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Jan. 8th, 2005 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickToday was pretty much a wasted day.
I picked up the mail, which had nothing interesting for me. I also chewed the postal worker out about the fact that Priority Mail from here to Wisconsin didn't get there in four fucking days (I did not say the word "fucking" to the postal worker) even though she said it would get there in two or three days. I asked what, exactly, my four-bucks-plus was paying for, if not for "priority" delivery in two to three days. The postal worker didn't have an answer for that. Ah, well. I will know better next time. Priority mail, which says two or three days? It isn't. Note to self: If stuff has to get somewhere in a timely fashion, send it overnight, get a tracking number, and don't use the damn post office's sorry-ass priority mail.
After that, I went to visit La. We chatted a bit, and then she mentioned her grandma's computer was fucked up and allowed as how I might go take a look at it. Now, those of you who don't know me in real life have probably spotted the nerd score, two entries back. I didn't cheat and edit the html to make myself look nerdier than I actually am, though doing that would be an indication that perhaps I was more nerdy than I tested... and admitting that I know *how* to do that and briefly considered it should pretty much cement my claim to the score I actually posted. (Note: Do not pick a random number if you edit your nerd code to look smarter. Also, based on data points I have [9702 -- 67%, 8567 -- 22%, 5771 -- 90%, 5573 -- 24%, and 1786 -- 95%], it isn't immediately obvious how the numbers are generated. Any people nerdier than I am are welcome to pipe up, here. Anyway, it will work if you just copy someone else who scored "well" in your book. A minimal selection (I'm too lazy to go look for more) is presented above. Enjoy) Anyway, that score is actually a pretty decent assessment of my general nerdiness. I have excellent computer-and-internet-related nerd skills. I also usually have a CD or three of nifty doze-specific fix0ring utilities in my car for just this sort of bullshit occasion because it's a LOT easier to fix crap when I have my utilities on CD. La knows both of these things and has known me for more than twenty years. It is not out of line for her to ask me to look at her grandma's computer, and I did.
The reason I have CDs with fix0ring utilities on them in my car is that I do not ever again want to bootstrap my way to decent utilities using a Windows-based computer where the ONLY internet file-getting application that works is the fucking DOS-based command-line FTP client. I get the sinking feeling I may be losing some of you... You may have one cookie if you can positively identify your operating system. If, as a Windows user, you have ever (even by accident) seen the DOS command-line, you can have a slice of pie. Hell, if you know what FTP stands for, I will buy you the Starbucks beverage of your choice when next we meet and you can laugh at my inability to order the damn thing properly.
In the unlikely event that I am ever made Nerd King God of the Universe (a position probably currently held by gangsta rapper MC Hawking), the first damn thing I am going to do is to make sure that computers are as easy to use as toasters. If that's not possible, I will make sure that cheap, speedy repair places to fix computers (think Jiffy-Lube) dot the landscape like mushrooms after a rain. If we (that's the royal we, as we're being the Nerd King God, see) opt for the Jiffy-Lube solution, computers will also be redesigned so that the hard drives pop out so that they can be schlepped to the repair places for fix0ring. The current situation is a whore of a thing that I cannot understand people putting up with. I know how we GOT the current situation, of course, and I know why it persists... but it sucks. We need a better choice.
Wait up, there, skipper! What about Macintoshes? They're delightfully unfuckupable. No, wait, why don't you give xxxxx user a *n*x box with limited user permissions and leave yourself root SSH for remote administration? Then you could unfuck whatever the user did without ever leaving the comfort of your dimly-lit den o' porn.
No. No. No, a thousand times, no.
Anyone, and I do mean *anyone* who suggests either Macintosh or no-root-access crippled *n*x systems as the PERFECT final solution for allowing clueless users the freedom to play with computers will be hit with sublime smackdown. I do NOT want to be the unpaid fucking computer consultant to everyone I know, okay? I don't want to be the informal network admin for the "network" of my friends and family. I do not want to tell them what to buy. I do not want to fix it up for them so that they can run it. I do not want to take ANY damn kind of ownership of THEIR problems. The current system, while non-optimal, puts people who ask me for help in MY debt. I like that. Debts can (usually, with the exception of my tits-on-a-boar-hog cousin Jon) be collected later, usually to my benefit.
