TECH SATURDAY, BECAUSE ON TUESDAY, STUFF HAPPENED – KILLING AN UNWANTED OR FAILING PROGRAM (THREAD) IN MICROSOFT

Where the Cable Cars really DO go half-way to the stars. . .

A few weeks back, I got my panties in a wad, because some idiot hax0r came up with a terrible scheme to “spoof” the public and buy his stuff, which was worthless and bug-ridden and a security threat. While that in itself was not particularly dangerous, his method for doing so was, and I, being ever alert to such chicanery, decided to start “Tech Tuesdays” for people who aren’t necessarily all that familiar with what’s under the hood of the family time-waster. 

There’s a reason for this; I live in a strange neighborhood, that’s one-half ‘bangers and ‘hos and the other half sweet grannies and their grandkids. Then, there are folks like me, who have, shall we say, “interesting and storied pasts” and live rather comfortably between the two. My business partner is a former DOD employee who mustered out after the start of the second Gulf War. He’s my hardware guru. I have been in the business long enough and traveled the back alleys and by-ways of the computer universe to keep abreast of the threats and oddities and transmogrifications of various software worms, viruses and Trojans to keep the little old grannies and their kiddies safe.

I host a network called “FBI Surveillance Van” for all the would-be internet thieves near me (It's protected by a hexi-decimal cypher, so unless Einstein has been reincarnated as a crackhead, I'm safe) . The CIA is going to be setting up shop soon. I love to keep ‘em guessing. Anyway, after the nasty “spoof” found here, I decided it would be a nice thing if I just put up some simple things for folks to help keep their own systems free of mice, lice, tics and bugs. I can’t help you with Microsoft; it’s a giant bug-patch, all unto itself. I don’t touch Apple. It’s a JAVA nest of Hell and I hate their processors. Call me a Luddite, but I use no smart-phone, however, I’m home most of the time.

Today, I wanted to talk about what happens when something just stops, goes into a business loop, contemplates it's navel, refuses to run, or crash completely, and just sits there, eating up your CPU, or Central Processing Unit. This is where all of the instructions are carried out; the literal brain of your computer. You can have the cleanest, leanest, meanest system in the world and if your Candy Crush Client (why?) seizes up, you are going to sit there until Doomsday, waiting for the bitch to do anything. I don't care of you have an AMD Quad Core or an INTEL hoo-ha processor, that brain is going to churn and churn over some stupid command, caught in an endless, infinite, "do loop". 

While not necessarily the fault of the gaming code within Candy Crush, certain outside elements on your system itself, will produce "do loop" results. Or, knowing Candy Crush, it's just shitty programming (again, why?). The one executable command will repeat into infinity, unless you, the weary and aging user, step in to halt the bitch. 

Here are the simple steps for that; I actually used SETI@home for the demonstration, because, they are astronomers, not programmers, and after you make SETI 'snooze', there is no way to halt the client. In my case, I 'snooze' first, because I do NOT want to corrupt my data, so I suspend the operation:

Once I see that red bar to the left of SETI@home v7, I know my work is saved and I can continue.

courtesy: Cracked.com Photoplasty        

Unlike Scotty here; the poor bastard in the Transporter never knew what hit him.

Aight! Fun time over! Now, do a RIGHT mouse click on your Windows task bar at the bottom of your screen, or at the side. You're going to be looking for "Task Manager".

It works in Windows Vista and 7. To get to it in Windows XP, use keyboard strokes <CTRL> + <ALT> + <DEL> at the same time, and select "Task Manager". I don't know nothin' about no Windows 8. Windows 8 looks like a pretend OS. Screw Microsoft. 

Windows Task Manager Processes screen shows all of the "threads" of the applications you are running, or more aptly, not running at the time. Look for your offender and highlight it. Click "End Process".

You will always see this message; if you clicked on something else by mistake, and the process is crucial to the running of your system, Windows will NOT allow the killing of the thread to take place!

Once I "kill" the boinc.exe process, all subordinate processes will die as well. You can do the same with Chrome, or any application, but ALWAYS kill the *.exe. It is a cleaner way to exit the program and you lessen the chance of corrupting any *.dll files or any other subordinate files. 

That's all there is to it. Of course, if it happens continually, shoot me a line, or try closing other programs before running whatever it is that freezes on you. I can't help you with your Candy Crush addiction. Level 70? My, my, my, my, my.

Don't forget! March 21st is the date for the Great Theme Reveal! The A-to-Z Challenge is almost upon us and you don't want to be caught theme-less! Check us out at #teamDamyanti on  the A-to-Z Challenge Blog! I am one of the fabulous Damyanti's assistant's this year, along with my great team members, Vidya Sury, Anna Tan, Samantha Geary-Jones, Guilie Castillo Oriard, Csenge Zalka, and Jemima Pett, who at this very moment has a post about her own Theme Reveal!

  

 

#ROW80 – 3RD QUARTER 2013, SUNDAY CHECK IN – MR. WIZARD'S HELP DESK

Ah, the lovely errors from nowhere. They pop up here and there, and everywhere, much like the Scarlet Pimpernel. They don't make a lick of sense and oftentimes, they either don't refer to whatever it was you were trying to do on your computer, or they aren't in anything that looks remotely like English. Some don't even qualify as a planetary language, I would wager, which is one of the very few vices I am heir to. So, I was tickled beyond the beyond (read: mystified-irked) when I received this charming little pop-up:

Nope, wasn't this one, although I've had it before...

