Posts Tagged: ‘Miscellaneous’

Spring Cleaning – Originally Published April 2013

August 15, 2014 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

It’s that time of year again.  Time to do that spring cleaning.  Luckily, I don’t have either a garage or an attic, so you would assume there is no need for me to do any of that mundane cleansing stuff.  What I have to spring clean every year is the closet in my computer room where all of my excess electronic stuff ends up.  Just last month a lot of people told me “thank you” for bringing in something for the give away table that they could really use.  I’ll have to tell the truth.  I wasn’t really spring cleaning.  My wife had the house re‑carpeted and I had to move all of that stuff out.  It was easier to put it in the pickup than back in the closet.

Talking about spring cleaning, this is a good time to do some computer cleaning.  If you’ve got a desktop computer, it is a good idea to shut it down, unplug the power cord, open the case and blow out all of those dust bunnies that have accumulated inside.  A can of compressed air doesn’t cost much.  Make sure you blow out all of the ventilation ducts and in the corners and underneath all of the components.  This is also a good time to check that all of your power cables, memory chips, etc. are firmly seated.  Over time they sometimes wiggle loose and cause aggravating problems.

Your keyboard can also probably use a good cleaning.  Disconnect it, turn it over and give it a good shake to get rid of the accumulated crumbs and other gunk.  You could also vacuum it with a brush attachment.  A squirt or two of your canned air will also help.  If you haven’t got rid of all the keyboard muck, a cotton swab dipped in isopropyl alcohol can be rubbed between the keys to clean them.  Just make sure that the swabs aren’t dripping wet.

Next, it’s time to clean your monitor(s).  Use your compressed air to blow the dust out of the corners.  You’ve probably got a few dust bunnies over or under the stand as well.  You can make a screen cleaner from several recipes found on the internet.  Personally, I spend a few dollars and buy one of the commercial products.  Either way, don’t directly spray the screen.  Just moisten a micro-fiber cloth and then rub the screen clean.  Wipe it dry with another cloth.

Now that you’ve got a sparkling computer, it is a good time to clean your hard drive(s).  Download a copy of Belarc Advisor.  The Advisor is a program that scans all the hardware and software on your PC.  One of the sections in the report lists all of the software installed on your machine.  It also tells you the version number, date installed, usage data and much more.  Look at the section that tells you when you last opened each program.  I’ll bet you find some that haven’t been used in more than a year.  Might be good time to get rid of them and free some space on your hard drive.

Cleaning those old programs off of your hard drive is easily done with Revo Uninstaller.  Revo uses the Windows operating system uninstaller to remove the program.  Then it checks your hard drive and registry for leftover remnants and deletes them.

After deleting all of those programs, your recycle bin is probably getting pretty full.  With CCleaner  you can easily do that  At the same time you should delete old log files and old temporary files.  As an added bonus, you can clean all of your browsers temporary files, history, cookies, download history, etc.

Now that you’ve got a clean house, a sparkling garage, a spotless attic and a smooth running, junk-less computer, you’ve got time to have a cold beverage.  Maybe you could even play some clean games.

Thanks for reading.

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Cruise Ship Technology – Originally Published March 2013

August 6, 2014 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

I’ve been cruising!  You may or may not know that I’ve been busy relaxing with the Mrs. on one of our cruise vacations.  This is our eighth time.  When other passengers ask if we like it, I usually tell them “No, but we’re going to keep trying until they get it right.  By the way, I’m writing this article on the ship.

I thought I’d take a few minutes and talk about the technology that I’ve noticed aboard the ship.  The first thing I that was new was the ship wide WIFI at a decent 54 mps.  The internet junkies can get their fix for a mere $0.75 per minute.  Of course, you could always sign up for the 480 minute plan and pay only 33 cents per minute.  I found it amusing that there was also a $3.95 sign up fee the first time you used the service.  Personally, I’m just fine with waiting until we enter port.  I’ve always been able to go ashore and find free WIFI somewhere.  That gives me a chance to check my email and do a little browsing.  It’s not a big thing.  After all, I am on vacation.

