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THE
RVERSCORNER
Newsletter
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Aug,
2001
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Hi
folks,
Inside this issue:
- Hot August Days mean more
refrigerator problems - what to do?
- From the RVer's Open Forum: Wind
Deflectors
- Give your RV a classy facelift By Peggi McDonald (part two of
two)
- MORE TIME By Dr. Donald E. Wetmore
- Backup Mysteries Revealed,
(last part) The NewbieClub
Joke of the Day:
Classified Ad
Section:
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Hot
August Days mean more refrigerator problems - what to do?
When the
temperatures reach the August highs, your refrigerator is working to
capacity. Any additional help you can give it will ease it's load.
1.
Keep the door closed as much as possible. Decide what you need to take out
or
put in beforehand, do it quickly and close that door.
2. If you find you
are opening the fridge door often for beverages or cold water,
consider using
a separate ice filled cooler to store these items.
3. Allow for air
currents to move around inside the food storage compartment -
proper air
circulation is a must for adequate cooling. One hint that a reader
suggested
is to open both ends of a soda can and insert these at strategic spots
to aid
in air circulation. Small battery operated fans can also be placed in the
compartment.
4. A fan can be installed in the rear compartment to
assist the flow of air up and
through the condenser fins at the top of the
cooling unit. These fans are
thermostatically controlled and available with
solar power options.
5. If you can arrange it, park with the refrigerator
side of your RV in the shade.
6. Check the seal on the door by inserting
a dollar bill between the door and the
refrigerator cabinet and close the
door on it. Canadians will have to use a
five-dollar bill, since this test
will not work with coins! There should be a
slight resistance felt when you
pull the bill out and repeat this test all the
way around the door opening.
If there are any places where the bill is loose or
simply falls out then the
seal should be replaced, as it is also leaking out cold air.
7. Start the
refrigerator the day before you will be using it to let it get cold while
it
is empty. Pre-cool all foods in your home refer before loading the RV refer.
Allow
all hot or warm food to cool to room temperature before putting it
away. Any assistance
that you can give your overworked cooling unit will
help during the heat
waves.
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From
the RVers Open Forum:
Question:
Howdy, I've been doing some
studying, this forum is wonderful.
I've seen semis & some trailers
with those 'wings' attached to the end of the cab.
Supposedly they are to
increase mileage while towing something with a brickfaced front,
like semi
trailers, most TT's etc.
My question is do they really work & is one
kind better than another. The CW catalog
mentions that the 'new' ones are
harder to 'steal'. Is this a problem too??
Answer: (from a
participant in the forum)
Tried one and returned it for a refund!!
Did nothing for my mileage over a 700 mile trip. At the cost of these
things, the main
benefit I saw was seriously limiting the number of bugs on
the front of my High Profile
unit. I look forward to other comments. I was
disappointed and wonder if others were.
Note: This is what our forum is
all about ... rv'ers helping other rv'ers!
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Give
your RV a classy facelift...by Peggi McDonald (Part two)
Our couch has
one long lift-up cushion with loose back cushions. To add firmness
we place
a 1/4" piece of plywood underneath the couch portion. If your couch has
no
end cushion, place a piece of thin plywood covered with fabric into the end
frame of the couch. You then have a perfect place to toss large throw
pillows.
Chair seat covers are fitted in front and then neatly tucked in
and around the
back and the sides of the seat. Upper portions of the chairs
I leave as is.
These covers provide an easy changeable yet professional
finish. Since I can't
move RV furniture, by changing things periodically our
RV always looks new.
In a previous motorhome we added a favourite
semi-permanent modification...
we removed the dinette and replaced it with a
breakfast bar/computer station.
Our dinette seats were always a catchall; to
sit four people for dinner resulted
in a major pre-clean-up and since our
coach is our 'fulltime' home we're always
searching for a way to extend
space. By redesigning the dinette area we gained
20 inches of kitchen
hallway floor space. The end result was I now had a six-foot
table for
crafts, ironing or my computer desk. During meals John and I ate facing
a
large picture window, when guests came, two sat at a folding table in the living
room...more than four, buffet meals were in. For info and more computer
modifications
by talented RVers, log onto the photos at www.rvliving.net
under Advice and How-to page.
Before trading our first "Kruisin' Kastle",
a 10 year old Pace Arrow unit, it received
a complete picturesque facelift
including a mahogany sub floor covered with vinyl that
resembled giant patio
stones. We asked for help in this task since it was a bit much
for us.
