Irony is the Shackles of Youth

My netbook came with a 30 day trial version of Norton Antivirus. Norton Antivirus is owned by Symantec. I had Symantec on my old laptop and had had no issue with it. I had the ability to put it on my netbook, but figured I'd give Norton a try. After all, they were owned by the same company. How different could they be?

Different. Very different.

I began to regret my decision almost immediately when Norton popped up a screen saying if I agreed to let them get information from my computer to improve their product, they'd give me an extra 30 days of Norton for FREE! At that point I didn't even know if I wanted to use them at all. So I clicked "No." This pop-up proceeded to come up every time I started or brought my computer out of sleep mode.

Then there was the toolbar in Firefox. I hate toolbars. Loathe them. If there is a toolbar preloaded into my browser, I will unload it even if I never use that browser. SUCH IS MY HATRED OF THEM.

What was the purpose of this toolbar? Why it was to tell me which websites were OK. Livejournal? OK. Facebook? OK. Wikipedia? OK. Icanhascheezburger? OK. My surfing habits are not so wild and exotic that I need to be told that every site I visit is okay. I have a set list of sites I go to every day and then, if I'm feeling adventurous, I might go to delicious to get my slash fix.

The final straw was the damn pop-up windows. Norton is the software equivalent of a five year old. "Mommy, mommy I blocked a tracking cookie!" "Mommy, mommy there was a toolkit. I blocked it." "Mommy, mommy I made a poo!" I could not care less. And unlike a small child, I cannot just give Norton back to it's parents and let them deal with it.

So when my 30 day trial expired in 5 days, I said good riddance, got my copy of Symantec, and started loading. Problem. I have to uninstall Norton first. I do so, bidding farewell to Norton and starting Symantec loading.

Windows had a fit. OMG, NO ANTIVIRUS DETECTED. No kidding. That's because it's loading. Symantec loads and starts configuring. Windows throws another fit. OMG, YOUR ANTIVIRUS IS TURNED OFF. Well, yes, because it's configuring. After it configures, Symantec goes out to download the updates. DID YOU KNOW YOUR ANTIVIRUS IS OUT OF DATE? Thanks, Windows. I never would have known what with Symantec telling me it's downloading and installing the updates. I swear, I feel like I'm a teen and having to deal with a parent yelling "Make sure you use protection!" as I walk out the house with my date. Yes, dear Windows parent, I know how to have safe internet browsing.

After an entire evening, I finally have some antivirus that doesn't actively annoy me and Windows seems to have calmed down now that I have the virtual condom installed. I'm not sure I like this more active role my computer/software is taking. The only thing I want out of my software/operating system is for it to tell me when there's a problem and then just run in the background. That's it.

Seriously, does anyone like to be nagged by their computer? I sure don't.

My laptop's power issues are getting worse. Sigh.

After talking with miome, we decided that when this one goes (which will probably be sooner rather than later), I'll just get a netbook. Then once we have the house, we'll see about getting a high-powered desktop. Miome said she's been missing having a desktop with more power than a laptop and I kind of want one as well. It's easier to upgrade and you can get better graphics cards for them more easily (and cheaply). And since mostly what I want from a laptop is the ability to comfortably write on the sofa while the cats lay on my feet, the netbook makes sense.

Now to just wait till this one kicks the bucket. Until then, I'm going to get very little writing done.

Bah.

ALL I WANT TO DO IS BACK-UP MY COMPUTER LIKE A GOOD USER. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK? IS IT?!?! WHY IS THIS SUCH A PAIN IN THE ASS THING TO DO? WHY?

Remember last week when my computer started acting up? Well, today it started doing the exact same thing. Surprise, surprise. A brief talk with the manufacturer and they are now telling me it's the motherboard. So I'm back to a loaner laptop.

It is rainy and cold as the remains of Ida hit the area. I walked to work, but decided to have miome pick me up. It gets dark early and with the clouds, it's too dark to walk home after work. At least the car is nice and warm.

Otherwise, life is good. I am adjusting to the idea of not being in school by reading Terry Pratchett.

Still need to finish unpacking though. -_-

Well today has been productive already. How do I know? Because I've managed to crash not one, but two pieces of software and I've only been here about an hour and a half. I also completely locked my computer in the process and had to hard reboot it because ctrl + alt + del wasn't registering.

I'm just awesome like that.

When I was setting up my laptop, one of the things Microsoft wanted me to do was name my computer. I was eager to get this thing running and didn't really care what it was called at the time. I just typed something in and kept going. The name didn't show up anywhere and to be quite honest I'd completely forgotten about it until I went to shut it down last week.



I'm still laughing. XD

Dear UPS,

What do you mean my new laptop is still in Louisville, KY? Are you serious? It only took you two days to get my laptop from Shenzhen China to Kentucky, but you can't be bothered to drive the extra two hours it takes to get from Louisville to Indianapolis in the past two days? Are you for real? I could have driven down there myself and picked the damn thing up by now!

ARGH!

No love,
Tsaiko

I got a tracking number information for my laptop. I figured I'd check to see where it was and when I could expect it. According to UPS, it has shipped.

From Shenzhen, China.

Yeah, I think I may have a while.

The good news is the laptop is not hosed. I can get all my files off of it, and plan to do so. Yesterday was back-up day and I'm kicking myself for not doing it that morning because then there was the possibility I could have just done a restore. Sigh. Hindsight is 20/20.

The bad news is that I have picked up a fairly nasty virus that is rather difficult to get rid of. The options right now are a) wipe and reinstall or b) get a new laptop. Since I've been having problems with this laptop anyway (power connecter is loose, no wireless connection any more, throwing random hardware errors, etc.) it looks like I will be getting a new laptop. I'll be using student loan money for it, since I need the laptop to do school work/thesis work.

I was considering getting a new laptop anyway. Looks like my time-table got moved up a bit. That's all. Sigh...

The slot for the wireless card on my laptop has died.

We know it's the slot because miome and I tried to different cards, one of which is known to work. Right now I'm using the wired connection, but the port for that is loose. So every time it jiggles a bit the wrong way (like say from my cat laying on my legs), my connection goes. Fun, fun.

Of course, the service plan we had with Dell expired on December 19th. Not that it did much good last time we needed something repaired on this thing.

I am seriously considering using some of my student loan money to buy myself a nice, new, shiny laptop. The only thing holding me back is the fact that I need one a) with XP on it to run the software I need, b) with a nice graphics card and c) not made by Dell. I'm beginning to think they don't exist anymore. -_-

So if I suddenly fall off the internet for a while, you know the laptop finally bit the dust.