One of the things I’ve done differently this time is that I didn’t bring my laptop.  I’m writing this article on my Nexus 7 tablet with my bluetooth keyboard.  Several people (both passengers and crew members) have stopped to talk to me and ask about my setup.  I think I may have converted some people from their iPad and Kindle products.  They are mostly impressed when they see everything the Google machine can do.  By the way, this months Mind Bender was done completely on my Samsung Galaxy Note II.  One of the things you find on every cruise is trivia contests.  I just recorded the Q & A and later transcribed them into the puzzle.  It was easy to do with split screen multitasking on my Pocket PC.

Walking around the ship, I’ve noticed that hardly anyone is reading a book anymore.  There are a lot of tablets and e-book readers in sight though.  The problem is that not many of them can read in the bright sunlight.  Good thing there are a lot of shady spots on this ship.  It probably won’t be too long before you hear me say, “A book?  How quaint!.”

The shops, bars, internet cafe, coffee bars, etc. do not take cash aboard the ship.  Your room key not only electronically unlocks the door, but it is also your on board credit card.  It only takes a matter of seconds before your purchase is charged to your account.  Interestingly, the casino takes either cash or your key card.  If you use the card, there is a 3% service charge.  Go figure!

The key card is also used as a passkey to get off the ship in port.  At the start of the cruise, a web cam is used to take each passengers picture.  When going ashore, you just stick you card into a machine that looks like an ATM.  It beeps and you get off.  Coming back aboard is the same process, except for a Security Office checks your face against the picture on the file.  I was thinking that it would be fun to shave my beard while I’m ashore and see what happens.

We took the ships “Behind the Scenes” tour.  This was a guided four hour journey through various crew only areas of the ship.  Technology was in abundant use throughout.

We didn’t get to see the engine room, but we got to walk through the Engineering Control Center.  It was about the size of our meeting area at Village Green.  Two officers are on watch at all times.  In addition to the engines, all of the ship’s auxiliary systems such as the water distillers, sanitary disposal tanks, fuel tanks, electricity generators, etc. are monitored and controlled from this station.  They kept a close watch on me as I studied the setup.

In the galley (kitchen), there was a monitor at nearly every piece of cooking equipment.  The displays had instructions for the cooks telling them what to cook and when to cook it.  A computer in the head chef’s office allowed him to input his instructions into the system.  He was also able to order supplies from the storage areas.

The crews living areas had berthing, recreation and galley facilities.  They had their own cooks that used the same system as the passenger areas.  There was a large room with two or three dozen internet capable computers for crew use.  Many crew members had their own computers which they could also use.  Another thing that was available for the crew is college credit courses via the internet.  I don’t know if there was a fee or not.

By far, the most technology was visible on the bridge.  The first thing you see is a huge monitor displaying radar for several miles.  The ship’s location is accurately displayed with GPS coordinates.  Another screen displays up to date weather data and the forecast.  Several other stations had monitors with vital ships information.  Almost all of the sailing is done by auto pilot.  The Captain gives his orders and the crew enters the data into the computer.  About the only time it is done manually is for practice in case the systems go down.

Almost all of the technology I saw had a backup system that was the exact same as the original.  It was interesting to see two computers with the same data on the screen.  Now that I think about it, there was one system that didn’t have a backup.  I guess we can only hope that the windshield wipers on the bridge don’t fail.

Thanks for reading.

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Selling It Emails – Originally Published February 2013

August 6, 2014 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

Would you believe that it has taken me a whole year to write this column?  That may sound like braggadocio, but it’s almost true.  I’ve spent the whole year of 2012 gathering data for this article.