Caulking the vinyl edge was a big problem. Soft caulking gathered dirt and
hard caulking cracked as we moved from place to place. While searching for a
solution
I discovered 'Do-it Centres' sell a bendable plastic moulding which
not only looks
like fine wood trim; it comes in all wood colours. By
applying soft caulking under
the plastic moulding, it added a professional
leak proof touch to this versatile floor.
Coordinated carpet runners
provided the finishing touch. Until living with a washable
floor, I had no
idea how much dirt we tracked inside.
Our first update on that unit was
to replace her out-dated brown '80s style upholstery.
We found a talented
'Ma and Pa' operation who even recovered her cloth wall panels.
Of course
adding aesthetic throw pillows, new curtains, valences and bedspreads
carried the decor front to back. Wallpapering the bedroom, bathroom and
kitchen
walls provided a perfect backdrop. I even went so far as to add
wallpaper to the
yellowed air condition covers, however you may wish to
forego this tedious task.
The final upgrade included hanging silk plants and
decorative accessories plus a
change in towel colour. Hand painting the bath
mat added one more little touch.
Once again with a little work and
imagination, old became new again.
As a final step, we coated all the
wood with a generous dose of lemon oil. .
On the outside, John routinely
gives the outside a concentrated clean and polish
and we're ready to hit the
road with a sparkling coach from the tires to the roof
inside and out. If
any oxidation is present boat products help remove it.
Look for these
cleaners in marinas and boat stores. There are many brands on the
market,
but we used Meguiar's Heavy Duty Oxidation Remover #44 or #49 followed
with
cleaner/wax #50. I have to admit updating our Pace spanned two years...we
were making her ready for her new owners whoever they were.
Hope this
column provides a few ideas. Whether your makeover is a touch-up or an
extensive facelift, spending the time to give your trusty home on wheels an
update
is always worthwhile. Driving a 'like-new' unit adds zest to your
travels. Have fun.
Peggi and John are RV Lifestyle Consultants who
understand the idiosyncrasies
of the Canadian RVer. Peggi's book Spirit of
the Open Road
(See http://www.rverscorner.com/spirit.html
for details.)
is one of the most comprehensive how-to publications on the
market. Don't forget to
check her web page and download her two FREE
comprehensive e-books RV Living: Facts,
Tips, Hints and More---Vol One and
Vol Two on http://www.rvliving.net
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MORE
TIME
By: Dr. Donald E. Wetmore
Time is the great equalizer for all
of us. We all have 24
hours in a day, 7 days a week, yielding 168 hours per
week.
Take out 56 hours for sleep (we do spend about a third of
our week
dead) and we are down to 112 hours to achieve all
the results we desire. We
cannot save time (ever have any
time left over on a Sunday night that you
could lop over to
the next week?), it can only be spent. And there's only
two
ways to spend our time: we can spend it wisely, or, not
so
wisely.
We can effectively increase the amount of time available
to
us each week by working "smarter" rather than working
"harder". In my
twenty years as a full-time Professional
Speaker on the topic of Time
Management, I have noted five
sure fire ways to make an immediate impact on
increasing our
available time each week.
Engage an intern Most high
schools and community colleges
offer intern programs for their students. The
student is
assigned to a real-life organization for 10-20 hours per
week.
They are typically unpaid but do earn academic credit
and make great contacts
and the organization gets an "extra
pair of hands". The person who is
assigned the intern can
now delegate any number of things to the intern to
free up
their time for more productive matters. It's a "Win-Win"
deal for
both.
Run an Interruptions Log. It would be great if we could plan
our
day the night before and then make that plan happen as
scheduled. The real
world is different. We have to deal with
interruptions. Interruptions are
unanticipated events that
come to us via the telephone (any of the electronic
stuff:
beepers, pagers, email, etc.) or in person. Many
interruptions are
important and are what we may be paid to
handle. However, many interruptions
have little or no value
to our responsibilities. Run an Interruptions Log for
about
a week. List every interruption as it occurs and rate its
value to
you. A=Crucial, B=Important, C=Little value, D= No
value. After the week of
logging them in, review the list
and take action to eliminate the repetitive
C and D
interruptions and re-capture some wasted time.
Run a Crisis
Management Log. Crisis management for the most
part is when the deadline has
snuck up upon you and robbed
you of choice, you have to respond and you are a
slave to
the clock. Crisis management is generally poor time
management
because you're rushing, the quality of your
performance suffers, your stress
level is elevated, and,
most important, you are often having to go back and
re-do
what was done in the first place. "If you want to manage it,
measure
it." Run a Crisis Management Log for a week. After
encountering every crisis,
log it in on a piece of paper.
