Progress Happens

Since my last post was five days ago you might have suspected something was up. On Saturday I went out and got a new HP computer after grappling with my old Dell for over a week trying to get a plug & play USB headphone to be recognized. And the more I tinkered with the old PC, the more sluggish it became, even as I was taking steps to improve performance and speed!

Since Saturday I have been sitting here loading software onto the HP, installing backups of data files, and configuring email accounts for Outlook, among many other things. This process is never easy. However, this was one of the worst I can remember!

Aside from the obvious things like your My Documents folder, photos, music and videos, there are some which are easy to forget like tax returns from prior years stored in the Turbo Tax folder as well as remembering to put links to websites on your desktop which you like to visit such as Google Earth and Google Maps.

And speaking of Google Earth, I spent quite a bit of time on the old PC saving little flags on places where I have lived in years past as well as where current friends live, etc. I'm glad I remembered to move the file over where those saved places are stored!

I got all my Quicken financial data backed up and restored on the new PC which is rather important to me considering I've logged all my financial transactions since way back in the mid-1990s! However, I did have to upgrade to Quicken 2010 because Quicken 2008 wasn't compatible with Windows 7. I guess I should consider myself lucky that I didn't have more software upgrades to do... that I know of.

Anyway, it has been an adventure straight out of hell and back. Blogging was the last priority.

Even today, I spent almost the entire day trying to configure my konagod email account to work in Outlook. A few months ago I moved my domain from one host over to Yahoo and it was a much better deal cost-wise. Unfortunately, it didn't come with POP email so I had to manage everything in a Yahoo email account. That had escalated way out of control since it's also where all the Facebook emails are delivered. You know the ones... someone you don't know has commented on such and such page where you left a comment.

Yesterday I decided it was worth a couple bucks a month to sign up for a business email for konagod which allows for one POP email setup so incoming emails can be routed to Outlook where I can better manage things. (If you want to reach me, it's my blog name at my blog name dot com.)

I've set these up many times. Sometimes it's easy; sometimes it's a hassle. But I've never had such a flurry of problems as this time around.

Finally got that taken care of and now I can start a new year with the ability to better manage my emails. I've set a rule to force any emails from Facebook into a Facebook folder so they don't clutter my Inbox and I can go delete them at my leisure.

I'm starting to feel like I'm about to get my life back. I've been so wrapped up in all this today I completely forgot this is the day my dad died back in 1983. If he was still around I'm certain he would have enjoyed hearing about my tech hell. After all, he gave me my first personal computer experience back around 1976 or 1977. Back on those days, you manually entered all software code yourself, or you connected the computer to a cassette player and plugged in a software cassette that made a fax-like noise as it spent 20 minutes loading software for some black & white simple Pac-Man program!

Even after all the hassles of the past week or two, I can't say I miss that early PC experience much at all!

Heaven Help Us

But does it purr when I stroke it?

Small Wang Contentment

I despise spam. Really. But once in awhile I'll get one with a subject line that cracks me up. Today was such a day.

Seriously? Why would I want that? That's so... 1950s.

I'm content with a small Wang, but thanks for the huge offer.

Digital Cleanup On Aisle 6

Note to self:

The next time I decide to send a bunch of old Quicken backups to the recycled bin, make sure I'm not sending files that contain current password lists, online payee lists, etc.

And by going to the recycled bin and restoring them all, I have now accumulated something like 800 pending transactions which aren't pending at all. They're old and are history already.

Oh the pain, the pain....

I foresee a call to tech support in my near future. Right after I have a bout of projectile vomiting.

Go Ahead, Wednesday; Suck My Brain Dry

I accidentally posted this with the title and nothing else. Somehow that would sum up my day.

So let's just leave it at that. Of, if you insist on knowing more, let's just call it a day of PC issues all the way around. There now. Aren't you glad you insisted?

Remembering DOS

What a way to kill a Sunday afternoon. But I need to get this old PC cleaned up and out of my house pronto. I did manage to get XP uninstalled.

That just caused the PC to revert back to Windows98 and all my data and programs were still there. So I had to resort to a more drastic approach. I want this baby CLEANED. Or as clean as it can be without removing the hard drive and trashing it. Supposedly the Pentagon has a hard drive shredder. No shit.

konagod will just do this the easy way. I had to polish up my DOS command skills a bit.

Digging Thru Grandma's Attic

Except "Grandma" is me. I have this old PC I want to donate to charity and I need to cleanse it of tax returns, personal data, porn, old business files, etc. I managed to get everything transferred to this PC today and I now need to find a disc-scrubbing utility so that everything is fine and dandy.

But, wow. What a treasure trove of data from the 1990s I found, including a lot of personal writings.

Nothing.
Everything wasn’t, isn’t and never will be.
Nothing was, is, and always will be.
Everything is illusory.
Nothing can be visualized.
Nothing is God.
Everything is nothing.
Nothing isn’t everything.
Nothing isn’t anything.
Nothing isn’t.
Nothing.

Cue the Raconteurs.

?txen tahW !kcuF

!golb t'nac I oS

!PLEH

!sdrawkcab gnipytsi draobyek yM

Problem solved! I had to reboot. I also did some research and learned that you can delete the keyboard driver and reboot and let it reinstall the driver and that will correct the problem. I also vacuumed cat hair out of the keyboard just in case that was a problem. Certainly can't be a good thing!

Another site had something up about pressing CTRL and the left shift key or CTRL and the right shift key to alternate between typing backwards which strikes me as odd. Who the fuck wants to type backwards?

File that away for future reference.

48 Hours

Nothing sucks the life out of a blog like a blog host being consumed with computer issues and other technological glitches for two full days. And it ain't over yet.

Internet Explorer needs to be added to my shit list, or maybe I should do myself a favor and just say Microsoft -- that would take care of many other problems all rolled into one.

Sometimes I wonder if I wouldn't be happier with a Mac.

Hmmm, that would make a nice Question of the Day, would it not?

Fridays Shouldn't Be Like This

I thought I'd have a lot of spare time today for blogging. As you can see, I am trying to do three things at once. On the left I'm doing my real job, in the middle is where I'm doing this post, and on the right I'm unsuccessfully trying to figure out how to activate the Bluetooth feature so I can upload photos from the friggin' cell phone.

Does this make me look busy and important, or just pretentious?