Rocks!

2 sacks of fine Loire River rock now partially block the alley beside the Maison Blanc.  Some 6000 lbs of ground cover for our courtyard about 3"- 4" deep laid over tarps defining the space.  It will succeed in defining the courtyard space and the various garden components there and to come in the near future.  It also will serve as a barrier to the growth of the all too prevalent weeds that overgrow the courtyard every year. 

Here are some pix of the rocks and the bags as of this morning.

 

A Very BIG Day in Cyberspace...

Windows 10.  29 July, the Actual, real, full version, not one of the builds that I and 1.5 million other "Insiders" (Microsoft's appellation for it's Beta squad this time around) is shipping.  "Shipping" being the word for Downloading the 3GB file to your machine.  Woe to those with pathetically inadequate wifi links (ie: SFR here in Lignieres, Cher, France) as their so-called "connection" to the world-wide web aka "Internet".  3 GB will take me about 4 hours to accomplish at an average of 2mb/sec or 12 MB/min (if I'm a Very good boy).  The likelihood that I can have a full ON 4 hr experience on this damned SFR connection is improbable at best, the drop-out rate is about 4 -8 per HOUR!  This will take a while for sure!  More like a day!  We're at 36% now...and still up!  A miracle!  Anyway, I've been testing this version of Windows 10 since last November.  I have LOTS of experience doing this sort of testing, goes all the way back to the first version of Windows software (Windows 1.0) in 1985.  Version 1.0, bought it at a local computer shop in spring of 1986 in San Carlos, CA. though as there was no "Insider" program in those rough and tumble days of the early PC age.  It came not on a CD or DVD but a large number of floppy disks.  The average PC at the time ran DOS (Disk Operating System) and there were a few companies making versions of the same.  Programs (Apps as they are now named) were few and far between at first (1978-1985), then the deluge.  The whole history of Windows is laid out here, have a look! (47% and counting).

http://www.computerhope.com/history/windows.htm  (shortened version)

and this link too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Windows

Microsoft Windows family   DOS-based Windows 1.0 Windows 2.0 Windows 2.1x Windows 3.0 Windows 3.1x Windows 9x Windows 95 (Development) Windows 98 Windows ME Windows NT Early versions Windows NT 3.1 Windows NT 3.5 Windows NT 3.51 Windows NT 4.0 Windows 2000 Client versions Windows XP editions x64 Media Center Fundamentals Windows Vista editions Windows 7 editions Windows 8 editions 8.1 RT Windows 10 editions Mobile Windows Server Server 2003 Home Server Server 2008 EBS 2008 HPC Server 2008 Server 2008 R2 Home Server 2011 Server 2012 Server 2012 R2 Server 2016 MultiPoint Server Server Essentials Specialized Windows Preinstallation Environment Windows Embedded Embedded Compact CE 5.0 Embedded CE 6.0 Embedded Compact 7 Embedded Automotive Embedded Industry Embedded 8 Windows Mobile Pocket PC 2000 Pocket PC 2002 Mobile 2003 Mobile 5.0 Mobile 6.0 Mobile 6.1 Mobile 6.5 Windows Phone Phone 7 Phone 8 Phone 8.1 Cancelled Cairo Nashville Neptune Odyssey