As you may or may not know, one of the reasons I’ve kept my internet domain name is so that I can have a whole lot of email addresses.  I usually use one email address for each site that requires registration.  If I start getting a lot of spam, I can easily tell who probably sold my address.  If I would start getting spam on my club email, I could assume that one of our members may have gotten hacked.

During the holidays of 2011, I noticed that emails from sites trying to sell me stuff seemed to increase.  I got curious and on January 1, 2012, I changed my e-mail filters to automatically forward sales mail to a special folder.  For an entire year, I saved the e-mails from the following sites:

AARP
Amazon
Best Buy
Books A Million
HP
Zinio

The only e-mails I saved were the ones that I didn’t expect.  For instance mail confirming purchases went into their normal folders.  Mail from Amazon asking me to rate products were not saved.

Which site do you think was the worst mailer?  You may be surprised.  I was.

I received 268 unrequested communications from Books A Million.  In fairness, I must tell you that a portion of them were due to an error by me.  I originally signed up with the company when I purchased a discount membership card at the local store.  In October, I made an online purchase and accidentally used the wrong mail address (books instead of book).  You guessed it.  I started getting email from them two at a time.  I used their unsubscribe link on one address, but it didn’t work.  These days, Books A Million is getting a return to sender error message.

The 111 emails I got from AARP didn’t really surprise me.  After all, their monthly magazine usually has about 30 advertising inserts.  These emails are all definitely from sales of my address.  I’ve changed my filter.  If AARP ever sends me something important, I won’t see it because it goes right to the deleted folder.

The 100 emails from Amazon were suggestions of products that I might like.  I’ll never know if I like any of them, because I didn’t read any.

I was surprised that Best Buy only sent me 30 emails.  That was even less that the 65 sent by HP.  Go figure!

Zinio is a magazine subscription service that tried 27 times to sell me a new magazine subscription.  I don’t spend nearly that much time in the bathroom.

I didn’t check monthly totals, but I noticed a marked increase between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I wonder why?  If you do a lot of online buying, consider your email setup, there are several places on the internet where you can get a free email address.  Don’t clutter your inbox with mail you don’t really want.

That’s all for this month.  Thanks for reading.

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The End of the World – Originally Published January 2013

August 4, 2014 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

Can you believe it?  It’s January already (I’m assuming that the Mayans were incorrect).  Another New Year is underway.  I had thought about waiting until December 21 to start this article, but decided to stick with my normal schedule.

I’m thinking that way back then the Mayan king probably had a warped sense of humor and told his calendar maker to end it all on December 21, 2012.  He probably said something like, “That will scare the heck out of everyone in the future.”  It could also have been an honest mistake.  Maybe there was a transcription error and we have to worry in 2102 instead of 2012.

There have been so many other calender “end of the world” scares.  Remember Y2K?  That didn’t happen either.  I can tell you now that it was me that saved the world.  I changed the clock on my network time so that all of my electronics never did change to the year 2000.  After two years, when the scare was over,  I finally allowed my clocks to update.

June 6, 2006 was another one of those days that the world was supposed to end.  When you write the date as 6/6/06, it supposedly was the mark of the Devil and he was coming to destroy us all.  I’m guessing he probably had a bad satellite signal and his GPS wasn’t working.  That minor electronic problem probably caused him to get stuck in traffic.

The decade of the 1980’s was going to be the end of the world several times.  It seems like everyone from Pat Robertson to the Jehovah’s Witnesses had proof positive that the “rapture” would be here soon.  Is it a coincidence that is the same era that personal computers started to become popular?  I can’t remember what George Orwell thought about it.

Google search has informed me that in the next hundred years, the world will end at least 42 different times.  It appears that computers have been pretty useful in analyzing data and helping the predictors predict the inevitable.

Now for the good news.  You don’t have to worry about the end of the world for a while yet.  Nostradamus made a detailed list of future predictions.  His prophecies end abruptly in the year 3797.  That’s when I’m going to worry.

That’s all for this month.  Thanks for reading.

