Perhaps she's just temperamental?

Things went really well with Ellie's mom.

I mean, when she's not acting/being icy, she's actually a very nice person.

Perhaps I got myself psyched up for no reason.

At any rate, I got her laptop figured out.

While it didn't yield anything, I went through the running processes and applications looking for a possible threat.

What she was running into was that she kept getting redirected to/through the ASK web page/sites/etc.

I went into Firefox, reset the homepage, manually reset all of the specific ASK settings using about:config.

When restarting Firefox the damn thing had already modified the homepage and other settings back.

I looked at the shortcut for Firefox to make sure that something else wasn't launching with it.

Only the Firefox executable was being launched there and it was from the right directory.

In the Add/Remove or "Programs & Features" part of the Control Panel, there wasn't any program/etc that indicated that ASK was a separate installation/application.

At this time, I wished I had my personal applications and tools.

One of the tools I wrote gives me information on all MSI applications and MSI files in Windows.

I backed up her bookmarks out of Firefox, and was getting ready to just reset it or remove all plug-ins,etc.

What I found when I went to plugins, was a map assistant one.

Now, she told me she installed something when she was looking for driving directions.

I removed this plugin, and it then asked me if I wanted to remove the ASK plug-in...

I didn't even SEE an ASK plugin!

Needless to say, that fixed the ASK plugin problems.

What shocked me though, is that there are STILL people piggy backing these damn applications into their installers.

I don't think that the ASK stuff was embedded and hidden, but..

Like a LOT of users, when they're installing something that they wanted to, they just keep clicking OK or NEXT.

Which is how a LOT of this shit keeps getting installed.

Although, in the way-back-machine, these apps were just installed without any indication.

These days, they will prompt a user to install.

Again, keep clicking NEXT, and you'll get crap you don't want!

Anyhow, I'm digressing big time.

The other thing she had going on, was that she said her CD-ROM drive wasn't reading data correctly.

She has this CD that she couldn't read.

Looking at the physical disc, it showed that data had been burned to it.

Ellie had already tested the drive earlier that week with an audio CD, which worked fine.

I put the disc iinto my Majaro laptop and it didn't mount it up nor did it recognize the file system.

So, I put a different data disc into her mom's laptop and it read it fine.

Which means this CD is hosed.

Whoever wrote/burned it probably did not close the session correctly.

Luckily for Ellie's mom, she had another computer that could actually read that data.

Overall it was good.

Unfortunately, it does seem that Ellie's mom has some sort of spells where she kind of icy uncaring state.

During part of a large family discussion we were all part of, she said that she doesn't deal with sick people very well.

Not even did she deal well with her own children when they were sick.

I think this explains WTF she seems icy towards me...

Really hard to not limp or grimace while I'm walking these days...

'It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again'

That's from "The Silence of the Lambs".. in case you are one of the ignorants who don't watch disturbing thrillers.

This post has nothing to do with lotion or hoses, but perhaps it's more about me getting hosed by the IT guys.

A while ago, my laptop couldn't boot up correctly.

I went to the "IT" guys about it, to have them fix the encrypted MBR.

Well, these "experts" have no idea how to work with our company's drive encryption much less what an MBR really is.

Well, I figured it out, ran a restore of my entire drive, because that's the only method to restore the data, lay down a standard Windows 7 MBR.

After that, I let the corporate drive encryption take over and go for it.

The other day, my backup app freaked out over the drive again...

I scheduled a reboot chkdsk.

Only reboot did the same thing as before.

MBR is hosed... again.

I did the same boot process just to keep working yesterday.

Today, I wanted to keep working early, only to realize that if I was doing work that was only going to be stored locally on my hard drive, I wasn't going to be able to keep it very well.

So I've basically been dicking around for the past few hours, waiting for these "experts" to get in so I can get the drive replaced.

After the replacement, I'll do my restore, and all will be well with the world...

I expect...

Why is it always the rum??? - Jack Sparrow

It feels like I am always the one who has to play doctor/mechanic/technical support each time I sit down at a non-work computer to do anything.

Hours ago, I wanted to sit down and do what I'm doing now. Guess what? The frickin' firewall was down.

After much swearing, yelling and general fits of raging anger, I'm obviously online again.

My kids freaked out the other day when this type of thing happened in front of them.

I wasn't mad at anyone that day... I was just mad.

I don't understand why this happens, or how to control my anger fits, because I can't just stop being angry. I just am.

It's probably this fucking bipolar problem that I'm dealing with or another bout of depression.

I'm not depressed, I'm just pissed.

I haven't really done anything today that I wanted, except to use marine epoxy on the shower stall to fix a large-ish hole that had been created from water on the decrepit old shower stall walls.

