Well here's another fine mess...
Reason #1 why I have not been posting - enjoying my son being home from Iraq, home from the Army, home from anywhere else.
#2 - WORRYING about my son and his situation - you know - 'is that ptsd???', what is up with the girlfriend situation, how is it going with school, etc., etc., etc.
#3 Oh this one is the fun one.... I'm be-bopping along through life and realize my computer anti-viral (Computer Associates) is getting ready to go out of date and I need to PAY and download the update. Remember how they always tell you to be sure you are firewalled and anti-viral protected, etc. - it's sort of like insisting you have a condom on your internet processes, if you will. EXCEPT you need to disable your firewall, uninstall your anti-virus -- you know go out on the internet buck naked and download their new and updated program to protect you so your computer will be safe from computer diseases. Mind you, I live out in the sticks and we, yes I am embarrassed to have to admit to you, have dial up. So I follow the instructions, go out in the ether to download the updated computer virus program and hours later have only 2 to 3 % of the download. I try several different times and even at one point get (whoo-hoo!!) 25% of the download done and I say to myself "Self, this is ridiculous. Let's go to Office Depot, buy the program on disk and not so sorely tempt the patience level (very, very, very low) so you won't want to throw your computer through the window and into a blazing fire." Ooh, good idea!!
So I go to OD, buy the program which I have indeed already paid for on line, and happily enough try to load IT onto the computer.
This little program practically JUMPS onto the computer (well, I guess that would be more like INTO the computer) and I get to the part where it informs me I now need to go online to finish up. Okay, no big deal. And so the computer happily starts downloading stuff - from the correct location and all, and then informs me to complete the process the computer will need to be restarted. This is all perfectly normal and I am confident that I will then be able to go to the Computer Associates people on-line and request them to refund the download that I paid for as I then went to the store and bought the program on disk. No problem, right?
Not so much.
Somehow in the whole download process with "no protection" - as per the download instructions my computer has gotten some wacked out mental disease and informs me that I do not have a modem. Interesting since I do, indeed have a modem, it is an internal modem, it was working absolutely fine the day before, and what the heck is going on here?????
So I figure - hey I've used computers for quite some time now and I am confident I can fix this - it's some minor something and I should be able to fix this with minimum effort. Oh dear. I do a restore to a previous point, test the modem which is working quite well, making that lovely little dial tone hum and all's right with my computer world... almost.
Somehow the evil internet has viralized (yes, I made that work up, language is a living thing and I enjoy making up words and YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I MEAN by that word) my pc and I try and try and try to fix it to no end. Finally I get the name of a good computer guy who is now in my cell phone as Computer Paul and I take him my computer for fixing.
Oh, boy. He has to mentally jiggle with it quite a good bit and has it almost fixed when the hard drive crashes. Like into a big brick wall at 90 miles an hour. He ends up having to up my Windows XP to XP Professional, does lots of other little fixes and fortunately I do have the discs of the software programs I wanted. However - I have lost everything, I mean everything on my computer. Email addresses, emails I wanted to keep (and I had plenty), all my personal documents, photos, you know - EVERYTHING - favorite blogs and websites...
So I am recreating my computer history.
Computer Paul also advised me - don't ever pay for anti-virus programs. Have I ever heard of AVG Free? How about Spy-Bot? Well, he took care of me and put those in the machine and they work pretty well and wonderfully seamlessly.
So I go to Computer Associates, tell them my sad story and they advise me that since it was past 30 days when I requested my refund, they could only give me aprotion thereof. Freakin' fine - except I contacted them for this refund early in December and they have thus far failed to contact me any further about the refund (portion) and I'm getting tired of that silliness!!
I mean come on - I paid for a program TWICE that not only didn't work - it messed up my computer and cost me more money to have it repaired and it doesn't look as though they have any intention of returning a penny to me!!
Personal recommendation for computer protection - DO NOT use McAfee (I had a similar problem with them previously) do NOT use Computer Associates, do NOT pay for anything!!!!
Go with AVG!!
Okay I'm tired of typing, time to share.... I do miss some of my favorite blogs!!! WHatever happened to contact right???? who else am I missing??? Yankee Mom I remembered you, Chuck Z, gunnutt, several others ....
