Use salt to melt ice

Here in Indiana the sidewalks, driveways, and roads have been ice covered for about one full week. All the stores are sold out of ice melt, ice-cream salt, and about any other product containing salt.
Did you ever wonder why use salt to melt ice ? I thought I knew, but just to make sure I went to:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/

I had the general knowledge of how it worked, but I learned the correct figures.
howstuffworks.com is a great place to research everyday things, like school work and to solve agreements (discussions) and so forth.

Here is what it tells you about melting ice.
If you live in a place that has lots of snow and ice in the winter, then you have probably seen the highway department spreading salt on the road to melt the ice. You may have also used salt on ice when making home-made ice cream. Salt lowers the freezing/melting point of water, so in both cases the idea is to take advantage of the lower melting point.
Ice forms when the temperature of water reaches 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius). When you add salt, that temperature drops: A 10-percent salt solution freezes at 20 F (-6 C), and a 20-percent solution freezes at 2 F (-16 C). On a roadway, this means that if you sprinkle salt on the ice, you can melt it. The salt dissolves into the liquid water in the ice and lowers its freezing point.
If you ever watch salt melting ice, you can see the dissolving process happen -- the ice immediately around the grain of salt melts, and the melting spreads out from that point. If the temperature of the roadway is lower than 15 F or so, then the salt really won't have any effect -- the solid salt cannot get into the structure of the solid water to start the dissolving process. In that case, spreading sand over the top of the ice to provide traction is a better option.
When you are making ice cream, the temperature around the ice cream mixture needs to be lower than 32 F if you want the mixture to freeze. Salt mixed with ice creates a brine that has a temperature lower than 32 F. When you add salt to the ice water, you lower the melting temperature of the ice down to 0 F or so. The brine is so cold that it easily freezes the ice cream mixtu

Weather Blog No More

If you tried to look at the weather Blog that I have, (had) you did not find it because it has been deleted. It was another goofy idea that I had. I should have known that people would not want to keep track of what the weather was now and in the past. I thought that I may continue with it just for my use, but I thought why waste bandwidth, I can keep it on my own computer. One of these days I will put up something that a few people will participate in. Until then ………………..

Sun Clock

Ever so often a program comes along that is truly great and free. Most free programs are packed with spy ware or the company collects your email for later sale to spammers. The program Sun Clock is free, great, and no catches. If you are a computer ol’ timer, way back in the Windows 3.1 days, you may remember a similar program called GeoClock.
http://home.att.net/~geoclock/index.html This is shareware and is still available ( 15 to 50 dollars )

Sun Clock is similar, but better, I think as it gives more information. If you are a Ham Radio operator, Short wave listener, or just deal with people in other parts of the world, you need Sun Clock. Did I mention it is either a stand alone program or a screen saver? I don’t do screen savers or TSRs so I removed the short cut from the start up folder and put the icon on the desk top so I can run it manually only when I want.

You can see the sky as it appears from your location or any other chosen location. The sun, moon, and major planets are displayed against the stars. Two grids show the celestial coordinates and the elevation and bearing as measured from the specified location. The distance to each planet and their speed with respect to the earth can be viewed. For Ham Radio there is a gray line map. ( you don’t have to be a Ham - you’ll like it too )

Go to their page for some screen shots, download, and more information.
http://www.mapmaker.com/sunclock.asp

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The National Cyber Alert System

I feel so much better now that Big Brother is watching out for me.
http://www.us-cert.gov/

My printer won’t print

I have had a lot of calls in the last two weeks about printers. Let me first say that if your printer is over three years old and it is an ink jet it is time for a new one. Don’t waste your money taking it to a shop or calling for a service call. You can buy a new one for less money and you will find yourself buying one anyway after paying for the service call.

Before you go to the computer store you may want to try deleting the printer and then reinstalling it. Make sure it is the default printer. Run the clean and align routine if it will print at all. Your ink may be dried out if you have not used it for some time so replace the ink cartridge.

If the above will not fix the problem, its time for a new one. The print head wears out very quickly if you do a lot of printing. If you don’t print a lot, buy another ink jet printer. If you do a lot of printing you should think about a laser printer. A laser printer will cost you more when you purchase it, but the toner will last longer saving you lots of bucks. I have had two laser printers in six years and have only purchased only one toner cartage at just slightly higher price than you pay for ink jet ink.

But you say a laser only prints gray scale (black & white) and I print my photos in color. This is true, but did you know you can print your photos cheaper at Wal-Mart. By the time you figure the cost of gloss paper, ink, and wear and tear of the printer, not to mention your photo will probably look better by using the machine. Try it, you’ll like it.

Most printers now use the new USB cables, so make sure you buy one with the new printer. Look at Big Lots for a cheaper price on them. I find Big Lots have some very good deals on computer accessories, like CD-R, speakers, and the like.