Technology: The Nine Circles of Hell
Jul. 7th, 2011 09:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tenayaOr what has consumed my life for the past four weeks.
Last month, the night I was happily off to see the first of two Tull concerts, I got my first bow shot that I had a virus on the desktop. XP Antispyware 2012. Pop ups after pop ups demanding I clicky click. I shut the computer down, went to concert. Had fun. Yay! Came home and wondered why none of my antivirus programs would work. The First Circle of Hell--Limbo (I'll save us both from further labels and just say I bounced about freely through the different layers of the next three weeks.)
When next I had a day off, I hauled the desktop over to Best Buys to the Geek Squad. He thought things didn't look so bad. I was encouraged, though in a foul mood as I was covered in dust bunnies and had back pain from crawling around behind the desk and hauling that mother out to the car.
Next, they call and things are bad. That sucker has gotten in deep and the drive will have to be reformatted. Turns out that if you click on the pop up, you give the virus permission to install, thus bypassing your anti virus software. Mom looked extremely guilty and mentioned she might have clicked. :( I took down the external hard drive thing I had bought to make backups on (it was still in the box in the garage.) They said they'd be able to do that. I've a friend who had just suffered through the loss of her desktop and had cursed soundly at no backing up iTunes. I had MEANT to back it up, but.... So now I was hoping they could for me. I had backed up most of my photos and stories so I would have been pained, but not gutted if the backup didn't work. Turns out you pay $80-85 for the first 8 gigs of data transferring and another $60 for unlimited (I can't remember the exact numbers.) Since iTunes was 16GB, I was automatically in for the whole deal. "Transfer it all." I told them. "And don't forget the D drive." That's where my photos were.
Back to work I go. Next I'm informed that after they reformatted, they got the Blue Screen Of Death. The motherboard had gone to Computer Heaven. That wasn't too unexpected as the computer was eight years old, and frequently ran pretty hot.
On my next days off, I started my search for my new desk top. I thought about a big laptop (where would Brindle sit on it??) about Apples. I started to wiki all the new computer terms from the ads that I no longer understood. I was pretty overwhelmed. I settled on a Dell, and must admit to lustful feelings when the reviews frequently mentioned how quiet the thing was. After long summers of hearing the high pitched whine of the last one, that sounded really nice. I bought the Dell, a set of Bose Speakers and a new surge protector/battery back up. Those suckers are HEAVY! I dropped the Dell off at the Geek Squad and asked them to put the back up stuff on the new computer, sync the two external hard drives I had (that always goes foul for me and since my computer mojo was pegged at the wrong end of the red zone, I thought it safer.) The tech said they'd pulled off 40GBs. He was so proud. What about the D Drive I asked, for I knew it had about 90GB of photos on there. "What D Drive?" he said. "The one I mentioned to the other guy?" So, they go back to data transferring and tricking out the new Dell. I had them put Eset Nod32 on it, and install MS Office, too.
They called and said the computer would probably be ready on Saturday night but they will still transferring the photos. They had never seen so many photos before. I guess I win, then. Yay for me! Mr Dell wasn't ready on Saturday, so back to work I go.
On my next stretch off, I pick up the Dell and continue in quest to pull out the color printer I've never used and muck out the rat's nest that is my computer area. I have sworn that I will never crawl behind that frigging desk again and I'm determined to put Bart up where I can reach him and he can't be reached by the Dust Bunnies of Doom. Yes, the Dell is now called Bart. He is a tall and black and very reminiscent of the obelisk in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I *could* have called him Hal, but that really would be tempting fate.
And he is so quiet, OMG I'm frigging dancing with joy over that!!
So, it takes a few days but I finally get stuffed put together. But the monitor won't work. A phone call to the GS support (I paid for a year and I'm going to damn well use it, too!) is nothing but frustrating. Yes, the monitor is plugged in/turned on/connected. Huh. I get transferred to someone else. YES I've turned on the monitor and it's connected and TURNED ON! Really, is that the only solution you have?? Is that because I'm a woman or because...okay, I'm taking a deep breath here. I'm still so pissed off over that call.
Back to the store I go, to talk to someone in person. A tall, self assured and very geeky looking young man actually listens to me (it's a short story "I bought new Dell. Monitor doesn't work--but it did when I hooked it to the laptop!) He smiles and asked if there was an adapter in the Dell box. I had to use that and plug it into a card and totally ignore the VGA port that has the little monitor etched near it. Go figure. :::sigh:::
I go home and SUCCESS! So I start connecting the other stuff one at a time. The next bother comes with the backup battery. It fine the first time I connect it but the second time, it keeps alarming about an overload. I only have the computer, monitor and printer plugged into it! After cursing, reading the instructions, resetting the circuit breaker, it still is alarming. That goes back in the box and back to Best Buys in very short order and I buy a simple surge protector which works beautifully.
