reformat woes
For about six months now, Ares (that's my computer, but ya'll knew that) has been acting like he's swimming through molasses to get anything done. About a month ago, i had MK check the memory sticks to be sure they are sorted - and they are. Now, this is a dual core processor machine with 4g of ram and a video card that still allows me to play all the new games with every setting jacked up to maximum. There is no reason that it should be taking 5m to load windows, 2m to open an email, and 1m to pull up my web browser. None.
So, i got MK to reformat my C: drive and reinstall Windows for me. This should be a ridiculously easy process because for the past 5 or so years I've had an additional drive that i store and install everything to, and the C: drive is just... basic windows stuff and the occasional screensaver or UI modification program. Seriously easy stuff. Nothing to really back up, nothing to move, nothing to make sure i don't lose. You'd expect that the process would take a couple of hours tops, including reinstalling all of the drivers for the hardware, etc, right?
Noooo. It's never easy. I swear to you that's MK's motto. Whenever he starts a project, it =always= takes 5x longer than it should, hits seventeen snags along the way, and has four other things that need to be done first before the actual project can commence.
The hard drive is small - 20g, which is part of the reason that I've been installing and saving things on my D: drive for years. The reformat was lightning quick. Windows did it's thing, as it does. After it was all set up, the computer named, the passwords set, etc etc etc - it did it's 'shut down to restart' thing. BAMF. KER POW. KABLOOEY. Blue screen of death, before windows even got a chance to load. The error? "Machine Check Exception" Research reveals that this is a very general error, and could be referring any number of things. Dead Ram, failed hardware, overheated machine, bad processor, motherboard kaput... a very general and 'catch all' error. Sooo, we started the elimination process. First thing that was up was installing windows on a different physical hard drive to see if it was the old 20g that was failing. Noop. Same thing, even on my brand new drive bought about 4 months ago. So then we moved on and tested each stick of ram. Then we dug out a VERY OLD pci video card and tested with that. MK did 12 or 13 other checks of various things - and each and every thing kept coming up with that blue screen before windows even loaded. MK even unplugged the DVD drive to see if that's what had failed.
Now, get this. When he plugged that DVD drive back in?.... Voila. Windows loaded. 7 hours later, and the damn thing just wanted the DVD drive to be plugged into a different port than it started it out. W.T.F.
Gnarble. So, Ares is back up and running, and I've spent my day doing the windows tweaks that i always need to do to make the machine 'mine' again. Various programs need to be reinstalled, because windows doesn't like them not having that registry key - but others, such as WoW and semagic, run perfectly from the D: drive right off the bat. Fonts get reinstalled, the XP UI gets changed to 'classic,' colors get tweaked, cursors get played with, etc etc etc. (celticelff, I actually know exactly where the Word "Allfonts" macro you wrote is this time.)
For about the past month, I've been using a mixture of Maxthon and Firefox for browsing the 'net. I decided to go full Firefox with the reinstall, despite that the damn thing still doesn't read CSS properly. That's my biggest gripe. I know for a fact that it's not reading a CSS bit on my website like IE does, and that always makes me wary about what the hell ELSE it may not be reading correctly that i may never even know isn't being read correctly... because it's not being read. But hell. *shrug* That's only visual eye candy, in the long run. At least, that's what i am going to tell myself. Maybe I'll believe it eventually and forget that i may not be getting everything properly. Maybe.
Now. My email. This is a ... conundrum. I exported my Outlook Express address book and folders and message rules in preparation for having to redo my email program. However, with the switch to Firefox, i thought to myself "why not switch my email to Thunderbird, too?" So i downloaded and installed that this morning. Here's the trick - the damn thing WILL NOT import my folders and address book. It. just. will. not. I find this irritating, because i have a "keepers" folder from outlook email that I've got things in from 7-8 years ago.. you know, stuff i want to KEEP. Password bits, URL reminders, emails from people and coyotes that are important to me and mean a lot, etc. Yet here i am... unless i switch back to Outlook - i lose all of that stuff. Not to mention my LipBalm "completed orders' folder and a folder of 'address keepers' ... Ugh. I don't know what to do. Keep the clean switch to Thunderbird and revel in the extra features and safety measures but lose all of my old important stuff, or go back to Outlook Express and import that stuff and be where i was the day before yesterday with the old reliable but not quite as feature rich and secure program. Seriously - which would you do?
