Jeff Shaara and the Sideways Photo

It's all your fault, Jeff Shaara.

Some deserving people never get the fame or respect that they deserve within their lifetimes.

Sometimes, it is up to their children to continue their legacy and reap the fame. The story of Jeff Shaara, best selling historical fiction writer, is one such story and what a story it is.  I wanted to tell your story and tell you how much a pleasure it was to meet you (and I will, in another post) but there is only one problem.


Your picture keeps coming out sideways.  And therein lies a tale.

I bought a new laptop and brought it on a trip. (Mistake #1-playing FarmVille instead of learning to use the new computer.)

I had not tested out any of the photo functions and it turns out that the Windows 7 on this computer is not exactly the Windows 7 on my 2 1/2 year old laptop. There is no way to rotate photos.

And when I tried to find the software I had installed on my old computer to compress pictures, I couldn't find it.  Nor could I remember what it was called.

So, to make a long story short, I went to C-Net to find some free software to edit and rotate photos.  Last night I finally had a decent internet connection.  The time was right!

I downloaded a nice sounding photo editing software and started to install it.

The first screen started out by having checkboxes defaulting to a new home page - I know this can happen with freeware.  Alarm bells weren't quite sounding.  I unchecked the boxes and went on.

Then a page came up that had alarm bells screaming.  It wanted to install a browser, something I had never heard of. The software rules said it would monitor websites I had visited and would collect information about my activity on Facebook (!) and, while it was at it, it wanted me to install something that would allow me to get all these cool games for my computer.

Danger, Will Robinson!  (oops, dating myself)  I think I have just downloaded adware or, worse, spyware.

I should know way better than that.

I backed out in a hurry but the offending program is still somewhere on my brand new computer.

Now, this is one good way to ruin a vacation.  So, folks, this photo may be the last one you see for a week or so.  It taught me how much I depend on photos in my blog now.  I will get to the Jeff Shaara story the next time I have a good connection, but it will be without photo.

Lesson learned! (and thank you, Jeff Shaara.)

But I'm still going to keep playing FarmVille.