Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut

Sometimes you feel like a nut (click here when you are done reading), other times you just feel like a stupid moronic idiot. Is that redundant hyperbole? Here is the scoop, Sunday, the Internet slowed to a crawl. It was so slow, I was wishing for a 56K dial up to speed it up. Remembering what the cable company has told me in the past, I followed the steps.

1. Unplug the cord going to the cable box, wait 10 minutes
2. Unplug the cord going into the electric outlet, wait 10 minutes.
3. Reboot the computer. 
4. Done
5. Done 
6. Done

Great, now the lights on the cable box are lit up at all. It died. Its little lights were flickering so faintly in nonsensical patterns. Maybe it was Morse code for SOS. I used to know Morse code back in my Cub and Boy Scout days, but that was too many decades ago to retrieve the information from. I should have paid it more attention. I should have realized something was wrong. Now is not the time to should all over myself. It is too late for should haves. 


It was new just July 2010. What is the lifespan of a cable box? Did we use it to death? Are we cable box murders? Will there be a special place in Hell for people like us? Maybe a room filled with the latest forms of technology, but there are no wall outlets and all of the batteries are dead. The nightmares started immediately, even as I was on the phone calling the cable company, the early symptoms of withdrawal were apparent. My mouse finger started twitching uncontrollably like it was clicking on Internet links that weren't there. Suddenly, I had thoughts of 57 different things I had to check on the Internet, before the slap of reality hit me hard once again. No Internet for you. 


Amazingly, the cable people answered within minutes and on a Sunday too. The person spoke excellent English. She ran me through the list of things, but I told her she was speaking to a veteran. I had done it all twice or more, but there is no life left. She ran diagnostics from her end. She could not detect any life either. She was sending out a technician. On Monday. Only between 1:30 and 4:30 pm. I was so grateful, I was almost close to tears. What the hell were we supposed to do until then? 


I can't share the time spent until the technician arrived. It is too painful a memory to rehash in my own mind, let alone on a public forum. When the doorbell rang at 1:40 pm on Monday, you would have thought I caught Santa Claus in the act; I was beyond ecstatic. He walked in full of confidence, but without any English. Sheepishly, I led him to the scene of the dead cable box and then left the room. I couldn't watch. 


Fifteen minutes I ventured back into the living room to see what progress had been made. He was like a Hawaiian surfing dude, covering the Internet like he was riding a big gun and sailing through the barrel of those waves. When I walked in, he calmly picked up the cable box, which I had thought he must have replaced. After flipping it over, he pointed to something and said...




Switch, on - off! If the earth would only open up and swallow us at times like these...

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Liking Waiting for a Birth

Getting new techie stuff for me is beyond exciting, but the wait reminds me of waiting for my brother to be born. The anticipation was great, but the end result was a bit of a let down. The tech was supposed to be here at 10am. I had everything backed up and ready to fly into the next level of Windows with arms spread wide planning to soar. My mobile phone rang since when the guy left yesterday, our landline, which is also cable stopped working. We have a call into the company to get that repaired now too. The labor time was premature, he has to stay at the office until 1:30pm. At 3:30, he show us. Having flunked yesterday's lessons, he had the audacity to state that this was going to be simple. All he had to do was set up the server. At 3:45, we gave him coffee. When the clock hit 4:25, it was ice water. The temperature out was 92F. By 6:30, we offered him a vodka and tonic. When it turned 8pm, we were thinking of including him in our dinner plans. At 8:30, we were considering making up a bed for him, but we are fully booked, so perhaps a spot on the kitchen floor? As it turns out, the hard drive that I used to back up everything I needed from the old computer was too outdated for the new computer, so could not be installed. He had to run to a computer shop to get cables to allow me to use the old drive as an external one. Then there was the installation of the server software on three more computers. What we have now is a system where guests will be able to video stream our movie collection onto their laptops in the privacy of their room. That is of course, after I have the time to load all of the 700+ movies onto the server. For now, I am reinstalling all of my programs under Windows 7, which has not been too much of a hassle. I guess having had to reformat the computer on a semi-annual basis in the past has increase my speed in doing it. What I hate the most about the reformatting is all of the programs that I bought online and have saved registration keys for, but when you try to reinstall them, the keys no longer work. This happened for three programs that I use continually. I write to the support and hope to hear back one day. Kudos to one company: Slysoft Software - www.slysoft.com I have three of their programs, which I use almost daily. They not only responded the same day I wrote, but they provided me with new keys. They thought the old keys may have been corrupted. Bless them. Hats off to MailWasher Pro, the program that filters out my spam in the e-mail. When I could not get the program to install, they wrote me back asking questions. Until I retrieve it, I have 759 e-mails to sort through. If you don't hear from me soon...