In unrelated news: I haven't been talking about the pets much lately, and i realize that. It's been a deliberate conscious decision on my part. Talis is getting to the point where he's Very. Old. (one of those 'how old is your pet' things at the vet puts him at 115 years old) and he's not doing well. Getting up and moving is so much of an effort that he refuses to do it unless it's for food or we -really- coax him to do it to say... go outside. He's losing control of his bodily functions and we are having to clean up after him daily. Basically what this means is that he's frustrating me a great deal, and if i wrote about him as often as I used to, it would all be negative irritated pissed off stuff. But that is NOT how i feel about Talis. I love him just as much today as i did five years ago when he was in perfect health. I still plop down with him and snuggle him and give him lots of love and praise, he still gets chicken-water in his dinner, etc etc.
We are re-arranging their eating schedule so that Talis will have to go at pretty much a pre-determined time frame that isn't 2-4 am. We take him outside and babysit him until he does his business, cringing as he almost falls over from how badly the squatting hurts his hips. Then he comes inside, very slowly and very carefully climbs up on the couch... and doesn't get up again til morning pretty much. Health-wise though, aside from his hips and legs hurting him and losing control of his bowels -- he's still in perfect shape.
Anubis has settled nicely. His adult personality is starting to be dominant, and i =really= like him. Talis still doesn't, and that's our biggest gripe about Anubis. He wants to PLAY with Talis (and the cat) but Talis (and the cat) want nothing to do with him so we have to holler at him to calm down and leave them alone and get out of their faces. But all in all he's a great dog. He's mild mannered and sweet and lovey. He does this 'hug' thing where he comes up to you and rests his chin across your chest to your shoulder. You can feel his entire body wagging as he leans against you - it's adorable. He's adorable.
So there you have it. Update extraordinare. Aside from that, life is quiet. Just how i like it, y'know?
So, i got MK to reformat my C: drive and reinstall Windows for me. This should be a ridiculously easy process because for the past 5 or so years I've had an additional drive that i store and install everything to, and the C: drive is just... basic windows stuff and the occasional screensaver or UI modification program. Seriously easy stuff. Nothing to really back up, nothing to move, nothing to make sure i don't lose. You'd expect that the process would take a couple of hours tops, including reinstalling all of the drivers for the hardware, etc, right?
Noooo. It's never easy. I swear to you that's MK's motto. Whenever he starts a project, it =always= takes 5x longer than it should, hits seventeen snags along the way, and has four other things that need to be done first before the actual project can commence.
The hard drive is small - 20g, which is part of the reason that I've been installing and saving things on my D: drive for years. The reformat was lightning quick. Windows did it's thing, as it does. After it was all set up, the computer named, the passwords set, etc etc etc - it did it's 'shut down to restart' thing. BAMF. KER POW. KABLOOEY. Blue screen of death, before windows even got a chance to load. The error? "Machine Check Exception" Research reveals that this is a very general error, and could be referring any number of things. Dead Ram, failed hardware, overheated machine, bad processor, motherboard kaput... a very general and 'catch all' error. Sooo, we started the elimination process. First thing that was up was installing windows on a different physical hard drive to see if it was the old 20g that was failing. Noop. Same thing, even on my brand new drive bought about 4 months ago. So then we moved on and tested each stick of ram. Then we dug out a VERY OLD pci video card and tested with that. MK did 12 or 13 other checks of various things - and each and every thing kept coming up with that blue screen before windows even loaded. MK even unplugged the DVD drive to see if that's what had failed.
Now, get this. When he plugged that DVD drive back in?.... Voila. Windows loaded. 7 hours later, and the damn thing just wanted the DVD drive to be plugged into a different port than it started it out. W.T.F.
