My Computers And I

The woes are getting fewer and weaker, but I'm still having them.





This commercial sums up my agony over the past several weeks:



If only Travelers Insurance could do something about ALL of my woes, including but not limited to my never-ending computer woes!

Anyway, a homeschool dad has graciously been helping me with my laptop, the computer in the worse shape (as compared to my desktop). He's installing Ubuntu, so I'll have to learn a new interface.

Warren has been helping me with my desktop: teaching me how to disable unwanted toolbars, trimming down the applications running on start up, etc. But now that I've installed AVG 2011, that program is having some kind of conflict with my firewall. **sigh**

As the song in the video says, "Trouble, trouble, trouble" and "Worry, worry, worry."

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Why Me?

Verizon will have to pay yet another visit to get FIOS to work properly here at my house.

For whatever reason, the router-recognition software will not operate consistently for my desktop machine. One minute, the router is recognized; the next minute I have no Internet access. **sigh**

My laptop, a wireless-ready Toshiba Satellite, is having no problems whatsoever.

Verizon should have hardwired my desktop to the router in the first place! In fact, such was the plan, but the technician who did the installation didn't want to be bothered. He's leaving Verizon in a few weeks, anyway.

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FIOS To Arrive Today (Update: NOT!)

Verizon is due to spend hours at my house this afternoon so as to install FIOS access.

Once I have FIOS, perhaps I won't be thinking so often about shooting my computers. My biggest issue with Internet access has been connection speed with DSL, and FIOS should correct that problem.

The Verizon technician is going to have a real challenge installing FIOS in this old house. The house has a strange design, to say the least.

FIOS Installation is estimated to take four to six hours. But I know from past experience that any upgrades to this house take longer than the norm.

And I'll be pitying that technician if he has to work in the fetid crawlspace, which some previous cats used as their litter box. Ewwwwwww!

It's going to be an interesting afternoon.

Update @ 6:26 PM EDT: Glitch! Something about somebody's already having used the available FIOS line for my house. Verizon will have to wire another line at the pole. **sigh**

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Computer Woes

I can't begin to tell you all the troubles I've been having the past few weeks! I actually dread turning on either of my computers and logging onto the Internet.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled various programs and have run various utilities, sometimes with improvement and sometimes to no avail.

The situation is maddening!

I think that part of the problem is my DSL connection speed, which has been inconsistent over the past several weeks.

That part of the problem should be remediated on October 25, when Verizon arrives to install FIOS.

At least, I hope that FIOS corrects the problems with connection speed.

Meanwhile, I'm limping along with blogging the best that I can manage with my grueling schedule of working and caregiving Mr. AOW.

Anyway, if I haven't been visiting your blog as regularly as usual, the reason is that I can't!

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Modem Issues

Please scroll down for my weekend video, a break from politics.

As if my life weren't busy enough, within the past week, on the heels of returning to work, I had to have Windows re-installed on my laptop because of a corrupted dll file. I barely got my laptop up and running, after hours of Windows updates as the re-installation was that of an old and outdated version of Windows XP, when my modem burned out.

As the saying goes, "If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all."

I've found a slow neighborhood wireless connection (unsecured) and will post, make blog rounds, and respond to emails and comments as I'm able to do so. At least I'm now able to access the web!

I still have bookmarks to re-instate and passwords to recover. Finding time to get those tasks done is difficult. I have stacks of papers to grade.

Anyway, I'm still here, albeit a bit quiet.

You know, computers are wonderful tools. But only when they work properly! I admit that when my computer doesn't behave the way I tell it to behave, I want to shoot the confounded contraption.

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Frustration!

While Verizon had me knocked offline yesterday and the day before, I spent a lot of time updating my record keeping, specifically, logging into Quicken medical bills and the like.

Believe me, keeping track of Mr. AOW's medical bills and medical miles is a Herculean task.

When I attempted to back up the financial data, no dice! Neither of my DVD/CD rewritable-drives would back up the information! I did print hard copies, just in case the entire Quicken program crashes.

Later today, after The Gathering Storm Radio Show, I'll haul in my desktop tower to a local repair shop. Being without that computer tower will consign me completely to my laptop, which hasn't been running well at all of late. Browser crashes like you wouldn't believe!

I won't fall completely silent here. I hope.

And I do have a few posts queued up to auto post.

But I may not be around as much as usual.

Please stand by.

Note to any of my students reading this post: Don't get your hopes up that I won't be ready for classes in September. I did all my start-up prep last week. **wink**

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Beware Of Automatic Updates!

Yesterday, I got up bright and early, accomplished a few tasks on my desktop in my upstairs office, then moved downstairs to my laptop. I was planning to spend several hours blogging before my friend V came over to help me give Mr. AOW his weekly shower.

Alas! My laptop, from which I do most of my blogging, was misbehaving in unacceptable ways never seen before. For three full hours, my frustration level mounted and escalated to the point that I nearly took my laptop and tossed it into the trashcan.
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After many screams and one outright tantrum (I was tired of that pair of sunglasses anyway), I managed to control my temper and the meltdown I was having well enough to email Warren, my webmaster, to see if there might be any hope of salvaging my gone-crazy laptop. He got back to me last night after his workday ended.

The culprit behind the problems I was having was Microsoft automatic updates for Windows XP – updates no longer sent by Microsoft as of who knows when. Apparently, the port for Windows XP updates had been hacked!

I spent the rest of the evening letting both machines run virus scans.

Technology is wonderful when it works properly. When it doesn't, words do not exist to describe the resulting frustration.

