Restarting my hard drive.

Some time ago, I started having trouble with my computer.  I was advised to get it to a computer Tech who could clean the hard drive, look for a virus and see what could be done.  I kept thinking, how long will this take and can I be without my computer that long.   So, I procrastinated until my hard drive crashed.   I thought I had a lot of things saved on my thumb drive.  The most important was the Outlook addresses contact list.  Well, when I tried to load that into the new hard drive, it just corrupted the new Outlook version.  At least I have a couple of efiles, from my own email, and a colleague, who had them just for this purpose, and can re-load everything manually.  I did not save much to the cloud, but enough so I do not have to totally recreate all of the stuff I had in my other folders.   

I Hate Microsoft Updates

I hate Microsoft updates.  Sometimes, as happened tonight, the updates kidnap my computer and do not allow it to run at my command, and prevent me from doing what I want to do with my computer.  Tonight, it took more than 30 minutes for the updates to finish running and my computer was available to me again.

I also hate it when Microsoft sends out updates that reconfigure my computer: makes my home page look different, tries to change my sign on, adds layers of protection I don't ask for, and changes the way I access things like the Internet.  I did not want to change from Microsoft Explorer to Microsoft Edge, but Microsoft did that for me without asking me or giving me any opportunity to opt out.  I suspect Microsoft no longer supports Explorer, and that is just pure wrong.  If they put out a product, they need to support in perpetuity. Sorry. That is the expectation. Why do these computer companies get away with not supporting programs they advance, and force us to use new one?  We pay good money to use the programs the offer us, and that good money should ensure us we can use those programs as long as we want to.  I think the computer companies are thieves. 

Hidden Figures

I am reading the book Hidden Figures, the book about the women who worked for NACA and later NASA ,  computing equations about aircraft, and later spacecraft and flight trajectories and what have you. In fact the women who were doing the work were called computers, before that referred to electronic computers. 

Who would think that a story about women doing math could be interesting, but Margot Lee Shetterly was able to accomplish that.  

You may not have heard of the book, but this may sound familiar, because it was made into a movie of the same name:  Hidden Figures.  I really enjoyed the movie, so of course, I wanted to read the book!

Little did I know, but one of the main characters to this story, Katherine Johnson, turned 100 years old yesterday, August 26, 2018!  Hers is quite a story, and she deserves the recognition and accolades afforded to her by this book, and by this country!

Ooops! Spilled Wine!

Spilled wine is not really new at my house, but in the 25 or so years I have had a computer, I have not spilled anything on the keyboard.  Until just recently.  On Tuesday night, the 19th of June, I did just that.  I wiped it up the best I could.  And could do no more.   I did not think to get on the smart phone to read what to do, so I just shut down the computer as quickly as possible. (What to do, wipe off the key board, turn the laptop upside down, and take out the battery.  The point is nothing runs, and maybe the liquid will not get into anything and do permanent damage.)  

Well, this was late at night, so the next morning, I tried to turn on the computer, but could not get the keyboard to respond, although the wireless mouse did.  Hope for me.  I took the laptop to the Office Depot near me.  We tried attaching a remote keyboard and wireless mouse.  My files opened, but everything just "rolled."  Something was stuck, I thought.  They did not do internal work on sight, so I took it to Expertech.  Spilled liquid is evidently common enough, they have a standard price for it.  

When I brought the computer in, their comment was wine is better than water:  wine gets everything sticky, water starts to corrode everything.  They would have to dry and clean the laptop, and then install a new keyboard (or I could use a remote keyboard.)  The first thing the technician did? Take out the battery. It took several days, before I heard back.  They said they had cleaned and dried the computer, and it just needed a new key board.  I went with the new insert. They gave me a price for the keyboard, and we went with it.

When I picked up the computer, they showed me the old keyboard, and the new one that was installed. He said he had opened my recent files, and they seemed to be intact and working. He told me to take it home and if I had issues after I got home, to let them know!   

It took longer the than a week to repair, but the price was reasonable, and my files and email addresses were all intact!  So, life is good.  

I just need to be more careful.

