All I need to do is navigate to the word that I want to correct and hit command-Alt f10 – the macro selects the word and then “right” clicks the mouse  to bring up a selections of correct words

The key to the macro is the two regular clicks (at the mouse location) , a pause (I am not sure that this was necessary) and then a simulated right click.

Unfortunately, the mouse cursor and the keyboard cursor are two different things. When you move to a word, using the arrow keys, the keyboard cursor “moves”. However, to activate a right click in the right position, the mouse cursor needs to move. The inelegant solution is to activate “mousekeys” through the Universal access menu and then “mouse” over to the misspelled word…okay back to the mouse.

The problem I had with continuing my mayonnaise creation experiments, was having to throw out the resulting concoctions. I like to use free range eggs, but they are at least double the cost of regular eggs if not more. I was always heartbroken to throw out all the olive oil and eggs.

But finally, I ran into a couple recipes seem to help. I gave up entirely on attempting to achieve the right mixture of oil and egg. Instead, I used almonds for a vegan mayonnaise.

The first recipe I tried:

Marcona Almond Mayonnaise

Ingredients

• ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon agave nectar
• ½ cup olive oil
• 2–4 tablespoons marcona almonds

Directions:

1. Pour vinegar and agave into Vitamix and puree on high speed for 20 seconds until combined
2. With motor running on medium or high, drizzle in olive oil to create an emulsion
3. Don’t worry, if you don’t get the emulsification, the almonds will thicken up your mixture
4. Blend in 2 tablespoons of almonds, then check for thickness and texture
5. If necessary, blend in another tablespoon of almonds, until thick and creamy
6. Serve with sandwiches, burgers and salads

I did not have any apple cider vinegar, so used regular vinegar instead and substituted honey for agave nectar. The mixture was too vinegary for assistant tasters. My son wrinkled his face at the taste of it and then told me he did not like it with all the innocent honesty a three is capable of. I think the apple cider vinegar would not have been so strong.

The second recipe used lemon instead of vinegar.

Almond Mayonnaise

Ingredients (use vegan versions):

• 1 cup slivered blanched almonds
• 3 1/2 ounces oil (1/3 cup is too little, 1/2 too much)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, optional
• 5 ounces water, divided
• 1/8–1/4 cup lemon juice

Directions:

1. Place almonds, oil, salt and about 1/2 the water in blender. Process on high until smooth, 3–4 minutes.
2. Add remaining water and continue blending until extremely smooth. Add lemon juice while blender is operating.
3. Pour into 2 cup container and chill. This will set up as it chills.

If this doesn’t set up right, try adding a little of the runny stuff to 1/4 cup more slivered blanched almonds, process until smooth, then add the remaining runny stuff, process until well combined. Chill. If this doesn’t work, add a little more lemon juice. It is never ruined, because you can always add more of the nuts or lemon juice and it works out ok.

If it is too thick, put the lump in the blender and add 1/4 cup water, process until smooth and pour back into the container and chill. When you get the right proportions for your blender and taste, write them down. This is wonderful stuff.

I used whole almonds, soaked in warm water instead of silvered almonds. But, I slowly added the almonds to the Vita mix after the other ingredients. I also added a dash of mustard (did not have any mustard powder) and added 1 tsp of honey. The second recipe was a success. I suppose this is not really mayonnaise as I never really did achieve the correct emulsification, but the addition of almonds after mixing the oil and lemon juice meant that I could control the texture and solidity.

Finally I had egg free (and any worries about salmonella) vegan mayonnaise without a huge learning curve.

Del.icio.us in its current form is lacking subscriptions. Not only that, but my data was trapped. I tried to log in to Del.icio.us. But, I only had a 4 character password. I know the horrors of having a 4 character password that could be easily guessed at. But, I do not think my bookmark information needed any higher-level security. The Del.icio.us website does. It will not allow me to log in with a 4 character password. I can get to my old bookmarks, but I can’t get them out.

I finally passed the mourning of a really useful site. Then I started Pinboard. So while Pinboard does not support subscriptions, it just works, and my data is not trapped. It looks like a throw back to the Del.iciou.us of old, and I paid for it – I think it was worth the cost, but I wish I had done it earlier.

But, things still seem slowly. I played around with the accuracy versus speed slider and that helped a little bit. But, using DragonDictate was never a smooth experience. It was a lot faster than typing, if I were using everyday English words. But, the words never seemed to flow across the screen. The time between speaking and seeing the words appear was long enough to break my train of thought. I was afraid to keep talking and talking as the manual had recommended, because I did not want to see my words disappear into a spinning beach ball of interpretation.

