Skype Alternative

So I have found an alternative to Skype that seems pretty interesting, it's called iCall.  You may have heard about it before, but I didn't so here's the story. Oh, and sorry for all you Mac users, you can only use iCall on Windows.

I was at home and needed to get a hold of my BF but, to my dismay, my celly was in the truck, which he was using. Since I don't have a home phone and didn't feel like getting all chummy with my neighbors (and quite possibly there are no longer any payphones) I didn't have a way to call him.  So, I first go to Skype to see if you can make phone calls and yes you can, but you only get 1 free call and then have to pay for any more calls.  So, I use my free phone call and, I call the wrong number on accident! Dang, and, I am not about to pay for more airtime.

Whelp! Now what?? Well, I went online to see if there was any way to make calls to phones from your computer and I happened upon iCall.  I check it out first as I don't want any viruses etc, and it looked to be okay.  So I install it and to my wonderful surprise, you can make FREE, I say FREE outgoing calls to local numbers (as well as video calling like Skype)! Yay!! So, I call, he answers, and GRRRRRRR my internal microphone doesn't work!!! So, upon the continuing list of things that don't work on my my computer, I am adding microphone.

Well, in any case, I am now able to share this wonderful knowledge with all of you. So feel free to take advantage!

Adobe Fix

Okay, so I was getting a little frustrated with not being able to open any pdf's (see earlier post) so I searched around and found a temporary solution until I can get this Adobe thing figured out.  I found a free (yay) program that will allow me to view pdf's.  It's called Foxit Reader 5.1.  So far I like it better than my old Adobe Reader.  I can highlight, underline with a squiggly line, make comments, strike out text, replace text (with a comment), and some other cool things!

Here's another

On the google homepage, type "find chuck norris" (without the quotes).  Press "I'm feeling lucky."  Enjoy!

Oh yeah, you have to make sure google instant is off. To do this, go into search settings (the icon in the far top right corner), and under google instant, select do not use Google Instant and save preferences.

Passing the time....

Haha!!! If you didn't already know, you can get a nifty little ninja in your google reader.  In a throwback to old school video games, go to your google reader page and enter this code using your keyboard arrows: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right then hit A, B.  A ninja will appear on the left side!

More update frustration!!!

So, an update on the whole Microsoft/iTunes issue is that I've spent at least 8 hours researching how to fix this to no avail!!! What I have figured out is that my computer keeps trying to install a security update for Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Pack (whatever that means). I've tried like 3 different solutions including uninstalling anything that said visual c++ then installing visual c++ 2010, which didn't work.  Arggggh, I'm thinking about giving up on this....

And, now, to top it all off, I created for myself an Adobe Reader update nightmare.  Here's the skinny on this.  I was reading an article for class in Adobe Reader and thought to myself, it would be nice to be able to highlight this like a book.  So, I went online and found that that you can with the latest Reader update, Adobe Reader X (10.1.1).  Well, I was apparently running a super old version of reader (9.1) so went ahead and started the update.  I get this error with something about a missing patch and I needed to uninstall Adobe then reinstall it.  So, I go into uninstall programs and lo and behold, there is NO Adobe reader for me to uninstall.  I tried the update like 3 more times, all with the same error.  I am going to try and figure this one out, but I can say without hesitation that I am seriously considering throwing this computer out the window!!!