#2 - WORRYING about my son and his situation - you know - 'is that ptsd???', what is up with the girlfriend situation, how is it going with school, etc., etc., etc.
#3 Oh this one is the fun one.... I'm be-bopping along through life and realize my computer anti-viral (Computer Associates) is getting ready to go out of date and I need to PAY and download the update. Remember how they always tell you to be sure you are firewalled and anti-viral protected, etc. - it's sort of like insisting you have a condom on your internet processes, if you will. EXCEPT you need to disable your firewall, uninstall your anti-virus -- you know go out on the internet buck naked and download their new and updated program to protect you so your computer will be safe from computer diseases. Mind you, I live out in the sticks and we, yes I am embarrassed to have to admit to you, have dial up. So I follow the instructions, go out in the ether to download the updated computer virus program and hours later have only 2 to 3 % of the download. I try several different times and even at one point get (whoo-hoo!!) 25% of the download done and I say to myself "Self, this is ridiculous. Let's go to Office Depot, buy the program on disk and not so sorely tempt the patience level (very, very, very low) so you won't want to throw your computer through the window and into a blazing fire." Ooh, good idea!!
So I go to OD, buy the program which I have indeed already paid for on line, and happily enough try to load IT onto the computer.
This little program practically JUMPS onto the computer (well, I guess that would be more like INTO the computer) and I get to the part where it informs me I now need to go online to finish up. Okay, no big deal. And so the computer happily starts downloading stuff - from the correct location and all, and then informs me to complete the process the computer will need to be restarted. This is all perfectly normal and I am confident that I will then be able to go to the Computer Associates people on-line and request them to refund the download that I paid for as I then went to the store and bought the program on disk. No problem, right?
Not so much.
Somehow in the whole download process with "no protection" - as per the download instructions my computer has gotten some wacked out mental disease and informs me that I do not have a modem. Interesting since I do, indeed have a modem, it is an internal modem, it was working absolutely fine the day before, and what the heck is going on here?????
So I figure - hey I've used computers for quite some time now and I am confident I can fix this - it's some minor something and I should be able to fix this with minimum effort. Oh dear. I do a restore to a previous point, test the modem which is working quite well, making that lovely little dial tone hum and all's right with my computer world... almost.
Somehow the evil internet has viralized (yes, I made that work up, language is a living thing and I enjoy making up words and YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I MEAN by that word) my pc and I try and try and try to fix it to no end. Finally I get the name of a good computer guy who is now in my cell phone as Computer Paul and I take him my computer for fixing.
Oh, boy. He has to mentally jiggle with it quite a good bit and has it almost fixed when the hard drive crashes. Like into a big brick wall at 90 miles an hour. He ends up having to up my Windows XP to XP Professional, does lots of other little fixes and fortunately I do have the discs of the software programs I wanted. However - I have lost everything, I mean everything on my computer. Email addresses, emails I wanted to keep (and I had plenty), all my personal documents, photos, you know - EVERYTHING - favorite blogs and websites...
So I am recreating my computer history.
Computer Paul also advised me - don't ever pay for anti-virus programs. Have I ever heard of AVG Free? How about Spy-Bot? Well, he took care of me and put those in the machine and they work pretty well and wonderfully seamlessly.
So I go to Computer Associates, tell them my sad story and they advise me that since it was past 30 days when I requested my refund, they could only give me aprotion thereof. Freakin' fine - except I contacted them for this refund early in December and they have thus far failed to contact me any further about the refund (portion) and I'm getting tired of that silliness!!
I mean come on - I paid for a program TWICE that not only didn't work - it messed up my computer and cost me more money to have it repaired and it doesn't look as though they have any intention of returning a penny to me!!
Personal recommendation for computer protection - DO NOT use McAfee (I had a similar problem with them previously) do NOT use Computer Associates, do NOT pay for anything!!!!
Go with AVG!!
Okay I'm tired of typing, time to share.... I do miss some of my favorite blogs!!! WHatever happened to contact right???? who else am I missing??? Yankee Mom I remembered you, Chuck Z, gunnutt, several others ....
posted by Infantryman's Mom at
8:49 PM
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