Any suggestion I make (eg. "Buy Macintosh" or "Here, run *n*x") puts me in the seat of blame. If I made a suggestion that someone followed, everything that happened after that would be MY FAULT. If it broke, that would be my fault... and it would break. Users are stupid. Tautology, there.
Not to put too fine a point on it, I get PAID to do the wild thing. If I'm going to have to get fucked, I'm going to get paid for it.
Also, I don't want to hear evangelism for operating systems. I don't. No OS evangelism. It's fucking tiresome. The Nerd King God has spoken.
Moving onward. The system in question was the red-headed stepchild of Windows, Windows ME. If you don't spend much time around end users, you might not know that they tend to call this Windows Me, like maybe Windows You or Windows They. I cringe every time anyone says Windows Me. It's not like that. It's Windows Em Ee. Em Ee, asshat. (Tautology, I said.) ME is less stable than Win98 SE. It's not an improvement in any way at all over 98SE. My continuing impression of ME, which I've supported since it came out, has been that Microsoft was aiming for a new OS every two years or so and when it got to be TIME for a new OS, they released one. I'm not sure if it's hell or high water... the jury's still out.
What was wrong with it?
1. Windows ME (I am not willing to fix this by trying to upgrade the fucker to XP -- not when I know damn well I'd also be expected to make the no-name printer, no-name scanner, no-name CD-R drive... work well. Fuck, they don't now. The damn computer is hosting a USB shootout that makes it look like the O.K. Corral.)
2. No antivirus software
3. Trojan horse dialer
4. Still using IE to surf with
5. Spybot S&D and Ad-Aware not updated (or run) since I was there last
6. Modem driver uninstalled or not reinstalled...? WTF?
7. Endless "Explorer has caused an error in kernel32.dll" error -- you click OK or whatever, it goes away and comes right the hell back.
8. Weatherbug (People. Want to know what your local weather is like? LOOK OUT THE FUCKING WINDOW!)
9. Smiley Central (fifty thousand banal icons that you think will cover up the fact that you're not witty or amusing)
10. Active Desktop (Who thought of this? Can I kill him?)
How much got fixed? Everything but 7 -- a nondestructive overlay reload didn't fix this. Stripping down the startup didn't fix it. Getting rid of all the other shit didn't fix it. Fixing the virus, installing AVG free edition, taking a look-see with HJT, getting Msft critical updates, nothing. I explained, as well as I could to a nontechnical eighty-nine year old partially-deaf woman that I could not fix it without a more-destructive reload of 'Doze and that such a reload might impact her data (geneaology stuff, mostly. some pictures of great grandkids.). I carefully went over (with demonstrations) how, since the thing worked enough for her to get her data off, she might take advantage of this time to get her data off (by working around the endless error message, which can be moved out of the way -- this necessitated teaching her how to "grasp" and "move" windows on the screen) so that nothing would be lost in the reload. I think she understood. If she didn't, it's okay because I also explained the whole thing to La and La's sister Trys, both of whom are young enough and computer literate enough to grasp what I said. La has promised to call me back in a couple of weeks when they are ready to have the fucking thing reloaded from ground zero.
That took the better part of my afternoon. Yippee.
Tomorrow, I'm driving Dad and his wife to the airport with intermediate stoppage at brother Joe's house. With any luck, I can remember to pick up the free rice wine vinegar (Joe uses the premixed stuff for his sushi, I like to mix my own, and he has this bottle leftover from before he discovered the premixed stuff.) I've forgotten the last two visits. *sigh* I'm about out and I can't buy the stuff locally, so this is a nontrivial thing. I've made a note.