My New Nest

So, I usually work at my computer in the computer room.  I like the office chairs, but I only have two (I still regret not buying a third when I could have at the Resale Center. I need to go back and look for another chair.) Anyway, I usually sit on a card table folding chair. I have a space heater at my feet, and sometimes use a throw or wear an extra light jacket. Sometimes, when a cat is missing, I move to an office chair, as it is more comfortable.

When I felt poorly, recently, I moved my nest to the living room sofa.  I discovered that it actually feels warmer than the computer room, I suspect because the overstuffed sofa helps hold in the feeling of warmth. I also had two throws that kept me very snug, and a space heater near the sofa.  I was doing a lot of reading, because I had the time, and because I could, and because I could fall asleep and recover where I was in the book I was reading. I really enjoyed napping and reading, and napping and reading, and having a bowl of soup and napping and reading.  It was a most comfortable time, in its own way. It was very cold outside, and I was so thankful for a warm nest.

Haiku seemed to like being on the sofa with me.  She likes the computer room when the space heater is on, but she just seemed more content on the sofa with me, and I suspect that if I thought my nest on the sofa was warmer than the one in the computer room, she thought the nest  on the sofa was warmer, too. She also would ask, from time to time, to sit on my lap.  Sometimes, she asked to sit on my lap when I was sitting up, and sometimes, when I was reclining. She just likes to snuggle.  

Taki was less interested, but she would come by from time to time. 

I still use my new nest in the living room.  Sometimes, I sit on the sofa and work on the laptop on a TV tray. Sometimes, I recline on the sofa, with the laptop in my lap.  Sometimes, it is plugged in. Sometimes I am using the battery.  I use all the options I can, except with the printer.  

Although I purchased a printer that had a wireless setup, I never did set up the wireless option.  I have been thinking that I need to poke through the materials and information for the printer, and set it up wireless.  However, it is not much work to go back to the computer room, hook up the printer and print.  

Update

Today, I had some trouble with my computer, and decided to restart. When I did, I noticed the option to update and restart, so I clicked on that.  When the restart happened, it said it would take some time, and it really did.  I checked on it several times, and it said it was updating, do not shut off the computer.  I went out and ran errands, and went to lunch, so, when I got home, the computer was ready to reboot.  It took several hours.  Tonight, I have had some difficulty with some applications I have previously used.  I applied the "fixes" but that did not help.  No big deal.

Wireless Mouse

Years ago, I was given a wireless mouse.  And loved it.  This was so long ago, I was still using my desktop computer, and eventually, bought a wireless mouse so I could use one for the laptop and one for the desktop, because I was crazy and would have two computers going at the same time. 

Sometime back, I realized that what I thought was a problem with my computer being non-responsive, was a problem with the first wireless mouse I had acquired.  So, I started using the other one, and the problems went away. 

Last night, one of my cats was trying to get on the desk, and I did not react quickly enough to keep her from tilting the laptop.  In the course of doing so, the antenna on the mouse was destroyed.

So I hooked up the other mouse, that worked okay for everything but drop and drag.  I use a lot of drop and drag when I play Words with Friends  https://apps.facebook.com/wordswithfriends/ on Facebook.  So, this afternoon, I went to Office Depot https://apps.facebook.com/wordswithfriends/ and purchased another wireless mouse. A computer search indicated that both Office Depot and Wal Mart https://www.walmart.com/ had sales on wireless mouse that were therefore priced less than $10.  I went to Office Depot.  Technically, I could walk to Office Depot, and I have in the past, but today, I had a time constraint so chose to drive.

This mouse will take some getting used to.  Interestingly, the antenna is a small little nub, and is stored in the battery compartment of the mouse.  Which is better for traveling. This mouse has a wheel, and unlike my older mice, the wheel does not have a feel of cogs when it turns.  But it works just fine, once I became used to it.  Ergonomically, it feels comfortable.

Computer obstinacy

I do not know what is going on but my computer is being a little obstinate.  Specifically, the mouse is being obstinate.  I am having difficulty blocking to copy and paste.  Sometimes, it works just fine. Sometimes, I can only get part of what I want to block, and sometimes, I cannot get the mouse to respond so I can block anything.  Other times, I can block everything.  Which is what I do, and after I copy, just delete what I do not want, which is faster, sometimes, than re-typing everything.

