Telly adventures, PC woes and the likes

[wiseheart]

On the telly...


Okay, so the servic guys were here today and fixed our satellite dish. Now I have the major channels I usually watch working again. However, some of the other ones I sporadically watch are either fractured or unavailable. Now, it can be atmospheric disturbances, as all these channels are ones with weaker signals, and belong to two particular groups. The others are excellent.

Still, having paid an obscene amount of money to get the satellite dish fixed, I'm still a bit annoyed that I can't have all my channels, after all. If it stays this way in the next two days, I'll have to call the service guys again after Christmas. *sighs*



On PC woes


My main PC is still in an unfinished state. Several vital programmes are still missing, for the simple reason that I haven't got the chance to give the list to the PC guy who, BTW, lives next door. I still can't watch YouTube, don't have Java or a programme that would enable me to use my scanner. I know that a ten-year-old could find and download all these programmes, including the new IE, from the Internet. Unfortunately, I'm an idiot compared with your average ten-year-old, when it comes to web skills.

Oh, and my Norton runs out in four weeks. Another dell in the pocket. This Christas/New Year is going to be... costly. All right, I counted on the Norton, but not on the satellite dish dying on me. But the worst thing is that I depend on other people with these problems. I wish I weren't such a techno-wheenie. It would make life so much easier!

And have I mentioned how much I hate that LJ changes things every other week?


Also, I wanted to make some headway with the Epic Merlin Fic during Christmas break. Guess what? So far nothing. Instead, I wrote some 19 pages of very disturbing Merlinfic, an AU version of some parts of the Season 4 opener. It's almost done, and I really, really hate it. I don't write this kind of stuff, as a reason, but I just couldn't stop myself.

Comments

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

I hear you. My computer is dying a slow death and I think that the recent LJ changes may result in a final mass melt down. Everything is soooooo sloooooow now. Between all the white space on comments, the time it takes to load all your icons everytime you want to post, the inability to open whole coment threads at once, I'd guess there's a one in three chance that it will snuff it before New Year's.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Which is a shame, because I really, really don't want to switch to DW for good. I've been on LJ for some 8 or 9 years by now, I'm used to it, my comms are here, my friends are here... you get my gist, right?

But it has become awfully slow indeed. Why do they keep fixing what isn't broken anyway?

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

I've only been here for 3 years, and I have a back up at DW, but yeah, the communities I'm interested in aren't really replicated over there. I can put my stories up and link back to here, but all the lovely people on the cat comms and some other sites I like will be lost.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Yep, I've got a backup on DW, too, both for my personal journal and a writing journal to where I should be transferring all my fics posted to the various LJ comms, but I just don't feel up to the gargantuan work. *sighs*

[songfire3.livejournal.com]

Not much I can do about your telly, but I can at least give you some links! ;)

IE (latest version + previous versions)

AVAST (way better than Norton, imho! :))

adobe flash & Java

VLC Player (just in case you don't have it already, this player plays about every format there is!)

IDK the model/maker of your scanner (aka HP, Brother etc, but you can probably find the right software on the homepage of the company (or let me know the name and I'll see what I can find *g*)

Ah yes. The latest epic LJ fail...XD! Don't get me started!! You can find everything about that here...

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the links. :)

[artemis10002000]

Aw, it's such a disappointment with the satellite dish. I hope that fixes itself! Unless you had bad weather on that day, experience tells me that bad reception usually doesn't fix itself, but I'm hoping for the best anyway! If they are fractured and there is nothing to be done by adjusting the satellite dish, a better satellite receiver might help. With the new receiver (which, unfortunately, is broken again, damn repair people broke it more by fixing it and I only noticed that AFTER the warranty ran out) we got perfect reception even when, during rain and storm, we only had fractured pictures with the old one. Of course, that would be another money drain, so it would only be a long-term solution.

If you're not set on staying with Norton, I could advise you Kaspersky. It's a good anti-virus, too, and you can get it for free under certain circumstances. There are CDs in the Computer Bild magazines. You do have to get a new license code on the Computer Bild homepage every two or three months, though (which is easy to do.) If you're interested, I could check if there's currently one with the magazine (I dunno if it's just on special occasions or always) and send it to you with the Kirschwasser. Problem is, the program is in German, I dunno if your tech guy speaks German?

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm used to Norton, and it's always worked well for me. I'm technically challenged, so getting used to new things is always a pain for me. *glares at LJ changes*

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

Also here are two virus scanners that have excellent free versions. They were recommended by my IT department and between the two, I've never not been able to get rid of malware:

Malwarebytes: http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free

super antispyware: http://www.superantispyware.com/

You don't firewall protection with the free versions, but for finding the stuff that does come past your firewall, these are much better than Norton (which I do have running behind the scenes all the time).

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the suggestions, but the sad truth is, I simply don't dare to install anything on my own. So I have to wait for PC guy anyway.