Yes, it did encounter a problem. I killed it and it's minions 2 days before. Word was nowhere in sight and was haunting me from the dead...

Once upon a time, before Bill Gates got his greasy little mitts on it, it was a fairly decent program. Word is what we called "legacy" software. Bill bought a good but under-marketed product, screwed it all up and then foisted it upon the unsuspecting masses. I supported it at IBM and in Gastonia, NC and it was always a big, snarled up mess. 

I saw this exactly once on a system in Gastonia, NC when I worked for the PD and promptly disconnected the system from the Citrix network and locked it in a jail cell. That can't be legal, and I sure as hell didn't want it contaminating co-workers, the K-9s and the stray cats who seemed to show up and never leave..

This sounds almost Kafka-esque, or Nietzsche, if you will. One could also make an argument for Camus and Existentialism, or Ellison, "I Must Scream and Have No Mouth," if  one were so well-read and dramatic. Or, it could be the sense of humor these unhuman brutes have developed; scheming, scheming, as so many Cardinal Wolseys.

This is the actual error, or misunderstanding I am receiving. I've gotten to the point where it happens only after a cold boot. If you google this phrase "Your profile could not be, blah blah blah," You will find tons and loads of pissed off, frantic people, who know very little about the architecture of their systems and Google doesn't really seem concerned by this. I think it highly unfair that these people's concerns are not dealt with seriously or in a timely manner. That is the customer service part of me. The software Engineer part of me is just screaming, "FIX THE GODDAMNED THING!" But it's not that easy. No one uses the same platform and now we have iPhones, IPads, Macs, PCs, and gaming systems. There is no "one size fits all" for anything in software. We have not gotten to that point yet. But, the people's concerns should still be addressed. All the work-arounds in the world are not going to cure the problem.

My usual fabulous picture taking.  My desktop, with "Scotland Rising, and Sir Wiliiam Wallace" in the background." No java. Only a Windows framework, and as soon as I know more about Linux and MVWare Workstation, Windows is out.

There are four rules to trouble-shooting for computers. 1. Have you made any changes (added, changed, or deleted software) 2. Does it happen only in one application or does it happen in all applications? 3. Have you rebooted? 4. Are you able to duplicate the problem?

My IBM T-42 laptop, which I tear up regularly.  It's used for "white-hat" hacking and screwing around on, when I'm on the Quad. I have a Gateway in the other room. 

So, I read up on this "error" (which is just really shitty program-writing) on the “forums” that Google provides as this is a Chrome error. Why it happened, I have no idea, because I'm in Chrome all day, and for some reason, Chrome just basically told me to go to hell. These “forums” have a bunch of people bitching and my particular problem is listed and has been around for years. Way to go, Google! Glad you got right on this bastard and fixed it.

Another fix is to uninstall my AVG. Yeah,  as if.

So, what I derive from their “help” is that I'm supposed to navigate my way to %appdata%User\Local Settings\Application Data\Chrome\User Data\ and somewhere in this is supposed to be either a Default folder or a Profile folder. Great. Hooray. Yippee. So, I start pissing around with this and I found out a lot of interesting stuff, none of which had a damned thing to do with Chrome, but it was time for a house cleaning, so I got rid of a bunch of stuff that I never use and come with a pre-loaded system, like this AMD Quad Core I have (I'm getting another.)

At this point, the thing doesn't even look like or act like Windows Vista anymore, which is fine with me. I finally get to the Chrome folder which is nowhere near Application Data, it's under Program Files on my system. I have to kind of sit and look at this and think it through for a minute. While I'm doing this, I reach behind me, and stick my right hand down on the bed. Immediately, a small furry, rumbly cranium proceeds to wallow all over my hand, as Mama pets herself, sort of. She's my "assistant" and hard to resist.

Of course, what pictures of my cat, Mama be complete without my stupid shadow in the way, or a finger in the lens. I am abysmal and have no talent whatsoever when it comes to taking picture of anything. So, when it comes to taking pictures of a live creature, the suckage factor is increased by 144. At least you can see her!

She and I zone for a minute, while I puzzle this through. I have 4 profiles, I can't change them. There are 2 Defaults. Something happened and one is dated earlier today. Bingo. I rename it Default old, and proceed to back out of architecture. It fixed the problem, for about 2 days. It's now back, but it's not a show-stopper. It's giving me what I want though, so the hell with it. I just click through the errors, there are only 2, instead of the 28 I was getting. Seriously though, Google needs to get it's act together. A publishing house that big needs to have rock-solid support and they really don't.

===================================

Oh yeah, goals, I have started putting the memoirs of my life together, starting with from when I was Homeless. I am actually starting from the very moment I realized I had some neurological problem and working backwoad. Typed approximately 1700 words last night. Tomorrow on Monday, I get some sort of diagnosis. I'm going in with no expectations, PD and ET are elusive bitches. So, we'll see!