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Bah! Humbug! – Originally Published December 2012

August 4, 2014 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

Bah!  Humbug!
It’s that time of the year again.  The retailers want us to spend all of our hard earned nickels on lots of things that we don’t really need.  My daughter always tells me that it is hard to buy me a Christmas present because I don’t need anything.  I tell her that makes it easier.  Don’t buy me anything.  It never works that way though, but it’s alright.  I can always use socks and t‑shirts (if they’ve got a pocket).

Bah!  Humbug!
About the only difference in the holiday season every year is that it usually seems to start earlier and earlier.  This year, I saw my first Christmas display on labor day.  Newegg started advertising Black Friday deals sometime during the first part of November.  Black Friday is now Black Thursday.  You’d at least think they could change it to Fifty Shades of Grey Thursday.  I’m expecting the 2013 season to start around the Fourth of July.

Bah!  Humbug!
During the holiday season, I spend a lot more time online getting my news.  I refuse to pay extra for a newspaper on Thanksgiving Day.  Do they really expect me to pay more for extra advertising?  I can look at all the same ads online for free.  It’s better to wait until January and get the leftover prices.  Retailers don’t want unsold merchandise taking up shelf space.

Bah!  Humbug!
Every year, I’ve got to listen to some novelty song about five zillion times.  I’m just happy that Grandma doesn’t get run over by a reindeer as often as she used to.

Bah!  Humbug!
It’s that time of year when we get to watch all of those TV specials and rerun movies that are better off forgotten.  It was a Wonderful Life when it was a movie, but 9000 times as a TV special leaves something to be desired.  Did you know that Jimmy Stewart has been dead for fifteen years?  The only good thing you can say is that during the holidays, we don’t have to watch the regular lousy television programming.  Don’t get me started on Chirstmas commercials.

Oh well.  Time for me to stop bah humbugging and write some club related stuff.  I’d like to remind everyone that club dues are due this month.  Two dollars a month is a small price to pay for the benefits of club member ship.  Not only are meetings informative, buy you get access to the club website with a large number of links to “How To” sites, free software downloads, back newsletters, and much more.  I urge you to renew your membership and to tell your friends about the club.  Bring them to a meeting.  The more members we have the more knowledge there is to share.  After all, we are “ Users Helping Users”.

Bah!  Humbug!  My wife just told me to put my shoes on because she wants me to go and help pick out the daughters’ Christmas present.  I know what she really means is that I’ll have to carry something.

Thanks for reading.

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Holiday Ranting & Raving – Originally Published November 2012

August 4, 2014 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

Here they come again!  This is the time of the year when the Holiday idiots show their true colors to the rest of the world.  So many people at this time of year forget to stop and think.  Others remember to stop, but forget to think.

I’m writing this article in October, but I’ll bet I can predict the news reports we’ll get on November 1.  Some poor kid will get either razor blades or poison in their candy.  Dentist’s will buy Halloween candy by the pound.  Convenience stores will get robbed by people in their Halloween costumes.  Someone will get run over by a drunken driver.

October and November is also when tech companies make all their new product announcements.  Do you think it has anything to do with the upcoming Christmas season?  So far, this years announcements have been more ironic than usual.  Apple announced a seven inch iPad.  Makes me wonder if Steve Jobs was wrong on any other predictions?  Microsoft is making a foray into the hardware business.  Google is increasing the pressure on both software and hardware rivals.  The only thing I can’t figure out is why,  If they can afford to sue each other for billions of dollars, can’t they lower their prices a little.

Halloween is followed by an even scarier holiday – Thanksgiving.  If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, your spouse has never taken you out for Black Friday Shopping.  I’m a fan of good shopping deals, but not if they come at the risk of life and limb.  The Thanksgiving news stories are also the same every year.  There will be at least one customer trampled to death when the doors are opened on Friday.  Isn’t it strange that it usually happens at a Walmart?  Is it because they are the biggest retailer?  Do they have the best deals?  Could it be that their customers are less intelligent?