Oh well, my computer goes through these episodes of quirks that I am used to adjusting to, and then they go away, and things return to normal.

Email Weirdness

So, when I got on my computer this afternoon, I could not download my email.  It appeared to be a server problem, but my Internet connection was working just fine.  So, I went to the Suddenlink home page http://home.suddenlink.net/ and tried to get into my emails on the website.  I have two active accounts and neither one would load emails. That was weird.  So, I decided to do some other things and get back to the email problem when I was prepared to call Suddenlink and be tied up on the phone for a while.

Well, when I tried later one, everything worked the way it was supposed to work. That was good!

Internet Problems

I heard on the news that there have been some serious Internet problems this week.  I have had some serious Internet problems tonight.  Earlier, all of my favorite sites were loading just fine, and the commercial sites I was trying to load were slow but okay, but the government sites were not loading.  Now, the government sites are loading, but some of my favorite sites are not loading quickly, and are getting stuck. 

I ran a virus scan that mostly got rid of cookies. But there were no other problems.

I will see what happens tomorrow. 

Microsoft Updates

So, at about 4 PM today, I inadvertently clicked on update and restart.  Oh well. I was not planning on doing anything on the computer for the next couple of hours.  Three hours later, I go back to the computer, and it is still updating.  It took almost 2 hours to update Microsoft.  I cannot tell what difference it has made.  It will remain to be seen.

Computer Settings

I have mentioned that I had some work done on my computer, updating settings, downloading new software, cleaning up problems, recently renewing my anti-virus service. Well, when I first did all of this work, I had to reset somethings: re-open programs that I had kept open, and reset my home page.

I am not sure what happened last night or today, but when I opened my computer, I had to do the same all over again.  I had to reset my homepage, my default browser, and re-open several programs (Facebook, BlogSpot) that I keep open regularly. I am not sure what happened overnight that my computer was directed to have me do these things. In a way, it is scary, but I think if my accounts were shut down by some unseen force, it was probably a good thing.

One of the mysteries to me of computers.

I Have a Headache

I have a headache.  I have actually had a headache for much of the day.  I spent a large portion of the day shredding, and simultaneously, downloading Windows 10 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/features on my computer. 

The noise of the shredder contributed vastly to my headache, although I would usually only shred for about 30 minutes at a time. I still have a lot to do, but I think I have done all the shredding I am going to do this week. So, I will not probably meet my goal. But I have things organized so that I can continue to work on the project quite easily.

The download to Windows 10 was just time consuming.  And a little frustrating, when I tried to open some favorites that would not open.  Until I remembered to reboot. Then all was okay.  I am learning to navigate my way around Windows 10 already.  It is okay. I am not sure why Windows 8 and 8.1 were so deplorable, but evidently they were.  I understand that there is actually a Windows 16 out there. I do not need that, I think.  Not yet.

I have had some performance problems with my computer recently, and had some work done on it earlier this week. I still having some problems but I think it is because my router 10 years old.  Do you think?  I will eventually replace it, but it is not currently a priority project.  And the work done on the computer really improved the performance! 

Computer Fix

Some weeks ago, after an automatic Windows update, when I tried to open the Internet browser from my email, I was directed to something other than my regular browser. This concerned me at first, but I explored this, and it seemed to be okay.  I do not do this often, but over time, I evidently do it more than I realize I do.

Thursday night, another automatic Windows update was occurring.  I remember, because when I tried to sign onto the computer, I could not at first, and had to wait for some time.  When I did finally get onto the computer, I had some trouble.  I blamed it on yet another unwanted Windows update. 

But in truth, I had been dealing with my computer slowing down recently, mostly when I was using the Internet.  Email and offline activities were just fine, so I did not think it was a virus. But I did not know what to do about the Internet.  Because I had been having some problems, and keep getting notices about needing to run Toshiba updates, I had decided to work on this next month, while I was on vacation.  I still might.

But, looking through email today, I clicked on a link to view something in my browser.  And I was poking around on the alternate Internet access, which also did not seem to be working okay.  I clicked on tabs, and realized that every time I had accessed the Internet this way, even though I closed the browser, it did not actually close the tab.  After spending quite some time closing all of these tabs, I went back to the other link I use to access the Internet, and guess what?  Things were working much, much better! 

