I'm revoking my parents' right to own computers
The plan was to ride up to San Francisco this evening to sleep in my house and attend the California Extreme. The plan changed slightly last night when Dad called with more computer problems. He said "I'm pushing the button but something saying Windows XP jumps all over the place and the mouse doesn't do anything". I assumed this meant the KVM switch went bad, which may have something to do with the bird that electrocuted itself on the power line and started their backyard on fire, or it could just be coincidental.
I haven't even looked at the KVM switch yet because their Mac Mini was totally b0rked. Even with monitor, keyboard and mouse directly connected, I'd log into my own account (that Mom hasn't messed with) and the screen would display an empty desktop pattern with the Spotlight icon and an inch of menu bar in the upper left corner and nothing else: complete lockup. I replaced the VGA cable with a DVI cable and then it at least showed me an actual Finder desktop. I fixed the filesystem and set the clock to auto-update from the Apple time server.
Mom complained that she was having problems with her email: the mail client was giving her "cannot send message" errors. The message she was sending was stuck in her "outgoing mail" folder, addressed to "www.glassdoors.com" with a message body saying "Please send me the address of your website". I don't really know where to begin with that one.
The KVM switch seemed to be stuck in a bad state. It's powered by the USB from both computers, and when I disconnected and reconnected it started working again. Bad state in some relay or IC after the power surge? I dunno. Things are working again, but I'm getting annoyed with the monthly repair visits.
Tomorrow: will ride the rest of the way to San Jose and work out my parental/technological frustrations with pinball therapy.
I haven't even looked at the KVM switch yet because their Mac Mini was totally b0rked. Even with monitor, keyboard and mouse directly connected, I'd log into my own account (that Mom hasn't messed with) and the screen would display an empty desktop pattern with the Spotlight icon and an inch of menu bar in the upper left corner and nothing else: complete lockup. I replaced the VGA cable with a DVI cable and then it at least showed me an actual Finder desktop. I fixed the filesystem and set the clock to auto-update from the Apple time server.
Mom complained that she was having problems with her email: the mail client was giving her "cannot send message" errors. The message she was sending was stuck in her "outgoing mail" folder, addressed to "www.glassdoors.com" with a message body saying "Please send me the address of your website". I don't really know where to begin with that one.
The KVM switch seemed to be stuck in a bad state. It's powered by the USB from both computers, and when I disconnected and reconnected it started working again. Bad state in some relay or IC after the power surge? I dunno. Things are working again, but I'm getting annoyed with the monthly repair visits.
Tomorrow: will ride the rest of the way to San Jose and work out my parental/technological frustrations with pinball therapy.