Other news stories for this holiday will include the celebrities that are working in the soup lines.  Is it a publicity stunt, or do they do it year round without making headlines?  My personal favorites are the people that have to do community service for drunken driving and then get the free publicity.  Lets not forget about all of the Turkey jokes we’ll see on the internet.  For some reason, I think a lot of them this year will have Sesame Streets Big Bird in the punch line.

After we struggle through the Thanksgiving holiday, we can look forward to being bombarded with advertising for all kinds of technology to put under the Christmas tree.  It’s a shame that most of it is so overpriced.  Do you suppose that might account for the increasing crime rate that seems to occur around the end of the year?

Once again, we get to read about the celebrities feeding the downtrodden.  At Christmas time, we seem to get more politicians manning the ladles.  I can never figure out why that is.  The elections are over for the year.  The only thing I really like about this holiday is the after holiday sales.

When I was younger, I used to really worry about meeting a drunken driver on the highway.  The holidays were a reason for extra anxiety, but thanks to technology, we don’t have to worry about getting killed by a drunk.  If you get in an accident, it will most surely be due to someone sending a text on their telephone.

I suppose by now you’re getting tired of my ranting and raving about the holidays.  I’d continue on and tell you about New Years Day, but I’ll save that for next year.

Thanks for reading.

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Companies I Dislike a Lot – Originally Published October 2012

August 4, 2014 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

Earlier this month, when I was adding the “differences” to the Commodore 64 picture, I started to realize what a loyal consumer I am.  Until they went bankrupt, all except one of the computers I owned were manufactured by Commodore.  The lone exception was a Heathkit Zenith computer kit that I built.

Back in the early 1980’s the VIC 20 was a great first computer.  Later, it was a real joy to own the Commodore 64.  I think anyone that ever owned one will tell you how much they loved it.  The Commodore 128 was a great upgrade.  After all, it had a 64 mode which made it the best of both worlds.  For some reason, the Amiga didn’t impress me all that much.  It was a Commodore though.

I think most people are like me.  I’ve always had good luck with Netgear products, so I tend to buy their stuff when it is a viable choice.  Same way with computers.  Four of the five machines in my house were manufactured by HP.  Brand loyalty is a big thing to most companies.  That’s why they sue all trademark infringements.

Brand loyalty also works in reverse.  Years ago, I was a fan of Sony products (even the Betamax).  I owned the Sony Walkman, a Sony TV, and of course a Sony Discman.  Do you remember the Sony Trinitron microwave?  I think you could say that I was a loyal Sony customer.

That all changed for me when Sony did evil.  In 2005, they put root kits on their music CDs.  It was supposed to be a copyright scheme.  It later turned out that they illegally violated the license agreement for the LAME codec and the VLC Media Player.  That made me so mad that I refused to spend any of my money on Sony products again.  Over the years, it seems that I made a good decision.  Sony has often been in the news since then for various nefarious reasons.

Another company that I refuse to enrich is Electronic Arts.  I dislike them so much that since October of 2000, I’ve slammed them on my personal web site.  Once again, my instincts were proven to be good.  Over the years, Electronic Arts has spent a lot of time in court defending themselves against various lawsuits.

Then there is another of my favorite companies to dislike: Symantec.  Way back in the 1980’s, a great utility named PC Tools was created by Central Point Software.  I was a faithful customer until they were acquired by Symantec for a whole bunch of money.  Like many others, I shifted to the Norton suite because PC Tools was incorporated in it.  Unfortunately, it was never the same program again.  Norton turned out to be bloated software that actually slowed down your computer.  The company received so many complaints ranging from poor customer service to fraudulently putting charges on customer’s credit cards.  They only got away with charging me one time.  They have supposedly gotten better since then, but I’ve never purchased any of their products again.