Gnarble. So, Ares is back up and running, and I've spent my day doing the windows tweaks that i always need to do to make the machine 'mine' again. Various programs need to be reinstalled, because windows doesn't like them not having that registry key - but others, such as WoW and semagic, run perfectly from the D: drive right off the bat. Fonts get reinstalled, the XP UI gets changed to 'classic,' colors get tweaked, cursors get played with, etc etc etc. (celticelff, I actually know exactly where the Word "Allfonts" macro you wrote is this time.)
For about the past month, I've been using a mixture of Maxthon and Firefox for browsing the 'net. I decided to go full Firefox with the reinstall, despite that the damn thing still doesn't read CSS properly. That's my biggest gripe. I know for a fact that it's not reading a CSS bit on my website like IE does, and that always makes me wary about what the hell ELSE it may not be reading correctly that i may never even know isn't being read correctly... because it's not being read. But hell. *shrug* That's only visual eye candy, in the long run. At least, that's what i am going to tell myself. Maybe I'll believe it eventually and forget that i may not be getting everything properly. Maybe.
Now. My email. This is a ... conundrum. I exported my Outlook Express address book and folders and message rules in preparation for having to redo my email program. However, with the switch to Firefox, i thought to myself "why not switch my email to Thunderbird, too?" So i downloaded and installed that this morning. Here's the trick - the damn thing WILL NOT import my folders and address book. It. just. will. not. I find this irritating, because i have a "keepers" folder from outlook email that I've got things in from 7-8 years ago.. you know, stuff i want to KEEP. Password bits, URL reminders, emails from people and coyotes that are important to me and mean a lot, etc. Yet here i am... unless i switch back to Outlook - i lose all of that stuff. Not to mention my LipBalm "completed orders' folder and a folder of 'address keepers' ... Ugh. I don't know what to do. Keep the clean switch to Thunderbird and revel in the extra features and safety measures but lose all of my old important stuff, or go back to Outlook Express and import that stuff and be where i was the day before yesterday with the old reliable but not quite as feature rich and secure program. Seriously - which would you do?
In unrelated news: I haven't been talking about the pets much lately, and i realize that. It's been a deliberate conscious decision on my part. Talis is getting to the point where he's Very. Old. (one of those 'how old is your pet' things at the vet puts him at 115 years old) and he's not doing well. Getting up and moving is so much of an effort that he refuses to do it unless it's for food or we -really- coax him to do it to say... go outside. He's losing control of his bodily functions and we are having to clean up after him daily. Basically what this means is that he's frustrating me a great deal, and if i wrote about him as often as I used to, it would all be negative irritated pissed off stuff. But that is NOT how i feel about Talis. I love him just as much today as i did five years ago when he was in perfect health. I still plop down with him and snuggle him and give him lots of love and praise, he still gets chicken-water in his dinner, etc etc.
We are re-arranging their eating schedule so that Talis will have to go at pretty much a pre-determined time frame that isn't 2-4 am. We take him outside and babysit him until he does his business, cringing as he almost falls over from how badly the squatting hurts his hips. Then he comes inside, very slowly and very carefully climbs up on the couch... and doesn't get up again til morning pretty much. Health-wise though, aside from his hips and legs hurting him and losing control of his bowels -- he's still in perfect shape.
Anubis has settled nicely. His adult personality is starting to be dominant, and i =really= like him. Talis still doesn't, and that's our biggest gripe about Anubis. He wants to PLAY with Talis (and the cat) but Talis (and the cat) want nothing to do with him so we have to holler at him to calm down and leave them alone and get out of their faces. But all in all he's a great dog. He's mild mannered and sweet and lovey. He does this 'hug' thing where he comes up to you and rests his chin across your chest to your shoulder. You can feel his entire body wagging as he leans against you - it's adorable. He's adorable.
So there you have it. Update extraordinare. Aside from that, life is quiet. Just how i like it, y'know?