Month: June 2010

So, now that I have TWO laptops…

/ elegantextracts

I have designated the new one as the “writing” laptop (such an excellent tactile keyboard) and the old one (running XP with all my old-school “artiste”  software and with the upgraded “True-Life monitor) is now the the design laptop.  Plus, the keyboard never fully recovered from the soup I spilled in it last year — “…the space bar, Louisa!”

Guess which one I have been using more of?

Hello, the new one!

Although, I have been designing a custom subway print over the last few days for a person who seems to believe that graphic artists ought to be paid on the same level as teenagers flipping burgers… but I digress…

I have been writing up a storm.  The only thing, it’s ALL Heart’s Guardian and not Full Circle.  I have lost Selkek’s voice  somewhere in the shuffle of not having a computer to work on for days (you should see the 10o0 piece puzzle I was working in the interim… yes, I am boring).

Office Depot (rocks) was able to bring the old Dell back from the dead.  (plus they just so happened to be running a computer repair special last week… $108… Hello, bargain!  My co-worker gave Geek Squad $300 for the exact same repair; Hello, rip-off!) I just had to reload (and reload, and download and upload and reload EVERYTHING) and only after that was I able to bring all of my files over from my online backup (SugarSync… rocks!)

So, no writing lost.  Plus, now that I have two computers I can transfer files back and forth just by sliding a document into my “Magic Briefcase” (a file that sits on both computers that are in real-time sync)  Amazing!

So, what happened to your computer, I hear you ask, and why are you blaming it all on McAfee?

/ elegantextracts / 4 Comments

McAfee released a SuperDat recently that screwed up alot of people’s computers.  It removed a critical Windows file from computers that it mistakenly identified as a Virus.   So, in the meantime, my McAfee stopped working (which, I did not, at first, realize).  I wasn’t able to get consistant Internet connectivity (no wireless at all – but sometimes I could get on with a LAN line (sometimes).  Came to find out that this was the first sign that a Trojan got on my system.

At work, I read all the McAfee forums and heard about others experiences and read McAfee’s support pages to figure out what to do.  Eventually I did get connected to the Internet and loaded the new SuperDat, but the damage was already dome.  The Trojan had already affected my Windows funtionality and completely crippled my ability to get online.

Intalled the XP reinstallation CD, but can not “reactivate” it because Micosoft (pure evil) requires you to activate XP online… which I can not do because The Trojan that McFee “let” slip by messed everything up.

So, in other words: LOSE-LOSE!

To sum it all up for you:

Microsoft: Fail!

McAfee: FAIL!  FAIL!