I picked up the mail, which had nothing interesting for me. I also chewed the postal worker out about the fact that Priority Mail from here to Wisconsin didn't get there in four fucking days (I did not say the word "fucking" to the postal worker) even though she said it would get there in two or three days. I asked what, exactly, my four-bucks-plus was paying for, if not for "priority" delivery in two to three days. The postal worker didn't have an answer for that. Ah, well. I will know better next time. Priority mail, which says two or three days? It isn't. Note to self: If stuff has to get somewhere in a timely fashion, send it overnight, get a tracking number, and don't use the damn post office's sorry-ass priority mail.
After that, I went to visit La. We chatted a bit, and then she mentioned her grandma's computer was fucked up and allowed as how I might go take a look at it. Now, those of you who don't know me in real life have probably spotted the nerd score, two entries back. I didn't cheat and edit the html to make myself look nerdier than I actually am, though doing that would be an indication that perhaps I was more nerdy than I tested... and admitting that I know *how* to do that and briefly considered it should pretty much cement my claim to the score I actually posted. (Note: Do not pick a random number if you edit your nerd code to look smarter. Also, based on data points I have [9702 -- 67%, 8567 -- 22%, 5771 -- 90%, 5573 -- 24%, and 1786 -- 95%], it isn't immediately obvious how the numbers are generated. Any people nerdier than I am are welcome to pipe up, here. Anyway, it will work if you just copy someone else who scored "well" in your book. A minimal selection (I'm too lazy to go look for more) is presented above. Enjoy) Anyway, that score is actually a pretty decent assessment of my general nerdiness. I have excellent computer-and-internet-related nerd skills. I also usually have a CD or three of nifty doze-specific fix0ring utilities in my car for just this sort of bullshit occasion because it's a LOT easier to fix crap when I have my utilities on CD. La knows both of these things and has known me for more than twenty years. It is not out of line for her to ask me to look at her grandma's computer, and I did.
The reason I have CDs with fix0ring utilities on them in my car is that I do not ever again want to bootstrap my way to decent utilities using a Windows-based computer where the ONLY internet file-getting application that works is the fucking DOS-based command-line FTP client. I get the sinking feeling I may be losing some of you... You may have one cookie if you can positively identify your operating system. If, as a Windows user, you have ever (even by accident) seen the DOS command-line, you can have a slice of pie. Hell, if you know what FTP stands for, I will buy you the Starbucks beverage of your choice when next we meet and you can laugh at my inability to order the damn thing properly.
In the unlikely event that I am ever made Nerd King God of the Universe (a position probably currently held by gangsta rapper MC Hawking), the first damn thing I am going to do is to make sure that computers are as easy to use as toasters. If that's not possible, I will make sure that cheap, speedy repair places to fix computers (think Jiffy-Lube) dot the landscape like mushrooms after a rain. If we (that's the royal we, as we're being the Nerd King God, see) opt for the Jiffy-Lube solution, computers will also be redesigned so that the hard drives pop out so that they can be schlepped to the repair places for fix0ring. The current situation is a whore of a thing that I cannot understand people putting up with. I know how we GOT the current situation, of course, and I know why it persists... but it sucks. We need a better choice.
Wait up, there, skipper! What about Macintoshes? They're delightfully unfuckupable. No, wait, why don't you give xxxxx user a *n*x box with limited user permissions and leave yourself root SSH for remote administration? Then you could unfuck whatever the user did without ever leaving the comfort of your dimly-lit den o' porn.
No. No. No, a thousand times, no.
Anyone, and I do mean *anyone* who suggests either Macintosh or no-root-access crippled *n*x systems as the PERFECT final solution for allowing clueless users the freedom to play with computers will be hit with sublime smackdown. I do NOT want to be the unpaid fucking computer consultant to everyone I know, okay? I don't want to be the informal network admin for the "network" of my friends and family. I do not want to tell them what to buy. I do not want to fix it up for them so that they can run it. I do not want to take ANY damn kind of ownership of THEIR problems. The current system, while non-optimal, puts people who ask me for help in MY debt. I like that. Debts can (usually, with the exception of my tits-on-a-boar-hog cousin Jon) be collected later, usually to my benefit.