After a week of accumulating the data, go back
through every
crisis that occurred and ask yourself, "Which one of
these
could have been avoided?" and start to take corrective steps
to stop
their reoccurrence and buy back some "smarter" time
for your weeks
ahead.
Become a Speed Reader. The average person reads about two
hours
per day at a rate of about 200 words per minute. (We
get more information
exposures in one day today than people
in the year 1900 received in a
lifetime.) Speed-reading is a
simple skill that is easy to learn and improves
with
consistent practice. The average person can easily double
their
reading rate and thereby cut their reading time in
half or double the volume
of reading material they can go
through in the same amount of time.
Do
Daily Planning. "A stitch in time saves 9." Every
grandmother knows this.
Every minute of planning will save
you nine minutes in execution. Walt
Whitman, the poet, said
it best, "The most powerful time is when we are
alone,
thinking about what we are to do." Daily Planning helps us
to focus
on what is really crucial and important in our day
to come and permits us to
identify time wasters in advance
to avoid them and use that time more
productively.
Dr. Donald E. Wetmore has been a full-time
Professional
Speaker for the last 20 years having made over
2,000
presentations to audiences from around the Globe. He is
available to
conduct his dynamic Time Management Seminars at
your location helping your
people get more done in less
time, with less stress. Don's programs are
entertaining,
fast paced, and filed with practical, common sense
ideas.
His seminars are typically rated as "the best I have
ever
attended". For more information, contact Don via email
at:
ctsem@msn.com or call him at: (203) 929-9902.
Would you like to
receive free Timely Time Management Tips
on a regular basis to increase your
personal productivity
and get more out of every day? Sign up now for our
free
"TIMELY TIME MANAGEMENT TIPS". Just go
to:
Oops, no longer available - and select
"subscribe". We
welcome you aboard!
Dr. Donald E. Wetmore-Professional
Speaker
Productivity Institute
Time Management Seminars
60
Huntington St., P.O. Box 2126
Shelton, CT 06484
(800) 969-3773 (203)
929-9902 Fax: (203) 929-8151
Email:
ctsem@msn.com
http://www.balancetime.com
Professional Member-National
Speakers Association
Copyright 2000 You may re-print the above
information in its
entirety in your publication, newsletter, or on
your
webpage. For permission, please email your request for
"reprint" to:
ctsem@msn.com
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Backup
Mysteries Revealed, Part 3
By Tom Glander
You've been through the
backup and restore process using
a single file created on your desktop. By
now, you may
have experimented with this even more, and may have
created
a backup that included multiple files. Good for you!
Probably
one of the most important folders to back up is
your "My Documents" folder.
Most people save stuff they
write into that folder. You'll want to save any
sub folders
as well.
Pretty soon, you begin to see how selecting
individual
files for back up is a time consuming process. Wouldn't
it be
easier to simply select a folder, and all of its
sub folders? Sure it would
be. Even easier is to simply
select your entire hard drive, and back it up on
tape.
But you may not want to invest in a tape backup, and
are
satisfied with selecting only certain folders, and storing
them on a
large capacity removable disk, such as a Zip
disk. (The most common solution,
which is why I mention it.)
Whatever you decide, this installment
provides background
information on making good choices, and strategies
for
backing up your data. Now, let's explore your options. You'll
find
these under the "Options" button in the "Backup" tab
in Microsoft
Backup.
GENERAL TAB
For the ultimate in safety, use the "Compare
files" option.
When backing up to media, select "Maximize compression
to
save space."
Choose "Overwrite the media with this backup" option
if
that's what you want to occur when media already contains
a backup, or
else select the "Let me choose this option during
the backup" radio button to
make the determination at a later
time.
PASSWORD TAB
If you
want to protect a backup, use this option. Supply a
password for the backup.
Just don't forget it!
TYPE TAB
For a total back up, select the
"All selected files" radio
button. However, after you've backed up files the
first time,
you can change this to "New and changed files only" to
save
time and space. You'll notice two selections when you check
the "New
and changed files only" radio button:
"Differential backup type" and
"Incremental backup type."
Allow me to explain some strategy here. Both of
these
options are considered "incremental" backups, as opposed to
a "full"
backup.
DIFFERENTIAL
If you want a faster restoration process, use
the first
option, "Differential." This means you'll save only the
files
that have changed since the last full backup.
INCREMENTAL
This
option includes only the files that have changed
since the last full or
differential backup.
