Posted inStarlink

Global Starlink outage shows peril of relying on giant tech companies

When Starlink, Space X's satellite internet service, is working, it's a gigantic plus for people like me who have no other viable broadband options. But when Starlink goes offline, as it did today, it can be a huge pain. As I've learned over the past 4 1/2 years after I became a beta tester soon after Starlink was rolled out, when it comes to troubleshooting, users are pretty much on their own -- at least initially. There's no phone number to call for customer support. You have to put in a support ticket via the Starlink app. Sometimes those are…
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Posted inDogs Home life

Our dog misses my wife, but she’s putting up with me

Mooka, our Husky mix, is considerably more attached to my wife, Laurel, than she is to me. Laurel does the dog training. Laurel takes Mooka for her favorite morning walk. Laurel takes Mooka to the dog park, another favorite place.  I feed Mooka in the late afternoon and give her a pre-dinner walk most days. But I'm under no illusion about who is the Alpha in Mooka's mind. It's Laurel. So when Laurel left last Friday for a four day trip to Indiana to see her relatives, I knew that Mooka wasn't going to be thrilled about being left with…
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Posted inSalem

Salem’s downtown parking app worked well for me today

I allowed for some extra time to park in downtown Salem today, as I wasn't sure how smoothly the Beep Beep Salem app would work on the first day of paid onstreet parking and I didn't want to be late for my Tai Chi class on Court Street. But Beep Beep Salem worked great on my iPhone, undoubtedly because the iconic dog on the home screen is a skilled programmer. (I suppose the $25,000 the City of Salem paid to Flowbird to adapt their parking app for local use also could have had something to do with it.) As I…
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Posted inSalem

I’m ready for paid downtown parking with the Beep Beep Salem app

Thursday, July 10 -- that's when free three-hour on street parking in downtown Salem ends, and the new era of paid parking up to twelve hours begins.  These signs started appearing more than two weeks ago. I took this photo on June 19. It would have confused me if my Tai Chi instructor, who leases space on Court Street, hadn't posted a notice from the City of Salem saying that paid parking doesn't start until July 1, later postponed to July 10. Here's excerpts from a  June 26 Salem Reporter story, "Concern, confusion as Salem rolls out paid downtown parking."…
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