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My Computer and I

My computer and I should have the best relationship ever. We spend more time together than a married couple who are partners in business with a home office. I do my best to treat it kindly. I show my appreciation for its many talents on a daily basis. Yet, like a spiteful friend, it turns on me on occasion; it really hurts when this happens. Yesterday was one of those times. We were working together seemingly without any qualms with each other, and then, it turned on me without warning. In the little tray at the bottom right hand side of the screen where the running programs are shown, a new little icon appeared. What caught my attention was the fact that it was flashing. It had the shape of a little computer with tiny yellow balls on either side. After I realized my buddy was not declaring its gender, I clicked on the icon for identification purposes. What I received in return was a message that is was trying to make contact with the IP host. For the last two weeks, I have been getting any annoying message on the Internet stating that my connection was reset by the host and I had to try again. This was consistent across platforms. The same issue arose with Firefox, IE 8, Outlook Express, and my Incredimail program, so I could presume that it was not software related. So, I had to break down and call my cable company to have it checked out. After listening to three minutes of instructions in Hungarian, I was finally informed that to speak to an English speaking operator, press 7. The last time I called it was 'press 8'. I think they change this periodically to confuse me. I pressed 7 and a lovely apologetic voice told me that all reps were busy and though my call was important, I could press 2 and leave a voice mail message and they would call me back. Being an untrusting soul with these promises, I waited...and waited...and waited. Five minutes later, I did get an actual person who asked for the usual information: my account number, the account name, the account address, my mother's maiden name, my place of birth, religious affiliation, political bent, phobias that have been cured and those that I still suffer from, and so forth. I really should record all of this information to do an instant playback whenever calling a company here to save my breath, but I never remember once off of the phone. The rep asked me to hold on while she checked my modem. I did and she did. She advised me that the modem was in perfect order, but there may be a problem with the IP, so she had to get someone from that department to check it. She asked for my phone number, the last bit of data not provide earlier so they could call me back after they checked it. When I asked how long this would take, claiming I did not want to be held hostage all day, she said within two hours. In the meanwhile, another glitch came about. The batteries in my cordless keyboard died. Now, I did have fair warning, since slamming a key ten times before getting any results is usually an indicator of something. Did I have spare batteries on hand? Nope! Ron was headed to the store, so this was put on the shopping list. Meanwhile, I tried every set of four AA batteries I could find fearful that the cable company would call back and need for me to navigate in the Network Connections or some such place. No batteries worked. One hour later, the phone rang; it was the cable company. Before the gentleman could say a word about do this or do that, I shared my dilemma. Although sympathetic, he said it did not matter since the IP was fine. It seems that it is my router that is causing the problems. They did not provide the router so it is my issue. Ugh! I hate having an issue. Ron returned with the batteries, so I thought I was set to go. The keyboard did not work. I repeatedly hit the reset button on the control and the back on the keyboard, but nothing happened. I uninstalled the software and reinstalled it. Nothing. Using the computer in the kitchen, I looked up troubleshooting for cordless keyboards. I had followed the instructions implicitly, yet still without positive results. By now, I was fuming. Buying a new keyboard was not on the agenda for the day. Ron had gone for a nap, so I decided to wait for him to get up to see if he wanted to go with me. Without a keyboard there are limited things you can do on a computer. I felt helpless and abandoned by my good friend. Pouting, I went to read the book I had started. After two chapters of being absorbed in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, I had an epiphany. The keyboard has a different antenna from the mouse. The reset button I had been hitting was the mouse reset. When I reset the correct antenna, the keyboard kicked into action.

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