I recently upgraded my Mac to 16 MB of memory because I wanted to use Aperture and Nix software’s Color Efex Pro 4 full work more effectively. since upgrading to a Nikon D 7000, I found the computer slower. The factory default of 4gb was no longer sufficient to allow Color Efex Pro and aperture to work well. These programs are memory hogs. There is still lag between making my changes in Color Efex Pro and having the changes finally saved to the photo. But, it’s tolerable and significantly faster than the same procedure with 4 times less memory.

What I did not expect, was at Dragon Dictate operated much faster and more smoothly. I no longer seem to have to wait for the computer to “think”. When I’m dictating I’m no longer hesitating, and wondering if what I speak is being completely lost.

When I had used Dragon Dictate before I did not have any other programs open. I was trying to give Dragon Dictate to access as much system memory as possible. Nuance requires a minimum of 2 GB of RAM to use DragonDictate, they recommend at least 4 GB of RAM. I think that 8 GB of RAM, should be the minimum needed to run this program smoothly, effectively and without hiccups.

I have read a lot of posts from frustrated readers on the Dragon Dictate forum. I think many of these problems could be corrected if there was sufficient memory. However, I do not see too many people buying the program if the minimum (frustration free )requirements were 8 GB. But, I think either Nuance has got to upgrade the requirements or program more efficiently. Also having a newer Mac(<2 years old) may reduce the memory requirement.

I’ve always struggled with his program. It does not have a great UI and there’s always something that seemed to go wrong every time I do my taxes. But, the worst part about doing Canadian taxes is that there are no really great programs out there. The best tax program I ever had for Mac OS was Quick Tax. I really liked this program. I found entering data was easy, and the calculations were even easier. But, true to Intuit’s form, they removed this product from the market. The current incarnation of quick tax is TurboTax. Unfortunately, it’s browser only. Doing my taxes on a web browser seems foolhardy. I like my sensitive data to be controlled.

The next program was GriffTax . This is only slightly better than filling out the forms by hand, but it worked for a year. Grifftax was bought by TaxTron. But, this year TaxTron would not work.

Finally, out of desperation I found TaxFreeway.. The website look like some reject the 1990s so, I was really hesitant to use this product. The UI for this program was dated and restricted. But, it got the job done with In some region minimal fuss. I have spent far less effort using tax-free way that I did in the last few years of using TaxTron. There is even an iPad version.

I’m glad there is one more competitor in the very restricted field of Canadian tax software for Mac OS X in.

At least seven people died in Oslo after a huge car bomb exploded close to buildings which house the offices of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.
A further 84 were killed when a man dressed as a police officer opened fire on the island of Utoya where a youth meeting of the ruling Labour Party was taking place.

I cannot imagine the absolute horror that these children had to face. As a parent, knowing that your child was in such danger and being unable to help would be absolutely maddening.

The greatest danger this of cowardly attack is dismissing it as the work of a lone madman. This attack was directed against the Labour Party. This was a gathering of youth from the Labour Party. Anders Breivik wanted to make commentary on immigration policies of the Labour Party.

Hassan Ali argues that hostility towards immigrants has been growing steadily in Norway over the past decade and blames the rise of right-wing parties in parliament, particularly the Progress Party, or FrP, which now holds the second-largest number of seats.
This mad man (Anders Behring Breivik) has been brain-washed by the far right party (FrP)… and has been following its ideology… and he needed to do something,” he said.

The FrP was attacking the Labour party because they were bringing Muslims to this country and defending their rights, their workplace and social rights.”
Mr Breivik was a member of the party for four years but the FrP denies it influenced him, saying his actions and beliefs are contrary to its policies and value-system.

”Over the last three years we have felt we are not welcome here,“ says Hassan Ali.
”Every Sunday the papers are writing only negative things about the Somalis. People are leaving and more will leave as the pressure builds up.”
Members of other immigrant communities are also concerned about what they say is the negative attitude towards them.
Kenneth, who came to Norway from Kenya six years ago, says he was on a plane when the attacks took place.
”The first thing someone said was that it was an immigrant and immigration should be stopped.”

A party or a people can not espouse anti-muslim sentiments and then be surprised when these thoughts have given rise to a mass murder. This had happened in Nazi germany, Rwanda, and Sri Lanka. Anders Brevik was a creation of the extremist views that pervaded his country.

Lars Buehler, a Norwegian scholar and terrorism expert, said he had debated with Breivik on an extremist website frequented by what he calls xenophobes and Islamaphobes all over Europe.

”I was the single opposing voice, arguing against the xenophobic, Islamaphobic postings and comments that were the norm on this page, and Breivik did not stand out with a particularly aggressive or violent rhetoric. He was quite mainstream, Mr Buehler said.
The rhetoric that fuels Anders Breivik exists in not so hidden forms in main stream society .