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Verizon Comes Today

For weeks now, coordinating almost perfectly with the end of classes and my having more time to spend on the web, my Internet connection has been inconsistent.

Sometimes I can't get a connection, and often when I do get a connection, I suddenly get booted off when the DSL connection fails. I have found no discernible pattern to the glitch.

Over the past few weeks, I've spent hours groveling around on the floor while speaking to a Verizon tech on the phone in a futile attempt to resolve the problem. To Verizon's credit, the company did put a monitor on my DSL line such that I got an automated phone call stating, in effect, "Our testing shows that your DSL line doesn't meet the quality of our high standards. A service call is now required."

Verizon's repair efficiency for telephone service doesn't have a good track record, but repair for DSL service typically is better. I'll find out about the reliability of the latter sometime today — assuming that the technician comes. "Mohammed" (Oh, joy!) did phone yesterday to confirm the appointment.

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Virginia Man Has Meltdown Over Verizon's Service

I've had my own woes with Verizon's service. See HERE and HERE from last year when, twice within a month, Verizon delayed in accomplishing repairs to my phone line.

I was understandably fed up with Verizon and having a mini-meltdown from the frustration of being cut off from the outside world and sitting here in my house day after day as I waited for the Verizon repairman to come. Finally, one the second of the two cutoffs from service within a month's time, Mr. AOW spliced the line and dared Verizon to complain. Verizon didn't complain. After all, hell hath no fury like a blogger disconnected from the worldwide web, and the Verizon technician noticed that fact, likely because of the expression of rage on my face and in my voice.

Last week, an elderly man in Vienna, Virginia had a negative experience with Verizon, and the story made all the local news stations as well as coverage in the newspapers here in the D.C. area. He won't be having any more such negative experiences:

A 79-year-old Vienna man who was fed up with his Verizon service died after trying to stop a technician's van from pulling out of his driveway.

The man, identified by neighbors as William Cornelius, fell after grabbing the steering wheel of the van late Wednesday afternoon and died hours later at a hospital, police said.

[...]

Cornelius was upset and followed the technician to his van. Cornelius "continued to express his dissatisfaction and tried to block the technician's van from leaving his driveway," said Vienna police spokesman Bill Murray.

The technician got inside his van. Cornelius moved out of the way, and the technician began to drive away, according to police.

That was when Cornelius "reached in through the van window and grabbed the steering wheel," Murray said. Cornelius fell to the ground. He was taken to a hospital, where he died.

[...]

"I bet this Verizon situation is the straw that broke the camel's back," [a neighbor] said....

Read the entire article HERE.

Mr. Cornelius clearly acted foolishly, and other factors contributed to his actions, including the death of his wife and struggling with his disabled daughter's care. But I have to say that I completely understand his frustration. Verizon has the habit of telling customers that the repairman will come on a certain date. Many times, the repairman doesn't show, comes some ten days after the customer's request for service, and sometimes doesn't even accomplish the repair. In my own case, one repairman did reconnect the telephone line but disconnected my DSL line! I had to wait several more days to get Internet service restored.

Most of us realize that the days of good customer service ended quite a long time ago. That realization, however, doesn't always prevent or ameliorate one's frustration. Feel free to vent your frustrations about today's customer service in the comments section.

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Computer Agonies

Yesterday my desktop computer crashed. Up came the dreaded black screen with grayish letters. The message said something about "config system." All techies whom I consulted greeted this news with solemnity and lots of maybe's and if's.
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My computer is now in the repair shop, a reliable facility which will recover the data if at all possible and reload the operating system. If some kind of partition is corrupted, all the data will be lost — documents, lesson plans, grade book, pictures, financial records, the whole lot. Once the operating system and the data, if possible, are restored, I will have to reload and download the software I was using. I spent hours yesterday searching my messy home office for those software disks; I think I've found all of them, but once I get my machine back, I'll be spending hours trying to get the computer back to its former operation.

Of course, I was not fully backed up. I was planning to get my external drive and back up fully on Friday. **sigh**

I'm trying not to go into mourning prematurely nor to be too optimistic about recovering the data.

I am now consigned for a full three weeks to this laptop, which will be backed up as soon as the external hard drive is delivered. Too little, too late, for my desktop.

Lesson learned — the hard way, as usual.

Oftentimes, I feel as if the technology upon which we so rely on is a curse just waiting to happen.

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AOW Is Off Line...

...due to high winds and bad weather!

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Please Help Blogger Mark Alexander!

(This post stuck here for several days)


In Mark's own words,
via Infidel Bloggers Alliance:

For one whole week now, I have been unable to update my blog, A New Dark Age Is Dawning: It has been ‘frozen’ for further investigation because Blogger fears that my blog is a “spam blog”.

You will know that it certainly is no such thing.

I have given my blog my all. It will be devastating for me if I shall no longer be able to continue with my weblog after having done so much work on it to-date.

May I therefore request that all of you help me to continue with my blogspot by emailing Blogger (use the email address help@blogger.com), protesting that the blogspot be ‘unfrozen’ and allowed to continue.

Your assistance will be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,

Mark Alexander

Sometimes Blogger erroneously identifies a genuine blog as a spam site. Such glitches are not unusual, and following only a few days of investigation, the site is restored to full functionality. But Mark's site has been inaccessible for him to post on for well over a week now!

If Blogger continues to block his site from posting, Blogger's policy is to delete the site within a short time.

This situation could happen to any one of us at any time. It is critical that we support each other so that we can maintain our freedom of speech through Blogger.

Once again, the email to contact is help@blogger.com, and Mark's site is
http://librabunda.blogspot.com.

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