Digital Impulses

More GoDaddy stuff: brodymitchellmarshall.com is no more

Just now went through the process of CANCELING the domain 'brodymitchellmarshall.com', which is a domain I gifted to a co-worker in a dumb, spur-of-the-moment, "what was I thinking? moment.

She never did anything with it, so I have canceled it, just have one less thing generating emails from Godaddy.com and ICANN, nattering at me to administer these useless domain names.

This is turning out to be a productive Monday, at least on a personal level.  Yay, me.

GoDaddy stuff

Terminating lafurniturerestoral.com
Just now got off the phone with GoDaddy.com to put the final nail in the coffin of the ABORTED "LAFURNITURERESTORAL" web design project I was involved with back in 2007.

The $4.99 I was billed for "Business Registration" was refunded to my on-file credit card and that takes care of that.  God, what an unproductive nightmare that was.

Good Riddance.

Recovering Isa's AOL Saved Mail Folders

During a visit to see my mom for a little while, she started in on me with a MASSIVE GUILT TRIP about my sister and the recent loss of some email folders that were deleted when AOL crapped out on her for the nth time.

My mom took the drama to such an extent that I logged on remotely to my sister's computer via logmein.com from my mom's computer and attempted to fix the problem right then and there.  My sister was told by AOL that all of her info was in a folder on her desktop called AOL Saved Info.

Sure enough, the folder was there and I could see a file called "saraisabel" that was about 218 MB, so clearly that was the file that contained the email folders I needed to restore.  A little bit of Googling for a solution and I was able to determine what files from that folder on the desktop needed to be moved where.

However, a little more noodling was in order because Windows XP would NOT let me move the files due to the old "this file is open or in use by someone or something else on this system" error. 

Easy enough to fix:

1. Go to Control Panel.
2. Go to User Accounts.
3. Create an Admin account for myself.
4. Log off my sister's account.
5. Log into my new account.
6. MOVE the files from her desktop to wherever AOL wanted them (the "organize" folder buried somewhere).
7. Log off my account.
8. Log into my sister's account
9. Log into AOL.
10. Check mail.

Voila!  Folders restored and order is restored to the Universe once again.  call up my sister and have her check her AOL Mail.  Folders there, much rejoicing is heard throughout the land. 

Drama over.  For now.  Until next time.  I'll be here to douse water on the next mini fire that flares up.  We're family after all, right?

Retiring from Computer Support: Spit on again. For the very last time.

Once again, I put myself out there.  Once again, I got kicked.  Sigh.  I just never learn.

I just called Bert to tell him that I am off this coming Friday, and offered to take time to go with him to work and spend the day working on his computers at the factory, that have been without maintenance for a couple of years at the very minimum.

What did I get from him in response??  "... No... Thanks.  There's no need for that. No need..."

No need, indeed.

He has 4 or 5 computers that never get touched in terms of backups, defrag, etc.  He has one of the computers in his office STILL RUNNING WINDOWS 98 (!!!).

In light of this, he  declines my offer for help, telling me "Thanks, but no thanks".

So, very simply, I am done.  Effective 1/1/08, I am retiring from any and all computer support, repair, consulting or anything else even remotely related to "helping someone with a computer".  I will have no choice but to support my immediate family, but aside from them and my own computers, I am DONE.

It's simply not worth the hassle and the stress and the over-the-top feeling unappreciated that results in 9 out of the 10  support issues that I resolve for friends and acquaintances.

Fuck that shit.  I don't need this crap in my life.  Thanks, Bert, for effectively retiring me from the Computer Support Business.

RIP, Alberto S. Lopez, "The Computer Guy" 1988 - 2007

Altaf @ Blue Diamond: Finally invoiced

Altaf Amlani
Blue Diamond Spa
Blue Diamond Jewelry

Just billed him 7 hours work and 1 wireless router installed at his jewelry store. 

I faxed the invoice to him after speaking to him on his cell phone.  He stated to me that he was out of the office and that he would look at the invoice when he got back to the jewelry store so that we could "square away".

I hope getting paid is stress free.

Minor computer repair work in Marina Del Rey

This evening I took some time to visit a client in Marina Del Rey who runs a Beauty Salon/Spa. He needed a mass of cables under his front desk untangled and tidied up and also wanted me to ensure that his PC's are networked together properly.

Arriving there right at 8:00 P.M., I surprised the pregnant young lady behind the desk who seemed surprised to see me.  She got the owner on the phone who asked me to stay there while he drove over a little while later.

After the girl left, I got to work unplugging everything and generally cleaning up.  After that was done, I located a broom somewhere in the back and swept out the underside of the desk.  I then plugged everything back in and brought both machines back up to ensure that everything was working. 

Everything came back up and so it was time to do a little Windows XP maintenance. By that time the owner had arrived and we spoke at length about backup solutions, remote control, Internet access restrictions and remote surveillance options.