Following the devastation wreaked by Breivik, it was a week of intensive damage limitation for the anti-Islam populists of Europe. Alarmed they might be tarred by association with the Utøya massacre, the New Populists, usually if inaccurately dubbed neo-fascist or extreme right, have been in a hurry to disavow the Norwegian mass murderer and condemn the violence.

Among the extreme parties in Italy, France, Sweden and the Netherlands, politicians have been fired, suspended, disciplined or rebuked by their leaders for voicing sympathy with Breivik’s worldview – nostalgia for a conservative, traditionalist, whites-only Europe of a bygone age combined with blind fury at its dissolution in a globalised world.

If Breivik’s anger erupted in mass murder, the populist politicians use words as their weapons, posters and images for their witch hunts and scapegoating.

”In a Norwegian Norway this tragedy would never have happened,“ blogged Erik Hellsborn of the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats party. ”This was caused by multiculturalism.“ He was in trouble with the leadership of a party that campaigns to ”keep Sweden Swedish” in the country that is the most open to immigrants in Europe.

Wilders, leader of the Dutch Freedom party, who has been tried and acquitted on hate speech charges for his calculated provocations, is a favourite of Breivik, notching up 30 references in the manifesto. Wilders said he was appalled by Breivik, fearing that such actions could damage his campaign. “This is a slap in the face for the worldwide anti-Islam movement,” he said.

In Austria, Heinz-Christian Strache, the Freedom party leader who associated with neo-Nazis in his youth and who is now neck-and-neck with the governing social democrats at the top of opinion polls, fired a party official who responded to the atrocities by declaring that the real danger was Islam rather than Breivik. The same party used a computer game as a campaign tool last year. In Mosque Bye-bye, the players zapped Muslim prayer houses, only to be told that the southern Styria region of Austria is “full of mosques and minarets”.

The idea for the game was imported from neighbouring Switzerland where the rightwing Swiss People’s party has powered its anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant referendum campaigns with potent, inflammatory posters almost always in stark red, white, and black, recalling Third Reich propaganda – grasping black hands scooping up red-and-white Swiss passports, three white sheep kicking a black sheep off a red-and-white Swiss flag.
As outlined in Breivik’s rambling manifesto, they largely dovetail with the views of the New Populists who combine a far-right outlook. Liberals and the left have been eager to seize on this, seeking to score political points by blaming figures such as Wilders or Strache for fostering a climate of hate, fear and prejudice that may not condone but nonetheless tacitly encourage violence.

I am unsure how any person can dismiss the inflammatory ideas of racisms and hatred from the actions of Anders Breivik. But, apparently it is possible:

An Italian MEP has described the ideas of Norway’s self-confessed mass killer, Anders Behring Breivik, as “good” and in some cases “excellent”.
Mario Borghezio, who belongs to the Northern League party, condemned Mr Breivik’s violence, but backed his stance against Islam.
“Some of the ideas he expressed are good, barring the violence. Some of them are great,” Mario Borghezio told Il Sole–24 Ore radio station.
He agreed with Mr Breivik’s “opposition to Islam and his explicit accusation that Europe has surrendered before putting up a fight against its Islamicisation”.

How does a person condemn mass murder and in the same breath condone the sick, cowardly ideology that lead to the act in the first place. What kind of mental gymnastics does a person need to perform not to see the hypocrisy ? Extremists views from the far right or the Jihadist have no place in a decent society. Free speech ends when violence, and murder is sanctioned.

EDMONTON—The Liberals say two more teens with Liberal ties were thrown out of a Conservative rally in Vancouver.

“This is just becoming more and more grotesque,” Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Saturday.

He was referring to university students in London and Guelph who were abruptly shown the door, even though they were properly registered.

These incidents help stoke Ignatieff’s argument that Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is obsessed with control and is anti-democratic.

Ignatieff said there were Tory supporters at his rally earlier in Sudbury “who said ‘I might just vote Liberals this time.’ “

“This is about democracy … and he has just got to stop doing this,” he told reporters.

Ignatieff bristled at the Conservatives’ explanation that it was a private meeting and can toss who they like.

“Excuse me, there is no such thing as a private meeting in a federal election. These are public meetings. Come one come all,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Conservtives acknowledged that even though they were identified as Liberal supporters the teens were told they could stay if they didn’t disrupt the rally.[this means they were not disrupting the rally to begin with]

“They declined,” he said.[I am sure they were “helped” with this decision]

At the Edmonton Liberal rally a man was allowed in despite the fact he was holding a sign that said: “Ignatieff, going back to Harvard soon?”

Harper’s idea of reaching out to the public is to stick his head in the sand. As long as there is no voices of dissent, within earshot, everything is going well.