I guess I’ve done enough ranting and raving for this month.  Please feel free to join me in not supporting Sony, Electronic Arts and Symantec.  When it comes to the computing picture, I can tell you that there aren’t any “differences” in them.

Thanks for reading.

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Web Design Reminiscing – Originally Published June 2012

July 31, 2014 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

I was browsing the internet the other day when I stumbled across the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.  Of course, I couldn’t resist typing in my web address and looking back at what I used to have published online.  They had a snapshot of my web site as far back as 2001.  That would have been right after I bought my domain name and moved it from the web hosting at AOL.  Back then, if you paid AOL a bunch of money each month, you could get “free” web space.  I started my web site in 1995.  At one time, I had two web sites and averaged about 200 visitors a day.

Things have changed a lot since then.  Flash was still in its infancy and many internet surfers refused to visit sites that used flash.  Of course, this was before it was Adobe Flash.  Originally, it was Future Flash and then became Macromedia Flash.  I blocked Flash way back then.  Today, I use the flash blocker plug in and don’t often let flash run in my browser.

Web sites didn’t have many graphics in those day.  Broadband had yet to be invented.  It could take several minutes to download a simple picture.  Internet surfers didn’t waste their time looking at a cute picture of a dog.  If you did include a media file on your site, it was good manners to let visitors know the file size before they downloaded it.  I remember the first time I uploaded my BS to the internet.  It took almost two hours for a relatively small site.

Another thing I remember is that almost all sites had a guest book.  Visitors would fill in what information they wanted to disclose and click the submit button.  Anybody else that visited the site could view all the guest book entries.  The Netscape browser introduced us to cookies.  The original “magic cookie” just checked to see if it was your first visit to the web site.

I remember when I made my first foray onto the internet.  The first decision was what browser to buy.  I decided to use the Netscape Navigator because they had a free trial period.  Almost the whole web was nothing but text.

I can’t tell you that Google was the greatest search engine in those days.  Google hadn’t been invented then.  There wasn’t a real index of internet web sites.  The first attempt to index FTP sites was called Archie.  Gopher was one of the first “point and click” search engines and was created by students at the University of Minnesota.

Twenty years ago, if you wanted a web site you had to at least learn the basics of HTML coding.  In the modern world, there are hundreds of programs you can use to create a website for free.  All you really need to know how to do is enter your content.

That’s enough reminiscing.  Personal websites are both easy and cheap.  Why don’t you make one for your family and friends?

Thanks for reading.

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Naming the New iPAD – Originally Published April 2012

July 31, 2014 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

All of the hype is finally over.  The new iPad was released.  No, not the iPad 3, but the “new iPad”.  I’d guess that the naming was some kind of marketing strategy.  The new iPad isn’t really a whole lot better than the the iPad 2.  You’ve got to get the users thinking “new”.  Get them to upgrade the “old”.

Two things surprised me about the iPad 2012.  Oops, I meant the“new iPad”.  Kim Kommando wasn’t overly impressed with the machine.  She even suggested to one of her on air callers that they not upgrade.  I was even more surprised when Leo Laporte said he just couldn’t wait to get the new iPad. He was mostly interested in the retina display.

All of the ballyhoo got me to thinking.  Why did Apple ever start naming so many products “i” something?  Was the strategy that iNSANE prices could be iMPLEMENTED for iDIOTS to get rid of their iNCOME?

