards there are still mistakes, so I get into a vicious cycle of posting, editing, reposting, re-editing, reposting, and so on. I should be less of a perfectionist, but in the main, I just can't stop. Things have to be correct and organized or what's left of my equilibrium goes off the precarious edge it sits on.

The moral of the story? I don't know. Got off track, didn't I?

ha, ha....I think I'll go and post a cap pic and see how that works out.

Wish me luck. You never know: the vicious cycle might start up again and we'll be here all day. lol

[agate]

Oh my. It was beyond kind of you to offer to help your 55 neighbors with computer problems! If anyone ever made that kind of offer in this building I live in (58 units), that person would be overwhelmed.

The neighbors here (all seniors) seem quite adept with their cellphones but not so much with computers. I help a couple of people with occasional online ordering but in general I don't spread it around that I know anything at all about computers. I don't know that much anyway, and until COVID came along, there was a tech support person who came from the local library once a month to help people with computer issues. That tech support person was so much in demand that people had to sign up for half-hour slots with him/her.

Glad someone else came along willing and able to take on the enormous job of helping people to make the difficult transition we're apparently all having to make to a computer-literate world.

[flatcap]

What I meant by 55+ is that you have to be 55 or older to live here. I believe it has to do with some carve-out by the federal government, but I'm not sure. It isn't low-income housing so I don't know where the rule comes from, but it has to be legal or there would be discrimination issues.

I would say I tried to help about 10 -20 residents, but that was only a fraction of the people living here. I haven't counted them, but there have to be at least 100 units in the building, and the turnover rate is high so I know only a few people. Actually, I don't know them, either. I keep to myself virtually all the time. Most days, the only face-to-face conversation I have with anyone is when I order food at a restaurant.

I would like to help people here with their computers again, but I just can't do it anymore. I hardly know what I am doing on my own machine these days, and I don't have a smartphone so I can't help anyone with those. What I did do when I got here was to go as far as buying new devices for others. I was going through a manic phase and went into over $8000 in debt for that and other reasons; no less than $4000 was the price of my misguided generosity. It's all paid off now, but I think I'll stay out of that game. The temptation to go overboard helping people isn't worth it. Few, if any of them appreciate it.

[flatcap]

I don't know where to put this, so I'll drop it here. It doesn't necessarily simplify things, but I thought it might be of some interest, as it pertains to computer security.

Does anyone here use more than one browser?

I use Microsoft Edge for business, including shopping, where I have to give up personal info such as my physical address and credit card number. Other examples include email and banking, or basically anywhere I have to sign in. If I have to log on, I almost always use Edge.

I use Google Chrome for play, including here where the risk is low that there would be any significant loss of personal info in case of a hack. The only thing buried in my account here is my secondary email address, so it wouldn't be much of a loss. I can always get another email account if my inbox starts receiving more spam than I care to deal with. (Oh, and I never login to Chrome so as not to let Google know any more than I have to about where I browse. Then, I step all over what's left on my machine using BleachBit after every browser session. I don't store cookies or anything else that matters in browsers.)

Much like browsers, I use two email accounts in different domains: one for business, the other for play. I like to keep them entirely separate for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that I don't want everyone knowing my 'real' email address.

Actually, there's a third email account I use whenever I pretty much know going in that I will be getting a lot of spam, such as when I order a pizza or something like that. That account is under yet another domain where I can have up to ten aliases that I can toss at any time. I use just one and delete it if necessary, then create a new one if spam becomes a problem.

Anyway, I'm curious how much, if at all, people here get into this stuff. I acquired these habits with computers from working in the lab during my career, which was long, so they stay with me....mostly. I have forgotten a lot of it, but the computer security part is still drilled in. The training induced in me a certain level of paranoia that has never gone completely away.

Maybe that's a good thing.


ETA: I forgot to say anything about two-factor authorization (2FA). If anyone is interested in the merits of using 2FA where available we can discuss that as well. I don't always use it, but I do when I think it makes more sense than it does not to.

[agate]

I use Google Chrome these days though Edge keeps trying to impose itself on me. I was slightly tempted to try a new browser Norton has been offering. I use Norton Antivirus but hesitate to sign onto any of Norton's other offerings. There have been problems with some of them in the past.

flatcap, I'm sorry I carelessly misread what you said about your 55+ neighbors!