Yeah! 

Thanks for the comment

Thanks for the comment about Norton Anti-virus.  I did not mean to imply that the Norton anti-virus was doing anything wrong, because I thought it was doing its job as it should. I realize that when it scans files on my computer, it will shut some down.  My comment is directed to the programs that do not recognize my password because my account has been idle for an extended period of time. While I understand the security, it is  an inconvenience
to me.

I was trying to comment on the comment, but could not figure out how.  Hence, another posting.

Sign On ... Again

My Toshiba Satellite computer that I purchased in 2014 came with a discounted offer for Norton Security http://www.nortonsecurityonline.com/ns-us/?mv1=aUS092&d1=c&pk_campaign=adA&gclid=Cj0KEQjws_m6BRCv37WbtNmJs-IBEiQAWKKt0PldT8PmNcmiF3UEFJCO22oZpTrvIMTdu445CHEkckgaAlIA8P8HAQ, which I accepted, and have continued at full price since then.  Norton is supposed to complete a weekly scan of my computer on Sunday, and I believe it does.  Today, I received a notice that it needed to scan again. I always do the scan when I am told an additional scan needs to occur. I mean, really, I am paying for the service, why would I not allow the scan.

This scan was one of THOSE scans that results in all of my signed in Internet accounts being closed. So, when I access something like Facebook, or Netflix, or my Blog, I have to sign in again. So far, I have not had problems with passwords, although this situation in the past has seen me have many problems with passwords. Because I have a lot of Internet accounts that I have marked as "remember this password" and many that I just keep signed in.  And in that case, it seems that if I have not used a password in a long time, the password I know is correct (I have written down, no matter what security gurus tell us) is no longer recognized as valid. I understand that from a security perspective, but it is very aggravating from a convenience perspective (I mean, why would I stay signed in if I did not want to be recognized quickly by this account?)

This is an inconvenience built into the system of trying to provide security to our computers.  Oh well, we all have to put up with it. 

Printer Problem

I have a Hewlett Packard Printer Scanner Copier.  I purchased it in 2014, and have never been really happy with it.  I could not print post cards, and the paper feed has always been a problem.  Today, I was trying to print, and it just did not happen.  I did all of the trouble shooting HP offered on line to no avail. I am so frustrated. So, tonight, I have disconnected the power from the printer. I will try again in the morning, and if nothing works, I will just get a new Printer Scanner Copier, and hope it is not anything more than a cheap Printer Scanner Copier.

Video Problems Persist

The video problems persist with my laptop.  I know how to correct it, every time it occurs: I go the Power Options panel, and choose "When to turn off the display."  The option is "never."  Then I have to restart the computer.  This is laborious, cumbersome, and inconvenient.  But, is it worth doing vs. paying someone to fix my computer?  At this point in time, yes.  Maybe in the future, no.  But for now I will limp along like this.

Video problems again

Well, last night, I started having video problems again on my computer.  It extended to the DVD player not working. Well, I poked around and looked for trouble shooting.  I am not sure where I went, but I found a Toshiba user's guide, and found a way to correct the video problem.  But it still would not play the DVD, which is from Netflix. It is an Acorn Media DVD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_DVD.  It might be a faulty DVD.  I loaded one of my own that I know works, and it worked.  I wonder if this was just a coincidence, or maybe not?

I like it when I am smarter than my computer!

Toshiba Updates

I updated my Tobisha http://us.toshiba.com/computers/laptops laptop a while back.  I had been ignoring the notice for a while, because my past experience with Windows updates http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ has usually not been good.  I was disappointed after I did it.  It was blocking some of my videos in Facebook, and elsewhere.  You Tube posted a notice I could pay $59.xxx (I can't remember the cents) to see the videos. With the three  position cents, I felt that was a bogus site anyway! But that was weird and wild, and of course, I could have cared less. I just decided I would live without those videos.  And I did.

Last night, after ignoring it for a couple of days, I clicked on another Toshiba update. Specifically, I was hoping they would correct their previous screw up.  Guess what?  They did!  They must have gotten a lot of complaints for this correction to come out this quickly!