Here is a blog, written by Emily Dee, a disappointed former conservative who is mad as heck, a grandmother and someone who has taken the time to catalog the list of Harper failings.

It infuriates me to see this politician in action. Why does he think that the best time to not talk about the state of the country is during an election campaign. If not now, when? An election campaign is theoretically the time a politician needs to justify his actions and talk about the future he has envisioned. Apparently, Mr. Harper does not feel the need to discuss his views of Canada with Canadians. Canadians are just not important enough to think. Far better, is for Mr. Harper to tell Canadians what to think.

Is this man so cowardly, so controlling, and so fearful as to not engage the public in a discussion about our mutual futures ? The man has taken extra pains to control his message:

After several days, it is clear his daily schedule is carefully designed to minimize political risk. Harper has not done any “walkabouts” on city streets where average voters can meet him. Moreover, the photo-ops with voters — such as at a seniors’ home and a deli — have been pre-arranged. Also, people who attend rallies must be on a list to gain entry to the event.

Harper only provides one news conference per day, and it is specifically designed to ensure that it is not free-wheeling. Journalists who are traveling with his campaign tour are, as a group, only allowed to ask four questions. One more question goes to a local journalist at the news conference.

On Thursday, Harper was asked to explain why — when Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and NDP leader Jack Layton provide news conferences with no limits on questions — he insists on no more five questions.

Harper chose not to answer that question and moved on to the next questioner.

Not only are the amount of questions being limited, but Harper gets to cherry pick which questions he deems worth answering. This was a politician who promised more open and transparent government. He has provided anything but a transparent and open government.

In our limited form of democracy, the only time a citizen may be heard is during an election campaign and at the voter box. Harper, does not even want give us that choice. Like a good CEO, he needs to control the company, and tell us exactly what he wants us to do.

But, he is not a CEO and Canada is not a company. Engaging in debate, is the nature of democracy. Mr. Harper, with his minority government, acts like he is the King of all of Canada. He is not doing his job well. His job is not to cram what he thinks is best down the throats of his MPs or the public. His job is to inspire and engage the public. His job is to provide and inform the voters of Canada what he envisions fort his country. He cannot do this by simply reading his manicured scripts over and over again. This is as informative as talking into a shoe. Unfortunately, I am not sure how many people will care come election time.

VICTORIAVILLE, QUE.— Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has long been known for martial discipline, but his campaign may have crossed the line when someone frog-marched a young woman out of a rally in London, Ont., Sunday.

The first-time voter’s crime, apparently, was to have posed for a picture with Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and posted it for all to see on her Facebook page.

About half an hour before Harper arrived at the crowded hotel rally, one organizer asked to speak with Awish Aslam and a friend outside the room. There, he ripped up their nametags and ordered them to leave.

“We know you guys have ties to the Liberal party through Facebook,” the University of Western Ontario student told the London Free Press. “You are no longer welcome here.”

The Tories say the incident was a mistake, though Harper himself offered no apology when asked about it Tuesday.

I love how everything is always a mistake with the conservative party. I think they realize it’s a mistake when people react negatively to their actions or, when they realize people actually know what they’re up to.

Last Thursday an advocate for homeless veterans was turned away when he attempted to attend a campaign event where Harper was speaking in Halifax. This, after several unsuccessful attempts by Jim Lowther to contact the Tory leader about the plight of once-proud Canadian soldiers now living on the streets.

This is how Harper actually supports the military.

Maria Gergin has written an excellent commentary on Harper’s long history of silencing dissent and eviscerating funding to groups that do not support the Conservative ideology.

This is a government that initially promised more accountability. But, it is looking more and more like the government from Orwell’s 1984 or Animal Farm — control and inequality enshrined.

The Kenko were $150 cheaper on eBay versus retail. But, they took a month before they got here from Sigapore.But, how well did they do.

The first picture shows a Kiwi taking with side lighting without the extension tubes.

Kiwi with tamron 90 mm

The second photo is as close as I can get to the Kiwi, while still remaining in focus.

Closest focusing with Tamron 90mm

The third photo, is the closest I can get to the Kiwi with all three extension tubes in place.

Closest focus with Tamron 90 mm and Kenko extension tube

Light was bounced within SB 900. I think with constant lighting in place it would have been easier to focus. All photos were processed in Aperture and Topaz adjust plus topaz detail.

Initially, I was a little disappointed. I thought I would be zooming in closer but, I’m still happy with the results. There is a definite lack of focus with the extension tube in place. But, I think this mostly operator error. I could not see very well while having to manually focus the lens(40 + year old eyes) and with the extension tubes in place there is a significant decrease in brightness.

This was a good first attempt at macro shooting. Now, I’ve got the tools to get more serious.