I spend the next day doing things like downloading Google Chrome and figuring that out enough to start on the bookmarks and getting iTunes back up. That worked very well. I couldn't find it myself, but apparently the program had no trouble finding the files or syncing the two iPods I have. That went very well. I picked Chrome because, during all this the house alarm starting going off at random times because the batteries need changing. The tech that came to sort that out (he missed one battery apparently because I still have beeping going on but it was nothing like before. Gotta get him back out here) glanced at the laptop and looked puzzled. After a short explanation, he said the latest version of Firefox was terrible when it came to virus protection and rec'ced Chrome. And to back up a bit, I HAD dl'd the latest version of Firefox recently on both computers. And the laptop also picked up a virus a few days after the desktop. I did NOT clicky click and Eset and Malwarebytes cleaned it up. But I have to say if I hadn't just had the desktop issue I probably would have fallen for clicking on the pop up. This one said Vista Antispyware 2012 and that 2012 gave me a jolt of adrenlin right to my toes! The pop up was exactly like the frequently annoying pop ups that Vista is so fond of. It was saying the fire wall wasn't turned on which had been a frequent complaint until I recently uninstalled Zone Alarm. The pop up was a perfect clone of the usual Vista security box. If it hadn't been for 2012 and the fact I had gotten rid of Zone Alarm, I would have suspected nothing. So damn close!!
But I digress. I ran into more bother when I tried to dl the printer drivers for Windows 7. But I was out of time and back to work I went. Yesterday, I tried to GS online remote support and that took a while but did settled my problem.
So, Bart is always in my peripheral vision, tall, glossy black and silent, oh so blissfully silent. A little mini-Bart external drive which automatically makes weekly back ups sits up on Bart like a little tick bird. The Bose speakers, while there were the cheapest, are so much better than what I had. And now there is plenty of room down where the tower used to sit for the surge protector and all my little techie gadgets docks and things. I threw out all the old disks and crap from my little filing cabinet and have responsibly put all the new crap in a plastic bag to make finding stuff easier.
I'm thinking of putting VLC and Nero on Bart as I don't believe Windows 7 will cooperate on my fannish behaviors. I bought Windows 7: The Missing Manual because all I can say, Windows 7? WTF?? Hopefully the book will help with that learning curve.
Two more entries to go!
Last month, the night I was happily off to see the first of two Tull concerts, I got my first bow shot that I had a virus on the desktop. XP Antispyware 2012. Pop ups after pop ups demanding I clicky click. I shut the computer down, went to concert. Had fun. Yay! Came home and wondered why none of my antivirus programs would work. The First Circle of Hell--Limbo (I'll save us both from further labels and just say I bounced about freely through the different layers of the next three weeks.)
When next I had a day off, I hauled the desktop over to Best Buys to the Geek Squad. He thought things didn't look so bad. I was encouraged, though in a foul mood as I was covered in dust bunnies and had back pain from crawling around behind the desk and hauling that mother out to the car.
Next, they call and things are bad. That sucker has gotten in deep and the drive will have to be reformatted. Turns out that if you click on the pop up, you give the virus permission to install, thus bypassing your anti virus software. Mom looked extremely guilty and mentioned she might have clicked. :( I took down the external hard drive thing I had bought to make backups on (it was still in the box in the garage.) They said they'd be able to do that. I've a friend who had just suffered through the loss of her desktop and had cursed soundly at no backing up iTunes. I had MEANT to back it up, but.... So now I was hoping they could for me. I had backed up most of my photos and stories so I would have been pained, but not gutted if the backup didn't work. Turns out you pay $80-85 for the first 8 gigs of data transferring and another $60 for unlimited (I can't remember the exact numbers.) Since iTunes was 16GB, I was automatically in for the whole deal. "Transfer it all." I told them. "And don't forget the D drive." That's where my photos were.
Back to work I go. Next I'm informed that after they reformatted, they got the Blue Screen Of Death. The motherboard had gone to Computer Heaven. That wasn't too unexpected as the computer was eight years old, and frequently ran pretty hot.
On my next days off, I started my search for my new desk top. I thought about a big laptop (where would Brindle sit on it??) about Apples. I started to wiki all the new computer terms from the ads that I no longer understood. I was pretty overwhelmed. I settled on a Dell, and must admit to lustful feelings when the reviews frequently mentioned how quiet the thing was. After long summers of hearing the high pitched whine of the last one, that sounded really nice. I bought the Dell, a set of Bose Speakers and a new surge protector/battery back up. Those suckers are HEAVY! I dropped the Dell off at the Geek Squad and asked them to put the back up stuff on the new computer, sync the two external hard drives I had (that always goes foul for me and since my computer mojo was pegged at the wrong end of the red zone, I thought it safer.) The tech said they'd pulled off 40GBs. He was so proud. What about the D Drive I asked, for I knew it had about 90GB of photos on there. "What D Drive?" he said. "The one I mentioned to the other guy?" So, they go back to data transferring and tricking out the new Dell. I had them put Eset Nod32 on it, and install MS Office, too.
