Ricky Spears’ Blog
Empower. Challenge. Advance.

Archive for the 'General' Category


27
Feb

A Slower and More Strategic Variation to Playing Scrabble Slam! Card Game

My wife and I have been on a bit of Scrabble kick the past couple months–it’s good cheap and fun entertainment that makes you think. A few weeks ago we were in Wal-Mart and picked up a card game called Scrabble Slam! It looked interesting and was very inexpensive so we thought we would try [...]


25
Feb

Can You Be Tricked into Buying Premium Gas and Paying More?

I was running dangerously low on gas Monday night and had to stop and fill up at a station I don’t normally visit. I always run Regular Unleaded in my truck and never use Plus or Premium–they just aren’t worth the extra amount I would have to pay. Having said that, I have run Plus [...]


25
Feb

What’s the Actual Cost of an Automatic Car Wash with per Gallon Savings

About once every 2 or 3 months I’ll purchase a car wash when I fill up my truck with gas. The station where I usually fill up has an automatic car wash and the menus on the pump allow me to easily add a wash to my fuel bill and pay for it all right [...]


31
Jan

Bull Crap! Card Game Helper

Over the holidays, I was introduced to a fun card game called Bull Crap. I won’t go into the details about how to play it here, but the rules are simple and you can learn how to play Bull Crap on Wikipedia. As we played, I quickly began to learn how to apply some basic [...]


26
Aug

magicJack Hijacks My Free Conference Calls to 218-339-2500!

My friend Russell turned me on to magicJack about a year or so ago. He also evangelized it to several other people I know and about 4-months ago I decided to buy one myself. I was able to get 5 years of VOIP phone service through my desktop, or laptop when I travel, for under [...]


19
Aug

You’re Training – Whose Responsibility Is It?

It’s not often that I share something here that I write for other blogs. I just published a new article on the SharePoint Solutions blog entitled, “Training – Whose Responsibility Is It?” And no, it’s not an article about SharePoint training.
As an educator, I see all types of people seeking training. Even more so, I [...]


18
Aug

How to Restart, Shut Down, Sleep, and Hibernate Windows Vista through a Remote Desktop Connection (RDP)

When I’m working in my home office, I access my laptop via Remote Desktop (RDP). My desktop has dual monitors and I find it easier to use my laptop this way.
 
My laptop runs Vista Business and one problem I have is that when I need to Shut Down (Turn off) or Restart (reboot) my laptop, [...]


17
Aug

Resolving Problems with New Hard Drive and Slow Boots (BAD_POOL_HEADER)

I recently upgraded the hard drive in my Dell Dimension E210. It came with an 80Gb hard drive and it has served me well for the past 3-1/2 years. However, as I’ve been doing more with audio, especially for the Mindful Worship web site, I’ve been filling it up. I was in a meeting and [...]


31
Mar

My First Two Weeks with the Amazon Kindle 2

I’m just documenting a few notes here that will hopefully be of benefit to someone.
No Page Numbers!
It probably comes as no surprise to my readers that I am goal oriented. I set goals and carefully track my progress. Reading is no exception. When I’m reading a printed book and I start a new chapter, I [...]


18
Mar

My First Day with the Amazon Kindle 2

I’ve been intrigued by the Amazon Kindle 2 for quite some time, but I just couldn’t quite bring myself to shell out the $359 to buy one. Saturday evening, one of my friends posted on her FaceBook status that she was enjoying her new Kindle. This caused me to take another look at the device.
I [...]

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