The Blogs First New Author!
Pseudorant Gets a Helper Monkey!
As of this weekend Pseudorant now has a new helper monkey / part time author named Joe. Joe has an extensive background in computers and technology and will be contributing articles here and there, for anything that he he feels people need to know about.
Currently he is involved in Linux / Programming / PHP / CMS / and Server projects which all lend themselves to the types of articles Joe likes to write in his free time. Because he is a part time author with Pseudorant, his articles will be posted sporadically as his schedule permits.
I am very excited to have another author helping out with the site because this will provide even better articles for anyone that is already interested in what we are doing here at Pseudorant.
As always, we plan to keep the focus on computer technology and the internet, and anything that relates to these topics. Keep checking back for future updates and anything new we are working on.
Thanks for checking out the site, we appreciate the support!
Microsoft is the Debil! Linux Here I Come!
Microsoft, How I hate Thee! Let Me Count the Ways…
I noticed a couple people are starting to check out different parts of my blog. That’s great! I’m glad to see a handful of people are finding some of the random articles and posts interesting.
I wanted to apologize to anyone who is checking the blog for missing a post yesterday. I am trying to commit to posting one article per day and last night I missed doing a post.
But hold on! I have a valid excuse… “it’s all Microsoft’s fault!“.
All is forgiven now right? Hehe. Let me explain exactly why it is Microsoft’s fault.
I recently built a new computer for a customer of mine. I got it setup for her, and copied all her programs, documents, and settings over to the new system exactly as she had them on the old one so that she could run her business. She is very much into her routine so any changes on a computer are “un-welcomed” to say the least.
I got pretty much everything setup but due to “service outages” with TDS she was unable to confirm if her email was working. (5 days of service outages. Good job TDS! You are our only alternative to Charter and this is the service you provide.) Once TDS finally got their customer’s back online a week later I got a call from my customer letting me know her email was not working on the new computer.
I came over to check on this and found out the address book had not exported / imported correctly into the new system. I checked the CSV file and manually edited it in Excel to correct the issues so that it could be imported again the correct way. Unfortunately when I selected all her contacts and removed them from the address book to clear out the faulty contacts Outlook Express had a “hiccup”.
When I went to import the fixed contacts into Outlook Express I got an error message stating that Outlook Express could not import the contacts because the program was damaged and I would need to repair or reinstall it.
Now most of you know that Outlook Express is embedded into Windows so it cannot actually be removed. I went online and tried several suggested fixes. I ran the system file checking utility which found no problems. I did a repair of Windows which only lead to a blue screen reboot loop when Windows couldn’t make sense of the video driver.
I restarted in safe mode and removed the driver, rebooted and then got the latest driver for the video card. Now that I was back in Windows I tried to open Outlook Express again. No dice.
Now I was getting a Windows error saying the program could not start at all. I would get the OE splash screen and then the program would crash. Great…
I checked a couple things and determined the repair had rolled back the version of Internet Explorer which is tied in closely to Outlook Express. This is probably what was causing the problem. I determined this after trying the DBX fixes, and registry key fixes mentioned online, both of which had no effect on the program.
I went to the Microsoft update site and downloaded the IE 7 stand alone update because sources online stated that a service pack update should fix problems with Outlook Express and IE since they are embedded in the OS.
The IE 7 update did not correct the problem. I went back to the Microsoft update site to see if I could automatically get the service packs I needed. The only service pack that was offered was the SP3 update. Unfortunately this would not download correctly because it had been canceled earlier when TDS was running at 1.5kb a sec.
Apparently because it had been canceled it would not attempt to download the update a second time through the Microsoft update site. It just showed the update as being 1 failed, 5 pending and would do nothing.
Knowing good old Microsoft, of course there was no status bar or indication of how long the download / install / update would take, or any indication that the update was not responding. I finally told my customer I would leave it running and would check back with her tomorrow since I had been working on fixing the system for about 4 hours at this point, for problems that were all caused by Windows / Microsoft.
I left with a terrible headache and got home at about a quarter to 10 (pm). I played my guitar, drank a couple beers and then went to bed. I had been working on computer issues for about 14 hours so my brain was totally fried.
I was able to try and come back to things with a fresh start this morning. I decided I would go into work and download the SP3 stand alone update file and put it on disk to save myself time this afternoon. I also need to address a WPS file issue loading into new versions of Word. Because Microsoft is so into updating all their software you can no longer double click a WPS file on her computer and have it open, you actually need to open it through Word > File > Open which my customer is not happy with.
These are all trivial things, but I can understand why someone would prefer it their way. Why should they need to use their computer the way Microsoft is telling them they need to. Why can’t it work the same way it worked before, or would that just be to easy?
I have really come to hate Microsoft more and more every day. I have been forced to use Windows for WAY to long and will be looking into moving over to Linux on one of my home PCs very soon.
It’s a tough move to do because I am usually VERY busy from about 9am to 12am with the majority of that time being spent on the computer. It is hard to accept that a move to a new OS and the learning curve associated with it will affect my productivity, which I know it will to some extent.
To make the most of this I am going to document this OS transition for anyone who has been interested in moving over to Linux. You can learn it with me going from having almost no experience with Linux, to getting it up and running to the point that it can do all the basic things you need it to do. (Office work, web, web design, graphics programs, music, and movies.)
This actually also relates to problems we are running into at work with trying to clone a Linux image from a compact flash card, through Windows. But that’s another LONG story that I won’t bore you with at the moment.
Anyway I feel this rant has gone on long enough. I will try and post a second article today to make up for the missing post yesterday. As always, thanks so much for checking out Pseudorant. I really appreciate the support!