Any suggestion I make (eg. "Buy Macintosh" or "Here, run *n*x") puts me in the seat of blame. If I made a suggestion that someone followed, everything that happened after that would be MY FAULT. If it broke, that would be my fault... and it would break. Users are stupid. Tautology, there.
Not to put too fine a point on it, I get PAID to do the wild thing. If I'm going to have to get fucked, I'm going to get paid for it.
Also, I don't want to hear evangelism for operating systems. I don't. No OS evangelism. It's fucking tiresome. The Nerd King God has spoken.
Moving onward. The system in question was the red-headed stepchild of Windows, Windows ME. If you don't spend much time around end users, you might not know that they tend to call this Windows Me, like maybe Windows You or Windows They. I cringe every time anyone says Windows Me. It's not like that. It's Windows Em Ee. Em Ee, asshat. (Tautology, I said.) ME is less stable than Win98 SE. It's not an improvement in any way at all over 98SE. My continuing impression of ME, which I've supported since it came out, has been that Microsoft was aiming for a new OS every two years or so and when it got to be TIME for a new OS, they released one. I'm not sure if it's hell or high water... the jury's still out.
What was wrong with it?
1. Windows ME (I am not willing to fix this by trying to upgrade the fucker to XP -- not when I know damn well I'd also be expected to make the no-name printer, no-name scanner, no-name CD-R drive... work well. Fuck, they don't now. The damn computer is hosting a USB shootout that makes it look like the O.K. Corral.)
2. No antivirus software
3. Trojan horse dialer
4. Still using IE to surf with
5. Spybot S&D and Ad-Aware not updated (or run) since I was there last
6. Modem driver uninstalled or not reinstalled...? WTF?
7. Endless "Explorer has caused an error in kernel32.dll" error -- you click OK or whatever, it goes away and comes right the hell back.
8. Weatherbug (People. Want to know what your local weather is like? LOOK OUT THE FUCKING WINDOW!)
9. Smiley Central (fifty thousand banal icons that you think will cover up the fact that you're not witty or amusing)
10. Active Desktop (Who thought of this? Can I kill him?)
How much got fixed? Everything but 7 -- a nondestructive overlay reload didn't fix this. Stripping down the startup didn't fix it. Getting rid of all the other shit didn't fix it. Fixing the virus, installing AVG free edition, taking a look-see with HJT, getting Msft critical updates, nothing. I explained, as well as I could to a nontechnical eighty-nine year old partially-deaf woman that I could not fix it without a more-destructive reload of 'Doze and that such a reload might impact her data (geneaology stuff, mostly. some pictures of great grandkids.). I carefully went over (with demonstrations) how, since the thing worked enough for her to get her data off, she might take advantage of this time to get her data off (by working around the endless error message, which can be moved out of the way -- this necessitated teaching her how to "grasp" and "move" windows on the screen) so that nothing would be lost in the reload. I think she understood. If she didn't, it's okay because I also explained the whole thing to La and La's sister Trys, both of whom are young enough and computer literate enough to grasp what I said. La has promised to call me back in a couple of weeks when they are ready to have the fucking thing reloaded from ground zero.
That took the better part of my afternoon. Yippee.
Tomorrow, I'm driving Dad and his wife to the airport with intermediate stoppage at brother Joe's house. With any luck, I can remember to pick up the free rice wine vinegar (Joe uses the premixed stuff for his sushi, I like to mix my own, and he has this bottle leftover from before he discovered the premixed stuff.) I've forgotten the last two visits. *sigh* I'm about out and I can't buy the stuff locally, so this is a nontrivial thing. I've made a note.
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-09 04:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-09 04:39 am (UTC)I want to grow up to be the monk guy who plucked out the eyeball of that blond bitch in Kill Bill 2. That's who I want to be when I grow up -- but more careful about checking out my fish products for poison, of course.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-09 04:50 am (UTC)One of these days PlayStations will come with a Web browser built in, and a 256 MB thumb drive, and we will never need to see a PC in an end-user's home again.
Yes, yes, I know...set-top boxes never work...