#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.

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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!

#ROW80 1ST QUARTER POST 3 – MUSINGS ON A SATURDAY

Damn! I was going to get up and post something; I’m not really sure what. One of the more interesting things about life and all of the changes, like, yeah, when doesn’t it change? But here, lately? It changes with what seems to be an increase in exponential frequency. It could also be that my poor brain is just really in that stage where it perceives the changes occurring more rapidly. Unless I’m tired and I am right now. How ridic.

The warning labels weigh more than the bottle.

I ran out of my Topamax which really helps my bipolar condition which is one of MY manifestations of “PD or non-PD, blah-de-blah, blah-di-blah.” I missed ONE dose. By yesterday afternoon, I felt it. I was able to get my refill and all is well, or well-ish. But, because I already tried to murder my blog and had to deal with that havoc? (too strong a word, it WAS funny, but it’s change and I’m so hardwired, I clank if you bang on my head.) Therefore, I feel it physically, for a few days afterward. It sucks feeling so enervated after such a minor thing.

Then, horror of horrors! (not really, I love a challenge!) Microsoft’s LifeCam software was part of my latest batch of updates? “Bugpatches” is what we referred to them. Actually, Microsoft is not in the business of creating systems and applications. It’s just one giant Bug industry. It should be called Bugsoft, or Microbug, or Bugshit. The problem is this; with all of the intelligence and creativity that Bill Gates displayed at IBM, he took what was a robust and very workable product and dumbed it down.

Bill didn’t have to do that. He did that so that he could maximize his profit in a shorter period of time and he did it at the expense of the consumer and the industry. No one who has any kind of computer savvy or has ever worked in a hard computing environment, where you work either directly with servers or mainframes, think Windows-based platforms, or MACs, for that matter are worth a damn. I can’t speak for the gamers. I play one game, Runescape and ever since I killed JAVA, (read this article on why I killed JAVA; I'm no visionary, but I've been suspicious of JAVA for years and killed it for good last year.) I have to run it from Jagex's client. I could use Linux, or OS/2; I just don’t have the patience, and I really don’t have the patience with “PD Blargle….”

So, anyway, thanks Bill Gates. Once again, your software fucked up your software. I hope you’re happy. When I narrowed it down, I didn’t even go to your Knowledge Base to look for a “fix,” because then I would have needed a “fix” of a different kind. All of your shit sucks. Your software, community, your partnership with Dell. As an aside, their horrible Intel processors; AMD processors are much more elegant. Intel had an architectural flaw back in the 90s; for a while 2 + 2 equaled 5. No shit. Hot fix. Their integrity over time has never been truly sound. The AMDs can be overclocked via software and worked hard for years. Although I knew a guy once, who overclocked his with a knife; Mary don't do hardware. Last I knew, his was still working. They are that rugged.

Anyway, they're great for math, data-mining and algorithms, and wonderful for SETI@home, but back to Bill and his C- report card. Customer support, Website, F; big giant fail. I don't even go there. Everything you have ever done has had the stamp of slightly less than mediocre about it. I realize you have 7 gabillion dollars and you and your wife gave 1 billion of it to school kids. But the fact remains, you took your "MS"-DOS and left IBM. You tweaked the code here and there and built your Windows 1.0 off of that and all else followed.

No Words Needed

That was back in the day. IBM hung onto PC-DOS and built OS/2 1.0 and WARP off of that, which was killer and no, you couldn’t kill it AND you could run a Windows shell and MSOffice on the same system along with all of your Lotus (1-2-3, AmiPro,Notes) products. But Bill had to kill it. He didn’t want the competition. The sad thing here is, quality didn’t win out. IBM didn’t know how to market it’s product and Bill Gates did. Throw in Steve Jobs with his Apple bullshit and IBM never had a chance. Too corporate and too much spook. I’ve seen exactly 2 commercials on TV for WARP OS/2. I see the hardware ads, but the laptops are tooled by Lenovo.

I found this Time.com article on the history of WARP OS/2 to see if I remembered right. Some of it I did, some I didn’t. I worked at IBM from 1995 to 1998, then went to Verizon. This quote followed by the link to the article says it all:

Another of our guinea pigs, already an OS/2 fan, neatly summed up the software when he told us that it “thinks the way I think. [But] it’s not an end-user operating system; it’s a nerd operating system.”
Read more: http://techland.time.com/2012/04/02/25-years-of-ibms-os2-the-birth-death-and-afterlife-of-a-legendary-operating-system/#ixzz2Hn34rlI4

Geeze o pete. Am I a nerd? An enthusiastic one, but a nerd. Happy Saturday! Check in tomorrow!