Still Suffering, After All These Years

I have been, and am currently, suffering the agonies, or at least the inconveniences of the well and eternally damned.

Yes, it is true. I have a nasty, snot-slingin' sinus-sloshin' oh-my-Gawwwwd-I-wanna-die cold.

And, to top it off, my Dodge Dakota truck has decided it doesn't want to run. Something to do with either the truck's computer, or one of it's sensors. The odometer displays "noBuS". Google "dakota nobus" and prepare to be confused.

I'm an IT Geek - this should be child's play, right? I mean, a simpleton computer that's running a car should be a snap for a certified IT God such as my magnificent self, right?

*Snort*

Damned thing is kicking my rosy red behind right around the block.

Cars. If I could figure a way to do without one, I would.

In a heartbeat.

The "Google Bomb"

Look, I've been mucking about in the Web for quite a while.

I've been using Google as my preferred search engine for at least five years.

I'm an IT geek - and I use Google every single freakin' day to find good stuff that I need to do my job.

(Side note: Go HERE to find really good FREE stuff. Gizmo rocks! And I found his site through Google.)

Until today, I'd never run across the phrase "Google Bomb".

Now that I have, and I've learned just how long it took Google to rectify the situation, I have to wonder just how badly Google's other results are skewed.

Yes, my trust in Google has been damaged. And Google did the damage itsownself.

Why, exactly, should I trust Google?

Travails with Tech Support

First, go and read THIS.

Trust me, when Mrs. OWW can't post, or even see her blog, she is... cranky. Irritated. Ready to remove heads with MY bare hands ("Kill 'em Honey - I know just where to hide the bodies...").

It seems that one of our friends has a friend with access to 2500 acres of woodlands. This friend of a friend also has a backhoe.

I think he (the friend of a friend) may also know exactly where Jimmy Hoffa is.

Actually, I suspect that my friend (not the friend of a friend) may also have some... knowledge that I. Don't. Want. To. Know.

Fortunately for my nightmare situation, Mujibar-The-Tech-Support-Weenie managed to fix things to my beloved's satisfaction, thereby sparing me the trauma of removing some of Mujibar's important body parts with a dull paring knife.

I will sleep soundly this evening, knowing that the paring knife will stay safely in it's appointed place...

Ad-Ware

Currently chasing a nasty ad-ware thingie that's infested a co-worker's home PC.

There is a special place reserved for these folks. And if I ever manage to meet one of them, the Jury of My Peers will return "Not Guilty".

AssHats!

Laptop Computers

I acquired a Compaq Presario laptop last year - a gift from my Dad.

It came with Windows Vista Home Premium (and ain't that a mouthful?) and a suite of the usual crapola - "trial" software and "special offers" for high-speed internet access.

Most of that had been eliminated by my Sis, whom Dad had deputized to be the System Configuration Wizard.

Over the past year, Vista has been getting "flaky" - it would lock up with the busy whirlythingie if I left it just sit there for five minutes. I know this 'cause I timed it. Three or four times, five minutes every time.

I spelunked around the web, and found Gizmo's Best Freeware (HIGHLY recommended by OWW), and once there, found THIS, which led to THIS, which are also both HIGHLY recommended by OWW, with the caveat that if your system is running well, DON'T FUSS WITH IT! If it ain't broke....

Alas, none of these tweaks helped.

At least three other people with identical laptops didn't have this problem, so I decided to do the dreaded System Restore To As-Shipped condition.

The System Restore took most of yesterday (after backing up my data), and most of that time was spent in very carefully removing the stuff I didn't want on the system, such as Office 2007 Student (I use Office 2003 Professional) and adding in the stuff that I use.

So far, so good - I'm back up and running, and it doesn't lock up after five minutes of idle time.

So far.... after all it IS Windows, neh?

Laptops and Windows Vista, Oh My!

Well, I've been living with Windows Vista Home Premium on the HP/Compaq laptop for about two weeks.

So far, it just works.

