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20/02/2010

Scotland, Dusty Springfield, Speaking Canadian, Lotus Flowers... and many more blessings!

My computer has got a virus attack on Wednesday night - Security Essential 2010; which is a harmful virus that doesn't need to install to harm your computer - and it took me the entire Wednesday evening as well as 7 hours in Thursday to clean up the computer and recover my system. In the process, I definitely lost my Desktop wallpaper, my anti-virus, MalwareByte, Spybot and all my Firefox information, I even got Kaspersky anti-virus installed automatically (I never downloaded this software). The virus entered my computer without notice, I didn't have to check any button, nor got a notice that my computer was downloading something. 

I made a search on the Web and found that Security Essentials was harmful virus. However, it seems that the 2010 version is worst!

I thus re-downloaded all my anti-spyware and anti-virus softwares, re-installed them and everything seemed working fine... Well, seemed, uh! Then, on Friday morning, I got a notice that Firefox just installed a new version... the 3.8.5 version. Since I do not authorize FF to make automatic updates nor install new versions without notification, I directly de-installed the entire file, cleaned the computer once again, and then re-installed everything; which means that I lost all FF info, including the blessed lenses I use to save in a special file so that I can get back to them when I post.

Well, now that I'm back online, I can feature some of the lenses I blessed on Thursday. Let's go!

Quiz: How Well Do You Speak Canadian? by lensmaster kimmanleyort

I'm French speaker and depending on the country we live, we use whether older French or more modern French. In France, it is modern French that is used. In Switzerland and Belgium that is older. I think that in Quebec, it is very old French that is spoken. But don't all languages have their particularities? And so English does! The lens I'm presenting was built by lensmaster kimmanleyort and is really fun to take! It does measure how much you know Canadian! Funny, I got 7 out of 10 good answers! Eh, British and Canadian English are well known by French speakers. So, if you too want to have a lot of fun and learn many things about the differences between Canadian English and other types of English tongue, take the quiz! 

Information About Scotland -- A Novelist's Guide to Creating Scottish Characters and Settings, by lensmaster WordCustard.

I love anything British and/or coming or born in Great Britain. This is a country I really love and wanted to live in many years ago. The only problem being the weather - too similar to the one in Belgium and I have to say that I'm fed up with gray sky, rain, snow, wind, low temperatures, etc. But my country of choice isn't the purpose of this post. Actually WordCustard created a Squidoo lens that teaches novelist wannabes how to write a story that occurs in Scotland. By reading this page, you'll learn everything you have to know about the weather and temperatures, how to call your Scottish characters properly, she even gives you some names to take into consideration, both male and female first names. In the process you're going to learn how Scots look like, the most famous color of their hair and the legends, the language Scottish actually speak, how Scots must be called, the differences between Scottish, Scot, Scotch... As for me, my gift wishes didn't change: I still want 12 Tall Scots wearing kilts and playing bagpipe who would bring me nice red crystal vases and glasses!

Dusty in Memphis - The Album by lensmaster Waxing-Lyrical

When I was a teen, my aunt gave me an album of Dusty Springfield. It was the one called "With Love from Dusty" or "From Dusty with Love" (I don't remember as the album is in safe place while I don't listen to it any more because of the invention of the CD and also the one of the computer and nowadays my musics are into my computer - but I kept all my albums and singles). Anyway. Richard created a lens that is a tribute to Dusty Springfields's album Dusty in Memphis and the page is also an account of this marvelous singer's career! My favorite music is Blues and I love most of its belated musics like soul, motown, gospel, etc. Then, in my opinion, and if you like the sixties, blues, and great voices, you're going to love this lens!

The Beauty of the Lotus Flower, by lensmaster LotusMalas

My son asked me if I would agree that he builds a pond in our garden. Well, I always said no... but this lens convinced me to accept such a project and if he wants, my son will be authorized to build his pond. Why? Simply because I would want to have some lotus flowers into this pond, they are highly decorative, delicate and beautiful. In addition, and LotusMalas states their benefits in her lens, the lotus flower is symbol of spirituality. The page is beautiful and I blessed it not just because I love lotus flowers but also because the page is well designed.

Ways for Teens to Make Money, by lensmaster garyr_h

At first sight, when I saw the lens link, I thought "Oh my! Another how to make money lens that is surely against Squidoo TOS! But I visited the lens and read. This reminded me from the period I was a teen and used to wash the cars every Saturday so that I could get money to pay my cigarettes. I remember that some car owners would pay me up to 200 Belgian francs for one car - was $8 in these times. And since I washed more than one car, I earned a lot of money - all gone into smoke! So, in this Squidoo lens, you're going to discover the best ways for teenagers to earn money: car washing, lawn mowing, baby and/or animal sitting and much more!

Voila, that's it for today. I'm still working at looking for the other lenses I blessed.

As for my own Squidoo work... I created two lenses that relate to Easter as I needed some. The first one presents a collection of fantastic unique Easter gifts in a basket - all are edible gifts, of course. The second one features Jim Shore Easter Collectibles, a marvelous collection that will bring you in Easter wonderland!

See you soon for a new post!

 

2 comments:

  1. So sorry to hear about all the problems you were having with your computer, Dom.

    But thank you so much for blessing Dusty and featuring her here :)

    ReplyDelete