…and for the first time in well over 10 years, I am going to have to mail the machine in. So I will be five days without my main computer. Argh!
The good news is that I have a pretty good fallback—my old Latitude is still viable, and after being plugged in and roused from a two year long nap—found the house net, updated its security and is now launched on 25 Windows updates, with 6 optionals.
You who work with Windows know what a joy that is.
But I should be able to get access.
We got the error on the main machine that it originally had. I love Dell computers. I am NOT so sure about their local repair folk—one of whom failed turn on the keyboard lighting (we found that out) and the other of whom left the RW drive cable unconnected—which it still is, making me very glad we have a housenet for moving files about.
Well, so I have to mail my baby in, and expect a 5 day round trip, in which they will try to figure out why, despite replacing the mobo, the io, the palmrest and keyboard—which is about everything EXCEPT the case, the power supply, battery, and video display—it keeps having a skip across the usb ports of a ‘usb power surge’ warning, that vanishes if you reboot.
The former computer nearly had me locked out—I forgot the password change, so the ‘password hint’ was out of date, but hey, I got it. And it’s a pretty respectable machine on its own. So I’m not in too much pain. Just frustrated, and wishing I didn’t have to doubt the local service guys. We exhausted the resources of all the highlevel techs, even in remoting the keyboard—they couldn’t find it either, and we’ve flashed the bios and updated everything from usb drivers to chipset driver-thingie.
I’m moving my sensitive files over to dear old Ezzie, the former computer, and will carry on carrying on.
I use a password program (KeePass, but there are many others) and have the files for this in DropBox. Accessible from anywhere with only 1 master password to remember. If I’m travelling I copy a PDF of the files to my Kindle to have handy.
CJ mentioned a couple of years ago that she and Jane use LastPass. So do I, the free version, and it works very well for me.
I hope they’re able to find and fix the problem with the “new” computer.
And those of us on Linux know what joy not doing that is. 😉
The fact that I spend months building each new version of “POD” from scratch, is my choice, because I can!
p.s. Intel’s just announced a “compute stick” at CES that’s a full-up computer running Win8.1 ($145) or Ubuntu ($89)! And it’s like the size of your TV remote!
http://www.geek.com/chips/intel-compute-stick-runs-windows-and-linux-fits-in-your-pocket-1612943/
Well, Ezzy is up and running its 95 Windows updates—that’s not the date of the Windows program, that’s the number of updates, which were stalled because I had to update the updater…
And I had a long heart-to-heart with Carbonite, which has a very civilized and helpful user help line, with people who know what they’re doing. And I can be pretty confident that not only can I get my files back if they have to wipe the drive (with so much hardware replaced, a software problem is a real possibility, though I’ve run Malwarebytes and Iolo, and am pretty sure we have a clean disc. My only question is whether the drive with the disconnected cable could be a USB type, but I suppose we will find it out.
Thank goodness for Ezzy. The pain is going to be adjusting to the smaller keyboard, which means my fingers are constantly in the wrong place. But it’s only five days.
Carbonite also believes that Jane’s data may still be on their site — she had a failure to restore on one of her machines that was worked on— so when things even out around here, we are going to get her and the Carbonite people together for a talk and maybe a recovery…
And re the glitches on the site, we’ve eliminated a couple of bugs on the site (things like antiquated elements) but we think we’ve got one more problem that needs to be addressed to get it to update properly.
Maybe we can even get everybody able to log in without going through gymnastics and reboots.
That leaves only my poor bollixed-up mail program, which is not behaving well at all. Could A be connected to B and have something to do with the general USB problem? I’d be highly surprised.
But by the time we get finished, with brand new hardware and a total cleanup of trash on the disk—Iolo System Fix is a pretty good program, and I got a deal on it via Dell—we may be running much better. Our computers receive so very much stuff it’s no wonder we get clutter.
I’ve got 3 laptop computers, one is an old Dell CPi that runs a Pentium-II 266MHz, I’ve got a Dell Inspiron 15R running an Intel i3, and then there’s an old Gateway that runs a Pentium IV…..the Gateway has a history of eating up hard drives, for some reason. Well, I just ordered another hard drive for it, and I might use that laptop for my Weather Station in the basement, since it’s much faster than the CPi that’s running Windows 2000. I’d put Windows XP on the Gateway.
Now, Paul might say that running Linux would be better, but unfortunately, the weather programs I’m running, as well as the reporting program, are Windows programs. Maybe there’s a workaround out there for getting them to run, but seriously, it’s not that critical to me. The laptop was a freebie, so if it works with XP, I’ll be happy. I don’t use it for serious number crunching or web surfing – but if I’m in the basement during severe weather, it’ll be used for radar monitoring while I’m running SKYWARN nets.
