Entry 0720: Blog: 1

Where do I start... before I throw something.

Lets start with the notion that XP and broadband and MS
and the modern internet dependency issues are not in 
themselves a bad thing. Thinks..  But not bad for who ?

One of the big problems I have with the website is file
uploading. On dial-up this can take forever. And with
the possible mood swing away from buying and acquiring
kit to simply maintaining a data base on the web I
concluded I needed to upload more file. Quite a dilemma.
So... against everything I believe in I bit the bullet
and got broadband... I have this new laptop gifted me
from work, so I thought I'd use that. And so in five 
days of ordering I was with broadband. And my dial-up
account with BT was severed.

And so I waited for the hub to arrive... No hub. One week 
later, broadband but no way of connecting. I rang BT and
they apologised for forgetting to send me a hub. Anyway,
it came and I set that up. Nice bit of kit but with one
major side issue.... The stuff it puts on the machine.
I installed from the CD and next thing you know I have
about eight to ten extra icons in the taskbar. And to 
top this I get two error messages on boot now about a
missing DLL file and a window on the screen for some
kind of telephone service that I have subscribed to 
that I have no idea what its for... And so now I have
tons of stuff on the machine, which I didn't ask for
and which you get free ' you are told ' to great benefit
which is all a load of rubbish... So that's my first
gripe.

Next up the dreaded Windows Updates and Explorer 7. I
really don`t need to rubbish MS here, they do far to
good a job on that count themselves. The whole process
left Outlook Express, Outlook and Yahoo Mailer fighting
for computer mail dominance, and then subjected me to
a Yahoo v MS v Google v BT war on the browser. All this
with little interest in first asking what I really
wanted to do. Anyway... I got past that and started 
using the machine online.

My first problem was with the wireless connection which
just wouldn't, and still doesn't work. So I had to hard
wire this losing my network connection. Quite wonderfully,
in setting the ethernet up, you also lose all your
network settings so you can`t just keep plugging the
ethernet in and out. Pain. And so to the next problem.
File transfers..

I got myself a plug in 2GB storage gizmo which looked
impressive until it auto installed some smart password
software on the machine, without my approval. Next up
the thing won`t work on another XP machine unless its
connected to the internet.. Interestingly, with a driver
downloaded from the internet it works no problem on
the Win98 machine. What you don`t get is the advertising
crap at insertion that you get on the laptop. Another
example of internet dependency.

My biggest problem with the broadband was the, not knowing
when it was on. That was and is a real struggle for me.
And so, I use my Win98 machine on dial up still for all
my mail. 

Site access changes somewhat. One of my favourite sites
which on the Win98 machine I can save MOV files, all be it
slow, does not now allow this. To do it I need to upgrade
Quicktime. And how does it know... Well it checks across
the net while your online. All this handshaking is possible
cus of the fast connection.

To gaming and I bought ' Guildwars ' an online game to see
what the fuss was all about. Took an age to set up and 
download. Obviously there is nothing on the DVD. Its all
on the internet. Having played the game for a week with a 
load of faceless individuals, I really can`t see the point.
You just level up... walk around.. buy stuff... fight etc
etc... But no story. Just moronic wandering about to
achieve nothing. Thank god Final Fantasy is out this week
and I can get back to the PS2.


The laptop is not easy to use so I decided to hook up
a Pentium 4 XP machine which is a 1400 with a great
NVidia graphics card in it, which works just brilliantly.
Same problem with the network, so I had to hard wire
it losing network connection. This was a nightmare.

I installed the hub with all the same garbage being
added. Next I get all the same error messages. And
then to the updates... That took an age. I tried IE7
again as this comes on one of the updates. The worst
was System Works by Norton which stopped the machine.
All I wanted was the virus checker... With this software
comes Go Back.. Norton's answer to The Black Death. It
really doesn't work. It stops the machine functioning.
I tried to uninstall this. I had to go to bed in the 
end.. Took all night. 

Next problem with Norton was the integrated tools package
of which I needed few. Sadly the ability to switch elements
like Ghost off are not optional. So, if you just want
the Virus Checker you can`t... All of this plus BT's crap
made running the simplest process a nightmare.

Next problem was that I couldn't run local files off the
computer without having an active connection to the
internet. IE7 will not do this. I have tried. All my home
made pages did not work. I uninstalled IE7 and magically
the pages worked again. 

This was the top of the hill to me and I decided to go
back down to where I had come from

I tried System Restore... Which didn't work. So I
uninstalled the whole lot and put the machine back on
the local network. It works fine now.. No problem. I did
try another virus checker but that had problems with
the Roxio CD Burner. Interestingly with DVD burner on
the laptop, the software will not recognise or format
a CD-RW. 

I have fast lost interest in broadband, XP and all that
crap. The Laptop sits idle and I am as ever sitting with
my beloved Win98 machine. With phone filters all my
Amigas still work and I still have mail accounts on them.
I pay for my time on line with Virgin, and will now have
to try and activate a Dial-up pay service so I can continue
as I was before.