They called and said the computer would probably be ready on Saturday night but they will still transferring the photos. They had never seen so many photos before. I guess I win, then. Yay for me! Mr Dell wasn't ready on Saturday, so back to work I go.
On my next stretch off, I pick up the Dell and continue in quest to pull out the color printer I've never used and muck out the rat's nest that is my computer area. I have sworn that I will never crawl behind that frigging desk again and I'm determined to put Bart up where I can reach him and he can't be reached by the Dust Bunnies of Doom. Yes, the Dell is now called Bart. He is a tall and black and very reminiscent of the obelisk in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I *could* have called him Hal, but that really would be tempting fate.
And he is so quiet, OMG I'm frigging dancing with joy over that!!
So, it takes a few days but I finally get stuffed put together. But the monitor won't work. A phone call to the GS support (I paid for a year and I'm going to damn well use it, too!) is nothing but frustrating. Yes, the monitor is plugged in/turned on/connected. Huh. I get transferred to someone else. YES I've turned on the monitor and it's connected and TURNED ON! Really, is that the only solution you have?? Is that because I'm a woman or because...okay, I'm taking a deep breath here. I'm still so pissed off over that call.
Back to the store I go, to talk to someone in person. A tall, self assured and very geeky looking young man actually listens to me (it's a short story "I bought new Dell. Monitor doesn't work--but it did when I hooked it to the laptop!) He smiles and asked if there was an adapter in the Dell box. I had to use that and plug it into a card and totally ignore the VGA port that has the little monitor etched near it. Go figure. :::sigh:::
I go home and SUCCESS! So I start connecting the other stuff one at a time. The next bother comes with the backup battery. It fine the first time I connect it but the second time, it keeps alarming about an overload. I only have the computer, monitor and printer plugged into it! After cursing, reading the instructions, resetting the circuit breaker, it still is alarming. That goes back in the box and back to Best Buys in very short order and I buy a simple surge protector which works beautifully.
I spend the next day doing things like downloading Google Chrome and figuring that out enough to start on the bookmarks and getting iTunes back up. That worked very well. I couldn't find it myself, but apparently the program had no trouble finding the files or syncing the two iPods I have. That went very well. I picked Chrome because, during all this the house alarm starting going off at random times because the batteries need changing. The tech that came to sort that out (he missed one battery apparently because I still have beeping going on but it was nothing like before. Gotta get him back out here) glanced at the laptop and looked puzzled. After a short explanation, he said the latest version of Firefox was terrible when it came to virus protection and rec'ced Chrome. And to back up a bit, I HAD dl'd the latest version of Firefox recently on both computers. And the laptop also picked up a virus a few days after the desktop. I did NOT clicky click and Eset and Malwarebytes cleaned it up. But I have to say if I hadn't just had the desktop issue I probably would have fallen for clicking on the pop up. This one said Vista Antispyware 2012 and that 2012 gave me a jolt of adrenlin right to my toes! The pop up was exactly like the frequently annoying pop ups that Vista is so fond of. It was saying the fire wall wasn't turned on which had been a frequent complaint until I recently uninstalled Zone Alarm. The pop up was a perfect clone of the usual Vista security box. If it hadn't been for 2012 and the fact I had gotten rid of Zone Alarm, I would have suspected nothing. So damn close!!
But I digress. I ran into more bother when I tried to dl the printer drivers for Windows 7. But I was out of time and back to work I went. Yesterday, I tried to GS online remote support and that took a while but did settled my problem.
So, Bart is always in my peripheral vision, tall, glossy black and silent, oh so blissfully silent. A little mini-Bart external drive which automatically makes weekly back ups sits up on Bart like a little tick bird. The Bose speakers, while there were the cheapest, are so much better than what I had. And now there is plenty of room down where the tower used to sit for the surge protector and all my little techie gadgets docks and things. I threw out all the old disks and crap from my little filing cabinet and have responsibly put all the new crap in a plastic bag to make finding stuff easier.
I'm thinking of putting VLC and Nero on Bart as I don't believe Windows 7 will cooperate on my fannish behaviors. I bought Windows 7: The Missing Manual because all I can say, Windows 7? WTF?? Hopefully the book will help with that learning curve.
Two more entries to go!
