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THE RVERSCORNER Newsletter
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Aug, 2001
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Hi folks,
Welcome new Subscribers!
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:
About the RVer's Corner Newsletter:
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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!
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.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
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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The Dummy's Guide to Buying a Pre-Loved RV - by Les Doll
In the market for a pre-owned recreational vehicle?
Not sure what to inspect or how to inspect it?
The Dummy's Guide is written for you, by an RV Tech
and RV damage estimator. Free Download!
http://www.rverscorner.com/dummyltr.html
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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!
The RVers Corner - http://www.rverscorner.com/