You can ignore the EXCLUDE tab unless there's
something
specific you want to exclude from the backup.
REPORT
TAB
Select the options you want included in the reports
that are
generated at the completion of each backup. For
unattended backups, be sure
you select the last option,
"Perform an unattended backup." None of the
message boxes
or prompts will be displayed during backup. You'll need
this
selected if you plan to automate the process.
ADVANCED TAB
This
just gives you the option to back up the Windows
Registry. Since Windows
makes its own backups of the
Registry anyway, this isn't absolutely
necessary. However,
this is a recommended procedure if you want a
thorough
backup of your system.
GENERAL TIPS FOR EASIER
BACKUPS
In the real world, backing up is a pain. And that's why
it
simply isn't done. The time it takes to set up the
back up doesn't seem real
productive. The process appears
to be dull and unexciting. It only really
matters if your
PC dies anyway, right? Right.
But lets make this as
easy as possible.
Forget floppies if possible. They only hold just
over
a megabyte of info. So if you have hundreds of megabytes of
data to
backup, you'll need hundreds of floppies. Rather
pointless, and it hurts to
think about it.
Tape backups are the standard, but they're SLOW. There
are
much faster solutions, but none as all encompassing as the
tape drive.
Here are a few:
SuperDisk (120 MB)
HiFD (200 MB)
Zip Disk (100 and
250 MB)
Jaz (1 and 2 gigabyte)
SyQuest EZFlyer (230 MB)
SparQ (1
gigabyte)
A second hard disk
A network folder
Back up your data,
not your programs. The only files you
can't replace are the ones you created
yourself. So spend
your time protecting them, and let the rest "rest in
peace."
Store all your data files in one place. Keeping your
stuff
together keeps you from hunting all over your computer. This
is
something that every new PC owner should be taught
immediately, but rarely
ever is. If you store everything
you create in the "My Documents" folder,
including all
sub folders, then backing up is a simple step. Just
select
the "My Documents" folder and all of its sub folders and
files
will be selected as well. One check mark is all
it
takes.
STRATEGY
Don't always run a full backup. Speed up
your backup
times by running differential and incremental
backups.
Consider running an incremental backup each day. Do a
differential backup once a week. And do a full backup
once a month. This
saves time, and lets you rest easy
knowing that a crash isn't going to put
you out of
business for good.
In fact, a crash may be your
opportunity to install
Windows cleanly, and get rid of a lot of garbage you
aren't
using, anyway. You may want to upgrade from Win95 to 98,
or
something else. In any case, knowing you have a back
up just waiting to be
used really frees your mind.
If you would like to share this information
with others,
please tell them about The Newbie Club. We're producing
real
world solutions for people new to computing. Just
visit http://newbieclub.com/?help_me_now
or the Academy at
http://newbieclub.com/academy/?help_me_now
and see what's available
for you today. And why not support The Newbie Club
with
your purchase? We offer products and services that meet
a variety of
Newbie needs. So have a look, and tell a
friend!
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Copyright
© 2000, 2001 Roglan International All Rights Reserved.
This tutorial may be
distributed as long as it remains intact
and includes the entire body of
text as is.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
This is
an excerpt from the three part series "Backup Mysteries Revealed"
To get this
free tutorial delivered to your mailbox click
here:
mailto:backup_help_me_now@fastresponder.com
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Joke
of the Day:
All I Need to Know about Life I Learned From a
Snowman
~ It's okay if you're a little bottom heavy.
~ Hold your
ground, even when the heat is on.
~ Wearing white is always
appropriate.
~ Winter is the best of the four seasons.
~ It takes
a few extra rolls to make a good midsection.
~ There's nothing better
than a foul weather friend.
~ The key to life is to be a jolly, happy
soul.
~ We're all made up of mostly water.
~ You know you've made
it when they write a song about you.
~ Accessorize! Accessorize!
Accessorize!
~ Don't get too much sun.
~ It's embarrassing when
you can't look down and see your feet.
~ It's fun to hang out in your
front yard.
~ There's no stopping you once you're on a
roll.
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CLASSIFIED
ADS
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SPIRIT
OF THE OPEN ROAD by Peggi McDonald is a 'must have'
for all RVers, both
novice and experienced travelers.
Although written from a Canadian point of
view it is 95%
generic and a valuable guide to RVers from all countries.
For complete details -
http://www.rverscorner.com/spirit.html
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!!!
HAPPY CAMPIN' !!!
Les Doll - RV Technician
My advice is free and
worth only what you gain from it!