Everything looks familiar, although some of the bits and pieces are in different places than they are in XP.

I really Do Not Like Internet Explorer 7 - not because it blows up (it hasn't yet), but because I'm used to Maxthon. Mrs. OWW likes FireFox. As soon as I'm Real Sure that this is a stable system, Maxthon and FireFox are going on, probably next week.

Office 2007 Student 30-day Evaluation edition was pre-loaded. I really dislike it a bunch. Office 2003 is going on, 2007 will be un-installed as soon as I'm sure that won't blow the system to smithereens.

Now, just to annoy you folks in Washington (State or DC), and Minnesota, and Ohio, or even in San Jose, CA, here in SouthEast Jawja, today, December 12th, I was walking around in shorts and a t-shirt and sandals, enjoying 80F weather. As I write this, it's 10:15PM, I'm sitting on my deck sneering at my slightly overgrown back yard, and the temp is 68F under clear skies.

Summertime in Jawja is hot and humid (like 90F, 90% humidity), so when a glorious day like this comes along, I just sit there and smiiiiile......

Good "Free" Stuff For Your PC

Today is another "Things Computerish" day, wherein I point out some of the good free stuff that I use. "Free" as in "It doesn't cost me one thin dime, and is More Than Good Enough". This is stuff that I use and depend on. This stuff should all be at the top of the list for anyone who is at all concerned about getting the best out of their Windows computer.

SECURITY

Virus Protection: AVG AntiVirus can be had HERE. Good, solid stuff, and it does not get in the way of normal operations like Norton, or McAfee. You'll have to dig a little on their site, but trust me, it's worth it.

SpyBot Search and Destroy is HERE. Afraid of Malware? You're not? You should be! Use this, and you'll happy.

AdAware Personal is HERE. See above.

UTILITY

The Ultimate Boot CD for Windows can be had HERE. If you are the "Family, Neighbors, and Friends Local Computer Geek", and you don't have this, you're working 'way too hard. Also true if you are a professional supporting a Windows desktop environment. You don't need it often, but when you do need it, you need it Real Bad.

DIRMS is one of my favorites. It's included in the UBCD, and is a really good disk defragger - much better than Microsoft's included disk defragmenter. Stand-alone DIRMS can be had HERE. I highly recommend that you boot with the UBCD, and then use DIRMS to do a thorough and complete defrag of your system's hard disk. Your system will run faster and your hard disk will be less likely to fail.

AutoIT is for geeks only, and is available HERE. If you have to do lots of scripting, AutoIT is far superior to any other scripting language I've worked with. The learning curve is very steep, but the folks in the forums will be delighted to help, and the end result is simply astounding. If you have to support lots of PCs in a networked environment, you really need this one. If your management is being difficult, work up a couple of simple tasks (I used an installer for a terminal emulator that has lots of install options), and then do a Dog-And-Pony Show.

APPLICATIONS

NoteTab can be found HERE. Think Notepad on steroids. Good stuff, and absolutely free!

FireFox can be had HERE. I don't use it (I have to support Internet Exploder 6.0, so I use it, and I know it all too well!), but Mrs. OWW won't use anything else.

Good Free Stuff

Another of the reasons that I've been MIA recently has been the instability of my primary home system.

I've had the same installation for two years, and I've been "doing these silly things so you don't have to" for all that time. What finally did happen was unexpected - the Linux install that shared my primary drive with Windows XP killed itself, and along the way it whacked bits and pieces of the partition table.

For those of you from Rio Linda, the entire system became unstable, and needed a complete rebuild.

So, I backed up all the data and started from the beginning. Six working hours later, I have a functinal, stable system.

Along the way, I found a couple of neat, and FREE utilities.

CCleaner (which stands for "Crap Cleaner") will help you clean up your Windows Registry. Get it HERE.

Page File Defrag is a product of SysInternals (which has been acquired by Microsoft), and can be found HERE.

Both of these are on OWW's List of Good Free Stuff, so get 'em while you can.