Before leaving, I made arrangements with him to stop by his jewelry store to check on the health of his PC network at that store.

A short visit with Julia, Reyna's friend
On the way home from Marina Del Rey, I stopped by Julia's house where my wife was visiting to pay a visit to Julia who had surgery a day earlier to take care of a minor health issue.  By now it was near 10:00 P.M., so I scooted on home to call it a night after a rather tiresome and hectic Monday.

Visiting Mazacote in Mission Viejo

Visiting Tio Orlando in Mission Viejo
So, this morning, after my son and his girlfriend arrived, we stopped by his mom's job for a few minutes before driving out to Mission Viejo to see my uncle Orlando.  It was a pleasant enough, 40 mile, 45 minute drive that was easier to complete than I would have thought, considering how secluded it is where he lives.

When we arrived, we immediately went to lunch with Tio O's girlfriend.  The food at the Asian Buffett place where they took us was OK and we had a great time listening to my uncle talk about the trials and tribulations of life with his girlfriend.

After lunch, we stopped by Lake Mission Viejo, where we were given a quick tour of the area and then we drove back to Tio Orlando's pad.  Once wer were there, I spent the next 2 hours or so teaching my uncle how to create mixed music CD's from his music collection.  I also assisted him in setting up his new HP All-In-One 6500-series printer to print directly on CD's.

Dinner at iHop in Hermosa Beach
After leaving Tio Orlando's we were hungry again, so we drove over to iHop in Hermosa Beach, which was mercifully empty.  We were seated immediately and all in all, we had a great time.

The food was OK and the service was OK also, although, it did take them forever and a day to bring me my toast. 

Sopranos Series Finale
After dinner, I puttered around my office and dozed off in my room after reading the 1st few pages of "The Reagan Diaries".  When 9:00 PM rolled around, I walked into the living room to watch the very last episode ever of "The Sopranos".

It was OK, until the very end, when they kept building up the suspense to an almost unbearable point, only to simply fade to black in the middle of a scene where Tony Soprano and his family are having dinner and you get the absolute impression that Tony is about to get whacked.

Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmeeee.

As Tony is about to get up from the booth, he looks at the camera and it fades to black.  That's it.  Finito. Over.

Complete, 100% utter bullshit.  What a terrible way to end a truly great series, with a whole mess of loose strings.  Christ, what the hell were they thinking??

Lazy Sunday: Computer work and dinner at Benihana

A rather uncomplicated Sunday, punctuated by watching "Blood Diamond" in my office while I worked on fixing Bert's PC and then capped off by dinner at Benihana's in Torrance.

Eureka moment in PC support: Bert's PC fixed (again).
So, after working on it all day yesterday and nearly running out of options in terms of fixing Bert's computer, I decided to try and boot from Bert's OLD slaved Hard drive.  BSOD.  STOP Error: Unbootable drive.

Bingo!

Disconnect the secondary hard drive. PROBLEM RESOLVED.  No further hesitation, no further delays, no further NOTHING. THAT WAS IT.  Windows was trying to POLL the attached hard drives and was getting severely delayed by trying to "read" a hard drive that was completely borked.

Note to self: Next time a PC is really, really slow, disconnect all attached devices except the known good boot hard drive and see if that eliminates the problem.

Dinner at Benihana in Torrance
After the victory over the computer, me and the wife drove over to Benihana in Torrance for dinner, typically packed, the wait this time was just over an hour, much more reasonable than the 3 hour+ fiasco of Mother's Day.

However, as usual the wait was well worth it, as the food was excellent and we were cooked for by a nice Mexican cook named Heriberto that made an exquisite fried rice.

After dinner, I returned home, went straight to my office and worked until about 10:00 P.M. or so, when I decided to call it a night and hit the sack.

Royal Prestige: reviving a crippled Compaq Desktop

A good chunk of this Saturday was consumed by a trip to Huntington Park to look at an HP desktop PC that was so infected with Ad/Spy/Mal-ware that it had been effectively paralyzed.

I took a cursory look around and saw that the computer was basically impossible to operate.  After determining that there was no data on it that needed to be saved, I rebooted it and hit "Ctrl-F10" to access the hidden partition. This is a partition upon which there was a "restore to factory specs" image that returned the computer back to the way it was the day it was taken out of the box.

Once the machine was re-imaged, it was a simple matter to re-install the printer and re-configure access to the Internet.  A few short clicks later and the PC was usable once again.  I explained to the owner that great care should be taken in surfing the Internet, because access to suspect sites is what casued the computer to get sick in the first place.

We will see if i get called back to do this again in a few months because they do not listen to my warnings and get the PC infected again.

The website that would not die

Nothing of any interest to report other than the fact that I went to visit Aragon with Reyna to see about adjusting http://www.lafurniturerestoral.com

I really hate this.  I need to get this guy and his business out of my life.  *sigh*.