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Free Panda Cloud antivirus without ads, this is it!

Gah the ads and nag screens were driving me nuts from the free antivirus.  I was using Panda Cloud AV for years, and only in the past months there was some update and it got out of hand.

I tried switching to Avira, and a pile of other things.  I even contacted support!  I ended up back with Panda hating life, because the crap I know seemed better than the crap I didn’t know.

Well, today I have finally fixed the ads and it was so simple I don’t know how I missed this before.  Really.  It all came down to a setting with an obfuscated label.

Thanks to this PC Mag article and comment thread — really I was looking for an alternative antivirus without ads, and I just kept getting pointed back to Panda Cloud.  So I read the comments.  So happy and feeling so dumb but still so happy :).

What to do: Settings –> turn off Panda News.

panda av

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Dyeing yarn! And knitting update

Long time no update on knitting projects.

I made some Westward hats, great pattern!  I plan to (and started) line hats with polar fleece so they will be soft and warm, but I hate sewing so it is very slow progress.

I have tried my hand at dyeing yarns in the past couple months and it is super fun!  It was my friend’s idea.  I’ve done it now 3 times.  It’s turned into a very scientific sort of thing with pipettes and graduated cylinders, stock solutions, and textbooks.  I don’t think I can buy dyed yarn ever again.

First time:

Second time:

Third time:

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Alienware Alpha is to PC games as iPhone was to smartphones

We got a new Christmas present! We realized we don’t actually own a current computer since we mostly use work laptops and our kinda old Mac mini is no longer supported by Apple.

So obviously we weren’t getting a new Mac mini. Macs are cute and shiny and all, but only 2-4 years of OS support is abominable.

And we were going to wait until Christmas to open it, but there was a snow storm and the box was wet so we had to open it and make sure the product wasn’t damaged.

Short story is that we love it. It’s everything we wanted and more. It’s the perfect hybrid between play games, do computer stuff, and look normal/cool. Price point is great.

Last thing I want to say about this computer-console is about the online articles I’ve seen. Why are the loud voices in pc gaming so negative? I don’t really follow that field, but I looked for reviews and opinions before making this purchase. And wow are people out there elitist and condescending! About specs, about ultra high settings, about hardware, about the company and marketing claims.

The product description sounded like what we needed and I’m glad I bought it anyways. The Alienware Alpha really is the way to bring casual pc gaming into the living room and the mainstream. No exaggeration.