The housing you're in may be the kind of "moderately priced" housing that was going up in the neighborhood I lived in in WA state. It wasn't HUD housing but the rents were kept lower than they might have been--I think with the help of some kind of federal aid. The apartment buildings I saw (two of them right near where I lived) had quite a large number of units. Everything was nice and gleaming new and looked appealing at the time, in spite of the very compact layouts. This tells a little about the organization that was putting up the buildings. Though it doesn't mention government assistance, I think there has been some.

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--It sounds as if you were far more generous to your neighbors than most people would have been!

[flatcap]

No problem on the 55+ thing. We have them in this part of WA state now, but the one I live in is not moderately priced, at least not as far as I am concerned.

The rent I pay for a 500-square-foot apartment is $1610/mo. I get a carport and all utilities paid, including cable and internet, but it still isn't quite reasonable, much less cheap for this area. If I wouldn't have to put up with all-night-partying neighbors, I would probably move. It's dead quiet in this building, and I am on the top floor so I hear no one walking above me day or night.

There is also the growing issue of crime in our town. This place isn't 100% crime-free — there have been a few incidents of vandalism, at least one catalytic converter stolen, and one stolen car — but in general, it's pretty safe.

I like it here well enough, I guess, but I'm not really happy about it. I thought I might fit in better here for once, but I was fooling myself about that. I don't fit in anywhere IRL. Chronic depression is no doubt part of it — Asperger's definitely is — but that doesn't change the fact that I am stuck here with no place to go.

I think about moving somewhere else all the time, including the small northeastern town where I was born. I have no relatives there that I know of anymore, but rents are cheap and the area is beautiful. It also offers decent health care facilities, so that base would be largely covered. I'd probably move there right now if I thought I could make the trip and start over once I got there, but that isn't very realistic. I have to pay extra attention getting around town in my car as it is, and even if I could handle the freeway speeds, it would still take me at least ten days to make the trip — probably longer. And starting over? Not very likely I could pull that off, either.

So, here I stay. I suppose this is what happens when you get older without a nest egg to fall back on. I should have at least bought a house. Then I could stay home for real.


ETA: Thanks for the link! I bookmarked it in case I ever move to Seattle. It's a real possibility, especially since I like — love, actually — when it rains.

[flatcap]

Agate, I logged out for a while because Windows was screaming at me to restart for an update. Did that so now I'm back, no doubt to your great consternation. lol

I have tried a few second-rate browsers, including Vivaldi, Brave, and Firefox. All offer benefits that Chrome does not have, particularly better privacy (if you believe it), but none worked for me.

I found that Vivaldi, in line with its reputation, is for "power users." I am not a power user, not by a long shot. Brave is Chrome wrapped up in a new package. Easy enough to use if you know your way around Chrome, but what's the point? Does anyone really believe they are not collecting your data? Firefox is a complete mess as far as I am concerned, and I don't care what they say about "privacy." I don't believe them.

I do use Tor Browser occasionally but only for grins. Its Firefox-based interface is not something I can stand very long. It is one way to get to the dark web, but I've never had any interest in that. From what one sees in the news, it's not a safe place to go by design. The one thing that Tor can do for you is cloak your internet activity so your ISP does not see it. For that, you get speeds so slow it's like traveling back in time to the good old days of dial-up connections.

If I want to hide my internet activity from my ISP, I use a virtual private network (VPN), specifically Proton VPN. Proton Mail is the service that reporters around the world use to keep their emails private via strong encryption. It is the gold standard, and Proton VPN grew out of it. The company is based in Switzerland, and this is one case where I believe their claims regarding privacy.

Proton VPN does have its issues, though, the main one being that using it can make your internet activity look like 'unusual traffic' coming from who knows where. Good for privacy, not so good sometimes when you have to login. For example, every now and then, I forget to disconnect from the VPN and Google has a heart attack when I try to login to Gmail. They ask for a code sent to my secodary address to complete the login process. So far, that one has let me in every time without a problem, but you never know. I don't want to get locked out of both accounts at the same time. I would really be stuck then, so I now I try to remember to disconnect from the VPN before going to those sites.

Enough for now — whew! — who's next? lol

[agate]

flatcap, I don't know if you should regret not owning a house. I've owned houses and am very very glad I no longer do.