I do have an old copy of Red Hat, I believe it’s Red Hat 5.0, but I’ve never been able to get Linux to run on any of my computers, even with a brand new, formatted, blank hard drive. Other people seem to have no trouble, but then, they also have a longer attention span than I have, I guess. 😉
BTW, Paul, I did a search for the best distributions (not necessarily the ones most downloaded, but the ones that had the best features), and I think I’m even more confused. One person says Bodhi Linux, another claims Mint, a third likes Ubuntu, someone else likes Lubuntu, and then another likes Red Hat….
I understand that Linux in and of itself is not the operating system, just the basis for the various operating systems.
My experience with Linux is very limited. I’ve worked to a very small extent with Solaris UNIX, but that was almost 20 years ago, and I really didn’t play with it, as much as very carefully type in commands. (One time, the field tech accidentally did type in “del *” and though he denies it, other people corroborate that he did in fact, do just that.) At least, I never did something like that.
@Joe, what goes into a Linux distro is mostly a question of two general approaches, RedHat vs Debian, though there are others, like the LFS I follow, Gentoo, SUSE, Slackware, et al. Beyond that I’d say most differences are in presentation, e.g. a dozen or more different “spins” on Ubuntu, a Debian derivative. At that point I’d say personal style is the deciding factor, and the reason you get so many different recommendations. Fundamentally, they all offer about the same services.
“Know thyself” is the way to choose. “Please, mother, I’d rather do it myself!” or “Just get in it and drive”?
So my recommendation is to try something from the RedHat side, and then the Ubuntu side. Pay attention to how they “feel” different, and whether one feels more “natural” than the other. For example, a KDE desktop would probably feel more natural to a mostly Windows user, Gnome to an Apple user–especially true “several”, ~10, years ago. If they all seem to want to do too much for you (as I would), then there are “leaner” things like Core and Arch. SUSE caters to more corporate enterprise. Gentoo is a bit more “roll your own”.
There’s even a more traditional *nix available in Free-BSD.
Linux is for people who 1)are tinkerers, 2)know what they are doing, and 3)have lots of time. As only 1) of 3 applies that rules me out. But I’d KILL for a copy of XP. In the last year I’ve had to replace 2 computers in emergency situations (dash over to the mall and get what was on the shelf) When that meant the desktop was Windows 7 I thought I had discovered the depths of horribleness, but then the new laptop came with Windows 8.1….
I have put a sticker on the machine’s palmrest that places an Egyptian curse on whosoever loads 8.1 onto my machine. I’m sending it with 7 pro on it and that’s what I want back.
Amen and pass the A-1 sauce! I have been handed every variety of e-reader, tablet, and laptop at the Reference Desk, and expected to be a miracle worker and explain how to fix what ails it. Usually this involves being unable to connect to the library’s wi-fi, or not being able to download an e-book, both of which may have a myriad reasons. Of course, these are all the new gizmos received over Christmas, all with Windows 8.1 or some proprietary system; you should hear me trying to hack an iPad to make it download Overdrive… the air goes momentarily blue.
Linux isn’t necessarily for everybody, but it is more secure and reliable if one can run/will it. I run Windows (98 as it happens) every day, but I don’t expose it to the internet.
I learned on DOS, so Linux doesn’t daunt me, but my whole life is structured around a set of programs that, when they work, do what I need them to do…It’s the moments in between that make me yearn to format C. As we used to do in times of annoyance: the programs were such that we could do that pretty lightly and put everything back again in good order. Now it’s black boxes within black boxes ad infinitum.
Even in the days of Win95, if you had to replace all the hardware under a system, you just went to Device Mangler, deleted everything and rebooted. It found the new stuff. But since M$ got so paranoid, well, today if you had to reload an /XP system, it’d be good for a month because the online software registration has been shutdown.
One of my client/friends had his HP Pavilion fail over the holidays. I tested it and it’s the motherboard. It fails memtest the same way with different sticks. I couldn’t find an identical motherboard I could slide in underneath with nobody the wiser for less than $150, and it’s long past its sell-by date from HP. I could replace the board easily enough, but then we’d have to call M$ and convince them this was a legitimate repair and get them to give us new keys. We went to Fry’s and bought a cute little ASUS, looks about like a coffee-cup warmer, for $240. Basically it’s laptop tech without the attached KVM, keyboard/video/mouse.
If it weren’t for M$’s paranoia, I could have easily resurrected his computer. Conroe/ATX motherboards are easy!
At some point, when someone just goes crazy, it’s not reasonable to just turn away and go your own way.
Dang! “UN”reasonable! sheesh.
And OMG, the **** that’s on this thing!!! It keeps producing popups selling this or that. Download something you need with prechecked boxes to download other **** you neither want nor need. Register with the M$ Windows store with your phone number, snail-mail address, and email address just to get a free version of Solitaire or Freecell, so they can pester you with other **** to buy.