Who knows?  I can only imagine that Apple considered other letters.  That makes me wonder if I can figure out why they weren’t used:

aProduct – the Apple Pad would alienate orange, banana and other fruit lovers.
bProduct – Boy are we ever making a lot of money.
cProduct – Computer could have been used if the company name hadn’t been changed.
dProduct – Duh, it just works.
eProduct – Extra pricey.
fProduct – the Flash-less pad.
gProduct – Geeks won’t buy it because they can’t tweak.
hProduct – Holy Apple Grail.
iProduct – I can’t think of anything for this letter..
jProduct – Jailbreak Jobs machines if you dare.
kProduct – Kim pad.  She wasn’t impressed.
lProduct – Local Integrated Software Architecture wouldn’t make a good acronym..
mProduct – Mostly Hype will sell lots of Macintosh stuff.
nProduct – Nobody ever watches You Tube anyway.
oProduct – Only Apple Software will run.
pProduct – Priced high means more money.
qProduct – Quality is a seven letter word.
rProduct – Ronald Wayne should never have sold his third..
sProduct – Steve and Steve: Jobs and Wozniac.
t-Product – Technology? Lets trick Microsoft into helping us.
uProduct – an Unusual User letter would never work.
vProduct – Victory would get mixed up at sea.
wproduct – Wayne is gone and Wozniak is too hard to spell.
xProduct – more than one X would be needed to sell.
yProduct – You in a name would never catch on.
zProduct – Ziggy just sounds too cartoonist.

Oh well.  It was a fun fantasy, but now I’m wondering why HP calls their computer a Pavilion.  Why is the Dell a Dimension?  Why did COMPAQ choose Presario?  I have no idea what a Vaio, Portege or Tecra is.  I sure hope that I don’t start pondering cell phone names.

Thanks for reading.

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Stupid Things I’ve Done – Originally Published March 2012

July 30, 2014 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

Forrest Gump said, “Stupid is as stupid does.“  Could this mean that an intelligent person who does stupid things is still stupid?  Everyone has heard the stories of the computer user that used their disk player as a coffee cup holder.  Did you hear about the computer user that called tech support trying to figure out why their computer wasn’t working?  Turns out there was a power outage.  When you Google “stupid computer stories” you get about 6,660,000 hits.  No matter how you look at it, we’re talking about a lot of stupidity.

Lately, I think I might be the number one stupid computer user on the planet.  Recently, I had a problem with Microsoft Outlook.  None of my e-mails were being downloaded.  I thought it was probably a Suddenlink problem.  When I checked e-mail with a web browser program, my mail was on the server.  Outlook just wouldn’t download it to my computer.  With my typical “smart” thinking, I was sure I could solve the problem without calling tech support.  I searched the internet an found no answers.  After three days of frustration, I solved the problem by accident.  After a download with Outlook, there was once again no e-mail in my in box.  Then I accidentally clicked on my deleted items folder and there was my e-mail.  It turns out that I had created a new mail rule.  I mistakenly caused it to transfer all of my mail to the deleted folder.  I keep Outlook set to empty the deleted items folder whenever I exit the program.  For three days, I was downloading and deleting all of my e-mail.

Avast anti-virus recently recently released the Version 7 upgrade to their program.  Whenever I install software, I’m really careful about reading the EULA and carefully inspecting the install boxes.  Sure enough, the installer had an option to install Chrome and make it my default browser.  Of course, the boxes were checked.  No problem.  I’m “smart” and unchecked them before installing.  I’ve got several computers, so you can probably guess what I did on the third install.  When I rebooted the computer, I had a new default browser.

Oh yes, I’ll admit that I did it. I broke the number one stupidity rule.  I clicked on a link that I shouldn’t have.  Luckily, I have a good firewall and no harm was done.

Not too long ago, one of my DVD drives quit working for no reason at all.  It turns out that there was a reason.  When I installed a new hard drive, I unplugged the disc power cord to make it easier to reach the brackets.  I don’t know why I forgot to plug it back in.  Another easily solved stupid problem.

I’m going to keep looking at the bright side of computing.  At least I haven’t broken any ports by forcing the cables in upside down – yet.  I also haven’t deleted any important files – yet.  I haven’t spilled coffee on my keyboard – yet.

One last stupid thing I’ve done.  It’s not computer related, but if you ask me, I’ll tell you how my being “smart” at a local convenience store almost resulted in a fight.

Thanks for reading.

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