Tuesday, April 9, 2013

BLOGGING FROM A TO Z APRIL 2013 – LETTER “H”


HALF-ASSED


I was racking my brain for an “H” word today. In my usual fashion, none of the words I chose and put in a list have been used. As a matter of fact, I can't even remember the title of the list and have lost it somewhere in the wilderness of my of my hard drive. I can't remember what I chose, but it was probably something really Serious and Meaningful. The hell with it.


The bigger it gets, the worse it gets. Its own peripherals hate each other. Links die and go nowhere, except to Existential Land, maybe. Twitter Support is lame-o. "Let us help pick your new PC!" they gush. I tweeted, "4MB RAM, 33MB processor." "Great! Windows 8 is for you!" "Really? I thought Atari might do!" I tweeted back. Idiots.

While I was trying to work up a froth of “H” inspiration, I noticed, wayyy up in the left-hand corner, a new folder icon, where earlier today, my Recycle Bin icon had been. I haven't touched it, I haven't deleted anything today; I haven't accidentally deleted my Recycle Bin, which I have done in the past. I have Windows Vista. I used to work at IBM and I was an OS/2 Engineer. I worked in 3rd level support and I loved the operating system. It's robust and hard to louse up, unlike Windows, which is nothing but a thriving, self-replicating bug patch.

Vista is probably one of the less intrusive operating systems versions of Windows. We've had the Win95, 98, 2000, XP and I guess 7, which I have no experience with and 8, which ditto. Frankly they all suck. Apple sucks, too and you need to have Java loaded to run their garbage. I got rid of all of that when I got some of their more lethal viruses. I had to reload one of my computers back in 2008, when I downloaded a Java update. I chased a trojan around on my old Gateway system for 3 days and finally gave up and reloaded the system.


I play Runescape; this is the MOST important thing I use my computer for. SETI@home, Math arrays and writing/blogging and fixing the world run a distant 2nd to this! ViolaFury and Linus on their way to the coal mines.

In February, I got pneumonia and had to go to the ER. When I got home, my computer nagged me to download an update to RealPlayer, which is an Apple product and I did but didn't scan it before I installed it and got a smitty_fraud Trojan worm. I caught it before it's 3rd iteration. I then got rid of all of my Apple products. I had already uninstalled Java. For good measure, I uninstalled all of my MS Office and am running Open Office.org. I'm happy and my computer is happy, too! There is so much nasty stuff running around out there and Microsoft is sloppy. All big software publishers are getting sloppy with their security, and their half-assed approach to security is more apparent all the time. I bought a 2-year license for AVG security and I run Spybot on every piece of software that a program tells me to update. I have all updates set to “ask first before downloading.” It's worth it to avoid the absolute frustration of having to reload your system. I did this sort of work for 15 years. Half-assed doesn't cut it, and the big companies don't care.

I'm half-assed myself; here it is 8:48 pm, just getting to my post. I think the "G" is for Golf was probably funnier. This is new you can use. Let's call it edu-tainment. Tomorrow should be for I is for Idiot. Naaa, too obvious. Ouch.


6 comments:

Unknown said...

I think you just scared me, wow worrying stuff.
I'v been fighting a trojan from blekko on windows 8, nasty thing.
#atozchallenge
maggie winter

Kristen said...

LOL! I'm with you on Windows. I had to use Windows for work, and it always slows down and bugs out within six months or less. I hate it.

A few years ago, I had to use a Mac at work. I have to say, I became a fan very quickly. I love being about to open up Linux whenever I want and work on the command line. I actually got my own macbook air as a gift about a year and a half ago, and it's still going strong. I love using it to build websites. I'm a coder though, not a designer.

#atozchallenge, Kristen's blog: kristenhead.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

Seems you still have plenty to say for the challenge! I am struggling to come up with new ideas- hoping more come to me over the weekend :)

ViolaFury said...

@Maggie,

I worked in IT for close to 20 years. Long story short, when my violist husband realized the Flute Fairy wasn't going to come and turn me into something other than a violist, I went back to school and majored in Computer Science. I worked at IBM and Verizon as an IT engineer. I have Windows Vista, highly modified and as virus proof as it gets. You just have to be careful. If you can't get rid of the booger, get a pro who can. You can also download spybot and there's one other, that of course, I can't remember now. The problem with these big software houses, is they build on top of old code and it's porous, so nothing is really safe. If you need help, or have questions, you can always ask me. I have no experience with Win 8, though, so I don't know what to tell you. Supposedly, it's a whole new thing (yeah, and I can sprout wings and fly) but do feel free to ask me, I may be able to at least point you in the right direction. Thanks for reading!

ViolaFury said...

@Kristen,

I'm a coder too. But on the PC-DOS side of things. I worked for IBM and Verizon for years. I got my 2nd degree in Comp sci, when the Zither fairy didn't show up to turn me into something other than a violist. My 2nd husband was a violist, too and he didn't want 2 violists in the family. Don't ask, we were both making money. Guess how that marriage turned out? So back to school and back to single status. Anyway, I hear ya, I went to work at IBM and supported OS/2 as an engineer there, then went to Verizon and did deployment, mainframe, training and development. Windows is awful. I have Vista on my Quadcore, but you wouldn't recognize it. lol. I was never a fan of Macs, the old Mac v PC argument. Still, I know they are good and secure. I got rid of all of my Java based apps and all of my MS office stuff and use all open source, just the stripped down OS is windows. Maybe, one day, when I'm feeling ambitious, I'll slap OS/w on it.

ViolaFury said...

@anothercleanslate,

Thatnks for stopping by! It hasn't been all that easy. A couple of times, it has just hit me and a couple of times, I've just said, "bleah, this is gonna suck." Which is the point, I think. These challenges and things like Row80, where you write 750 words a day, aren't about turning in stellar material every day. I thought that at first. It's really about just the act of writing something, anything, to inculcate the habit of writing. I've written some horrible stuff and I go back and go "Really. Really???? What was I thinking?" Go for it. It's okay. Keep chipping away at it. You're still here and that's great! Thanks again!