technology Archives

My love/hate relationship with technology continues. How am I supposed to clear my head so I can write enjoyable and entertaining entries here when I spend all my time at war with the very tools that make this pastime possible?!

We recently added a new State to the areas we cover. Yay! Growth and expansion are good.

There are 2 of us covering this additional area and we have to toggle back and forth between screens on our computers. Yesterday mid- toggle my computer went into a serious data loop. It just kept searching and searching and searching. Nothing that I tried would interrupted it’s single-minded searching.

I rebooted . I used different browsers I toggled to other screens and back…nothing. Finally I reached out to IT support. Their solution was to remove the browsing history, remove the cache. I’d tried that but I only removed the recent history. Their solution was to remove ALL THE HISTORY. I know now that this was a very BAD IDEA but I followed their instructions. They are the experts, certainly not me.

It worked. The endless search was over but all of my bookmarks had disappeared, my home page was gone, all of the company apps were scattered instead of neatly linked…it is/was just awful!

I struggled all afternoon and managed to get some recovered so I could maneuver around again. Each app has to be accessed separately and I haven’t been able to get my home page back, however I did get my bookmarks back on my tool bar, a minor miracle. That’s when the email came in about the Heartbleed Virus.

You have probably heard about it. We, here at work, were supposed to be unaffected but now it seems that some of our “partners” may have been infected therefore everyone had to change all of their passwords. Detailed instructions were included in the email. So that was my next project.

I had to do a few extra steps since my computer was already in shambles but I got through it. The instructions said following them exactly would automatically update the password on the phone because it is synced with the email account. Don’t trust IT. They lied.

When I got up in the morning I picked up my phone to see what had come in overnight for work. Nothing? I crossed to the lap top and logged in. There were at least 20 new emails there but none of it made it to my phone, my new super duper extra smart $400 phone.

So over my bowl of cereal I attempted to figure out how to change the password on the phone to match the new password on my laptop. The new phones don’t come with a manual. No you have to go online and search. Wasn’t that what started this whole mess?

Well I found the instructions online and I changed the password in the phone. That seems to have done the trick as my emails are once again syncing to my phone. I only wasted 8 or so hours dealing with all this aggravation.

What would we do without this time-saving technology?

I’m not one of those old dinosaurs that can’t use a computer. When it comes to learning new software I do a pretty good job keeping up with the youngsters. But where I lose patience is when the stupid computer won’t do what I tell it to.

It’s one thing for it to “Go Down” when it’s the work computer. We’ve got a whole department of IT people to come to our rescue. Case in point, yesterday the whole system went down at work. The IT sprung into action and in about 5 minutes had the system back up. It sputtered and ran slow for a bit but finally settled in and work life was back to normal

So this morning I logged into my personal computer and none of my Microsoft programs are working. I can’t access Microsoft Word or Excel. I used them both yesterday. Today it tells me to “fix” them in control panel. So off to control panel I go. When I opened the application to see what was wrong it tells me in one place that the applications are still downloading but in another that the download is done. Grrrr.

Maybe I’ll try rebooting the whole computer again. Maybe it just glitched when it booted up but right now I don’t have the time to fuss with a balky computer.

Buddy destroyed my printer the other day. Yup. I came home and found him in the act. paper trays had been pulled out and paper was everywhere. After I put it back together and put in new ink cartridges the cartridges couldn’t be aligned. I have no idea how he got his paw into that part of the printer mechanism but it looks like I’m going to have to buy a new printer. Maybe I’ll have to think about a whole new computer system if my computer is going to start giving me problems.

I don’t have an IT department to bail out my personal computer and trotting a 3 year old computer and printer off for repairs may not be cost effective. I have such a love/ hate relationship with my computer! My laptop died a couple of months ago. It’s only good for playing games now. Try to get online and I’ll die of old age before it connects.

Well I’m going to go pound my head against a wall now. At least I know I am not alone in my continuing battle with technology. I leave you with dialog from 2001 A Space Odyssey.