Starry-eyed people with a bit of money for a down payment go looking at houses and find one that looks perfect and go through the rigamarole of buying it. Great yard, beautiful trees, plenty of room, everything seems to be working. Passed an inspection. What the starry-eyed house owner sometimes doesn't think about is all of the maintenance it takes just to own a house.

I was such a starry-eyed house owner (more than once). The last one was in New England. No sooner had I moved in than I found that the heat wasn't working. The real estate broker did fix that since it was right after I moved in. But later, during my 2.75 years there:

1- The hot water heater failed and had to be replaced.

2 - The place was fueled by oil, which had to be delivered regularly by a truck. When there was any snow on the streets and the truck couldn't get through, the place would be without fuel. The streets were so out-of-the-way that they didn't routinely get plowed. This meant that the house owners on that street got out and shoveled the snow and ice on the street. We had to--or else our houses wouldn't have fuel for heat. Major time- and energy-consuming nuisance.

3 - Carpenter ants. Some time later it was found that there was some rotting fascia board in the gutters, and that is where the ants were nesting. The rotten wood was replaced. Big expense.

4 - A couple of roof leaks. Repaired, also at great expense. Until that repair could happen, I was busy with buckets every time it rained.

5 - The house stood on a downward slope, and the back yard was terraced with a couple of levels, one of which was shored up by a railroad-tie retaining wall. This was giving way and the neighbor down the hill might soon have "received" much of the land from my property, So I hired a crew of guys to replace the wall. Huge expense.

6 - And then there were the jobs I should have done but didn't do. I should have hired an arborist to check the trees on the property regularly. I should have hired a chimney sweep to clean out the fireplace chimney.


I could go on.... And on and on. You can really get into house problems once you have a house. Some people seem to enjoy improving their houses. I might not have minded it so much either, given enough resources but the resources weren't really there.

I think you should be glad you've escaped the pitfalls of home ownership.

[flatcap]

Lists like yours are the biggest reason I never bought a house. Added to that was the fact that I never spent much time at home in my apartment. All week it was work, work, work, and weekends were mostly spent recuperating.

The reason I regret not buying a house is that it would have been a good investment. I suppose everyone knows, but renting means you are paying someone else to reap the rewards. I have a modest pension coming a year and a half from now, but if I were drawing it already, I still wouldn't be able to afford an assisted living arrangement should it ever come to that.

Meanwhile, I live in no-man's land where my income is too high to qualify for low-income housing, yet low enough that I have no viable options. In the lower middle ground where I sit, rent is already squeezing my budget hard, and I expect it will continue going up, which it currently does every year by about $100/mo.

At this rate, I imagine I will be able to continue living the way I do now for 5-10 years at most. If anything catastrophic happens during that time period such as contracting another major illness to go with those I already have, I will be toast. In fact, if any major expense were to come up right now such as needed a new car, it would be a real strain, if I could afford it all. Either way, what will probably come next is that I will have to live in what amounts to a ghetto where the neighbors are terrifying and the crime rate is through the roof.

I wish I weren't where I am, but I can't do anything about it. Had I bought a house, I could sell it right now in a heartbeat for something like $300k-$500k. When I got here in 1989, I could have bought the biggest house in town for about $40k and it would be paid for now, so I think I would have been in the pink.

So that is really why I regret never buying a house. No doubt I would have had to put a lot of time and money into the project, but I have to wonder if I still wouldn't have come out ahead. Instead I worry about money all the time, along with what's down the road.

[flatcap]

Here's another tool for making things easier: Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register...

I have used one of these nail clippers for over 10 years now, and they really are the ultimate (or darn close to it).

The ergonomics are such that, in spite of my tremor, I can still clip my nails. I have been worried for sometime now that I will eventually be unable to do it myself but, so far, my Klhip clipper has saved me from that.

At $79.95, Klhip clippers aren't cheap, but I think they are well worth it. Besides being possibly the easiest nail clippers in the world to use, they are designed to last practically forever. I highly recommend them.

[agate]

Wow. That is one very special nail clipper!

I have a question. The photo shows someone clipping fingernails. Would it work for toenails as well? I use an ordinary nail file on fingernails. I recently latched onto a larger type of file that works better.

My problems with toenails got to the point where I decided just to go to the podiatrist every few months and let them do it. I can't see what I'm doing very well and have trouble reaching the toes, especially a couple of them that are bent.

I'm glad you've found a product that works. I've been through quite a few types of nail clippers and understand wanting one that works better.