#24 Here We Go Again...or The Hills are Alive but My Patch Cord Died

I am excited to begin a new training. Yay! Onward! Here I go! My first steps into "The Next Generation" training are: (swell of music, trumpet solo and...hummm) to register for Passpack Online Password Management and a free email service? (badda boom) Okay, I know this is for my own good, and even though I already registered on no less than a dozen different sites for the original iHCPL, I took care of the preliminaries. I concentrated and created a really silly password, which caused me to smile inwardly and begin to enjoy myself. (Actually that's not exactly true. I used the first phrase that came to mind, and it was an inanely silly one. It just goes to show, you don't really want to know what I'm thinking when I get that mysterious glazed expression on my face from time to time.) Then I began reading. The article on Password Strength and Security was actually very interesting and informative.

Now, on to activities:
"1. Look at the different types of pay sites, comparing features and prices."
check
"2. Download a song from your computer..." skip until I get home and can borrow
daughter's MP3 player

I was thrilled to discover that my favorite radio stations DO offer listening through their web sites. That made my day!


This weekend I worked on completing the 2nd exercise. I attempted to sign up for EZTracks, a free music sharing site. In my opinion, they should change their name to IncrediblyAnnoyingAndDeeplyFrustratingTracks. After signing in to create an account, I had to wade through probably 50 surveys. After each one a message said, "Just one more step!", but for some reason, I never could reach that final page where I actually HAD an account. Wow! Was that a waste of time. I did not want to even think about opening a "Pay to Play" account after that experience, so I uploaded some favorite songs to my computer's hard drive and then...my computer would not recognize the MP3 Player! I tried several times but for some reason it did not want to work.

Maybe it was in the stars. I do believe in climbing every mountain, but today this was like dreaming the impossible dream.

Postscript: I used my library's MP3 player to practice activity #2. It was fairly painless. Thank you, helpful coworker, for walking me through the steps.