Anti-Technology Aura
Long-time readers may remember that I have an anti-technology aura that occasionally causes all sorts of havoc around home and office. Occasionally electronic gadgets just blow up or stop functioning around me. I don't know why. I swear, I don't have to be actually even using the item, I just need to be in proximity.
The last six to twelve months or so I've had things pretty well under control. We got the network up and running (after many months of deep frustration that stumped even my geekiest tech geek friends and co-workers), we replaced my older machines with new ones, and things seemed to be going along pretty well.
Those days are done.
My six-month-old TiVo Series 2 began resetting itself and is now unplugged and in the hands of our local TiVo expert, who we hope will be able to restore/hack it for us and make it a usable machine again.
My cell phone got wet inside my bag and stopped working, so I had to replace that as well.
The day before Thanksgiving our printer started malfunctioning and when I called tech support to ask what the error message meant, I found out it means the motor has blown out. I'm still working on figuring out the best replacement option for a networkable duplex-capable color printer. Currently I can't print anything, including orders, invoices, or contracts. Joy, joy.
But the printer situation doesn't matter at the moment because I woke up this morning to find that my computer is stuck in a blue screen of death... the first such screen I've seen since using Windows XP. Stop Error 0x00000024, which tells me to uninstall all my virus/defrag/backup software and run CHKDSK /F Of course, I would be happy to do this if I could, but I can't actually get the computer to start at all. No Safe Mode, no Last Good Configuration, no boot from CD. Just endless restarts that all lead straight back to the blue screen that helpfully gives me the above instructions. Oh, yeah, I just upgraded and extended my MacAfee virus protection/firewall suite last week (after calls to both MacAfee and Dell tech support to even get the damn program to install/update correctly in the first place).
Yep, the ol' anti-technology aura is back. Maybe if I go to bed and pull the covers over my head it will all go away?
The last six to twelve months or so I've had things pretty well under control. We got the network up and running (after many months of deep frustration that stumped even my geekiest tech geek friends and co-workers), we replaced my older machines with new ones, and things seemed to be going along pretty well.
Those days are done.
My six-month-old TiVo Series 2 began resetting itself and is now unplugged and in the hands of our local TiVo expert, who we hope will be able to restore/hack it for us and make it a usable machine again.
My cell phone got wet inside my bag and stopped working, so I had to replace that as well.
The day before Thanksgiving our printer started malfunctioning and when I called tech support to ask what the error message meant, I found out it means the motor has blown out. I'm still working on figuring out the best replacement option for a networkable duplex-capable color printer. Currently I can't print anything, including orders, invoices, or contracts. Joy, joy.
But the printer situation doesn't matter at the moment because I woke up this morning to find that my computer is stuck in a blue screen of death... the first such screen I've seen since using Windows XP. Stop Error 0x00000024, which tells me to uninstall all my virus/defrag/backup software and run CHKDSK /F Of course, I would be happy to do this if I could, but I can't actually get the computer to start at all. No Safe Mode, no Last Good Configuration, no boot from CD. Just endless restarts that all lead straight back to the blue screen that helpfully gives me the above instructions. Oh, yeah, I just upgraded and extended my MacAfee virus protection/firewall suite last week (after calls to both MacAfee and Dell tech support to even get the damn program to install/update correctly in the first place).
Yep, the ol' anti-technology aura is back. Maybe if I go to bed and pull the covers over my head it will all go away?