Now I'm on the phone with my uncle, and I'm trying really hard to get him to listen without being really, really pissed off with him or shouting at him.

He cannot seem to get his mind wrapped around what is going on enough to understand what I tell him on the phone. So he handed the phone off to a gal at his assisted living facility who handles the scheduling. Thank Goodness!

So, I chatted with this gal and told her that if he was awake and ready @ 6:30 AM, I'd be there pretty close to that time to pick him up and drive the 50 miles or so to the VA hospital.

Then from there, I'm sure I'll be reading the Kindle, drawing, sleeping or possibly going to the local mall to bum around for a few hours.

Well, at least right now, I'm not feeling so pissed anymore.

Perhaps, I needed to take a break and chat with him, because, I just cannot really stay mad when I think about working and helping him.

Perhaps, my heavenly Father is helping me by putting my uncle in the way at times.

Hard drive not the problem.. I think.

I forgot that I messed with the bios a bit the other day, and didn't make certain that the auto-detect still had the drive listed.

So, today, I ran the auto-detect for the drive, and it found it.

Booting up, it came right up online and I'm working from the cat-5 instead of the wireless again.

If it's not one thing it's always another

The damn hard drive for the firewall system is having problems.

I have a drawer of IDE drives that are in good shape. From 500 MB to GB drives...

CD-ROM drive might also need to be replaced... The boot feature isn't working so far...

When, I'm done I might have a system that would've been top of the line from 8 years ago!

Day 7 and Zyprexa is my friend!

I must include that I saw the shrink today. He is as happy with the results as I am!

I'm going to be at 5mg of Zyprexa all the time now.

Make like a tree and leaf....

Firewall is back online... again.

Firewall is online again.

Looks like the motherboard went out and the one I wanted to replace it with was also bad.

Good thing, I managed to have a clutter/shitload of extra parts laying around. Although, most of my parts are older parts & many of them are useless these days.

Well, I found another motherboard, tested out power supplies, etc. Got it functional.

Swapped out the boards, and configured the bios... Looks like I am getting what I desired.. finally.

The motherboard/bios does not flip out during boot up. It has not lost its config, even though it hasn't been plugged-in/powered up in almost 6 years! (Awesome battery!)

So, now when the power goes out, if it's not online, I just hit the power button, and voila!

I'm back online again!

Can I get a Woo Hoo!?

Walk like an Egyptian has nothing over Manic Monday

I guess I'm going towards the "manic" side of things...

BTW, if you don't know either song from the title, look them up on YouTube. Just another 80s flashback.

I decided on Sunday, while in my rut, that I'd get back to taking my vitamins again. (calcium, B12, super B, Folic acid, multivitamin, etc) I added some vitamin D, because the rheumatologist said my blood tests indicated lower levels. The multivitamin has D as does the calcium.

I know low vitamin D can cause/lead to depression. I don't know if it will push a person manic.

After working 8 hours today, I managed to take a 1-2 hour nap.

I need to work on my wife's computer, tonight. Might be the motherboard or video card... I honestly don't know yet. I need to crack it open soon.

Perhaps I'll work on it all night...

My Firewall / Sewing Machine.

In previous messages I mentioned my firewall box being in a sewing machine case.

Well, since I had to replace the power supply, I went and found the original pictures of it.

Enjoy!

Shit's hit the fan today, but I feel good about it.

Years ago, I remember getting a list of excuses to use when you want to get out of work. My favorite one is:

"Sorry that I can't be there boss. I took some Prozac along with my ex-lax. I can't get off the toilet, but I feel good about it."

To say that today is going to be "shitty" is wrong.

If what is happening today happened yesterday, then I'd really be up an emotional creek.

Yesterday, I wasn't necessarily depressed to a point of complete sadness, but I wasn't very cheerful.

This morning was starting off almost the same way. I got upstairs to my office, to find that my work laptop had frozen during code analysis & system backup, minutes after I stopped working last night.

So, a reboot & some additional crap had to happen to get myself back & running again.

Then I found that my wired network wasn't working. Turns out the firewall power supply or motherboard had died sometime in the night.

So, I have to repair/replace parts after work tonight.

In a way it's a good thing, because the damn thing had a fan or two that was making a shit load of noise anyway. I'm not out of "parts", because family members give me their old systems when they're done, as they don't know what to do with them either.

So I have full running systems that need to be modified a bit or parts moved into my firewall box home. (Sewing machine case, I'll post a picture later.)

With all of that in perspective, I think it will be a good day today.  At least I have a focus and goals today.  Perhaps, I can get a motherboard from my stash that doesn't have any stop errors during the POST/Bios startup stage.  That will be good when the power fluctuates.