Tuesday 19 February 2013

19/02: AAARGGHHHH! TECHNICAL PROBLEMS

Technical problems again ......

My emails keep bouncing back ... well I think its only the ones sent to Hotmail addresses but its soooooo frustrating as I don't know which messages have arrived safely (or been rejected) until a couple of hours after sending them.   My provider is Talk Talk but when I checked their Help Pages - well, they weren't very helpful!

A client in Singapore who wants 2 dog portraits and 1 horse portrait uses hotmail and its taking 4 or 5 attempts to get each email through to her .... I'm tearing my hair out.

A 'Google enquiry' shows that this is a common problem at the moment but nobody seems to have a good answer ..... so if anybody out there has suggestions I'd be most grateful as the problem is escalating.   I've been out all afternoon and returned home to find 5 emails have bounced back to me - all from contacts with Hotmail email addresses.

Some happier/more positive stuff ...

As a lot of my fellow artists will know, one of the best pencil sharpeners on the market just now is the cheapo desktop manual sharpener from Lidl stores.      Lidl rotate their stock/lines so the art collection is usually only available a couple of times per year.   The sharpeners are just £3.49 each and far superior to  the 'professional' models marketed by major pencil manufacturers at 10 times that price.   I thought I'd missed the boat as the last promotion (locally) finished in January but David popped into the Canterbuy Lidl store yesterday and found they were still displaying the sharpeners so he bought 4 for me - they will last me several months so I'm a happy bunny!!!      Thank you David  :-)

and we had a woodpecker in our garden this morning.   I spotted him from our bedroom window and called downstairs to alert David.    Unfortunately by the time David got the camera set up the woodpecker had moved to a fatball container which was partly obscured by tree branches/twigs so this is the best he could do ... but its a Greater Spotted Woodpecker and this is only the second sighting we've had in our garden in 5 years so I'm very 'chuffed'.   The Greater Spotted woodpecker has a very distinctive red 'undercarriage'


 and poor David has been diagnosed with Shingles so he has an explanation for all the aches and pains he has been complaining about for the last few days.    He's expecting sympathy but with so much going on over the next few weeks he'll have to wait his turn I think    LOL

So, first priority is to resolve this issue with emails/hotmail rejections.   Then finish the coloured pencil family portrait and the 3 pastel dog/horse portraits.   I have pictures to select/hang at the exhibition in Whitstable next week  ... oh and we have a daytrip to France booked for later this week (booze cruise) so never a dull moment.






8 comments:

  1. yes those are great sharpeners! have 4 in boxes in case in need one :p

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  2. Sue, I think MS has been having problems with Hotmail for the past couple of months. They're transitioning the accounts over to Outlook.com which is supposed to compete with g-mail.

    Also, I briefly caught something about FB hackers getting into people's accounts and sending out emails with viruses. I didn't catch all of that but I know I heard something about Hotmail somewhere today too.

    Poor David! I've heard that shingles can be excruciatingly painful. Normally I think guys are big babies but maybe you ought to give him a little extra compassion this time! Hope he's up to your booze cruise later this week! Also hope you get all done that you need to do!

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  3. They are brilliant aren't they Jennifer ... I don't bother fixing mine to the desk - just hand-hold it as required.

    Hi Jan. I'd gathered there are lots of problems at the moment simply by reading all the comments on Google. Hope they resolve issues soon.
    So far David is keeping the pain at bay with aspirin and now he has some anti-viral tablets to take 5 times daily. The spots have appeared tonight so we're just waiting to see how he feels tomorrow as we should be doing our usual Hospice voluntary job.

    I'm not totally unsympathetic ... honest! I know it can be very painful but we're hoping that taking medication so early will help.

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  4. I really hope David can keep the pain at bay, but from everything I hear, it can be really, really bad. Not only that, isn't it infectious. I know I got chicken pox 'cos somebody's mum had shingles and she brought it back to school. You should check before David, or you, goes anywhere.

    Sorry you couldn't get a better shot of the woodpecker, they can be such fantastic birds.

    Know nothing about Hotmail, sorry.

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  5. What do the pencil sharpenerlook like?s

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  6. Shingles is kind of reactivation of the chickenpox virus which lies dormant for years.

    For shingles (where the rash is on an exposed site), the infectious period is from the onset of the rash until crusting of lesions. But this is only by direct contact with the rash. It would be possible for somebody to contract chicken pox from him during this period if they were in direct contact with the affected skin/area - unlikely.

    David's rash is on his chest/side and he will keep it covered as per the advice of his GP

    Hi Jeanne
    I'm just about to go out for the day (my volunteer job at the local hospice eBay office. I'll photograph the sharpeners and post them later this evening

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  7. I'm so sorry that David has the shingles..ouch !!! My dad used to say it was so painful....hope he gets better fast, Sue!!
    Also, I have been having problems with google...when I leave a comment..a lot of the times it doesn't post...hopefully it will be okay today.

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  8. Always lovely to see a woody :) I hope David feels better soon...I didn't like shingles :(

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