So why am I resistant to upgrading ? 

Computers need the internet to function.
Software needs the internet to function.
And why ? Cus of advertising. Cut to the chase...
Computing before XP allowed the user to be
independent and free.. Not now. All the major
software producers assume you have internet
connections. And cus you can`t see the activity
on your computer, files are modified, changed
and updated without your permission, cus the
creators hold that right because you agreed to
the license. On dial up and Win98, that is a 
real problem. 

Vista will be a much embellished version of XP with
even more reliance on the internet, in the name
of security. BULLSHIT. It has always been about
money. Trouble is, when you shop you can decide
which shops to enter and which products to use. 
The internet assumes access to your machine is
a given... as determined by MS. Thing is I don`t
want people on my computer without my permission.
And if I buy something, I want full and constant
use of it without someone else's permission. And
no... they are not welcome here, so bugga off.
My computer is sacred. And if I have to deny 
myself of the usage of broadband and MS to maintain
that status then I will do just that. This is my
Sanctuary... Try knocking next time.

Entry 0721: Blog: 2

... for the latest in my XP broadband episode READ ON

OK.. Having failed to get the computer onto the 
internet with Broadband, I thought, hey.. this
has cost you quite a bit, and given that I also
lost my dial up, I ought to try and make it work.
And so.. I trooped over to PCWorld again and this
time bought a Belkin wireless card, a Norton Virus
Checker stand alone and the game World of Warcraft.

[ This all brought memories back to me of when I use
to partake of modern computing and spend a ton on
crappy kit that soon became redundant ]

I returned and fitted the card... All went very smoothly
and the card was picked up and installed in no time.
Next up I tried to communicate with the hub... Sadly
even with the hub being less than 10m away there was
insufficient signal. So I moved the hub, all as set
out in the BT manual. So I started the procedure
again and this time I got an ' Excellent ' on signal
strength. So I proceeded to install the BT CD.. Well
it detected the card, detected the hub, installed all
the software, congratulated me on setting the whole
thing up and wished me the best, then... FAILURE. As
the computer tried to link with the internet I lost the
connection. And that was that, it never came back even
after a restart and wiggling the antenna. So I re-installed
and it all installed as before then flipped out. I
tried a third time and it did it again...

And so I tried the Desktop Help... [ chuckles ] First
message states I need to go online and update... Are
they mental.. How do I do that without a connection.
Some times even the bleedin obvious seems to be 
ignored. Anyway.. I hard wired the computer again
and went on the help... 

[ story time ]

I was in Edinburgh once and I was in a real rough pub
and being English went to this guy and asked where
the toilet was... He said through the door, turn left,
along the alley, through a gate, along a way then 
down the steps. I did this and found myself back
out on the street. It was his way of saying ' go back
to England '. 

[ end of story ]

The reason for recalling this is that when I use these
trouble shooters I just wait for that last screen to
chuck me out on the street, as it fails to answer the
problem. It just went through the motions, but failed
to solve anything. So I have a mail to BT and see what
comes back.

And so I have the machine hardwired and that's about it.

Next up I installed Norton Antivirus.. And still I get
the error messages.. A ccApp failure and a ccSVCHost 
failure on writing to a memory address. And the thing
slows the machine to a standstill at times...

Why there is not some guide on XP to tell you just what
is going on. The amount of times I have had the window
lock up without an egg timer, as the drive flies around.
This isn't a slow machine, and has more than enough memory.
So much for progress. There are times when the eggtimer
just keeps flicking on and off at random, with no prompt
from me..

I put SpyBot on and Adaware... Spybot found nothing. Sadly
Adaware wanted to do a full system scan, and after half
an hour I stopped it.

To that game.. World of Warcraft.. Interesting. Some thirty
minutes into the install with only about 5% of the install
bar complete and something like five discs to get through
I stopped it.. Work out the maths 5% in half an hour and
I have five disks... Life is just too short.

Not having much success am I.

And so I tried an older version of Quicktime to see if I can
get the thing to download into a temporary internet file.
And to my most hated app. SEARCH. Honestly, talk about
making something complicated for the sake of it. And why
MS decided to take all the useful stuff out of Windows and
put in Documents I will never know. What is equally amazing
is that the Windows directory is now just filled with CAB
files and hundreds of logs. KB logs. Update logs... Goes
on for ever. Why are they not in their own folder. Anyway
I found the temp stuff which is hidden in a folder in the
dreaded Documents folder.. But sadly no save of the MOV
file. So ends another Win98 joy that I treasured.

And so to the subject line .. ' SLOW '

Well I can do an easy speed test with the Win98 machine
and the XP on non-internet activity.. Like booting up,
like searching for files, like opening the search
facility, like using sensibly the Windows directory,
customising folders, setting up Network options and
generally navigating through the OS. On my Win98
machine I can be into the Uninstall option on software
in a jif but on the XP machine it just hangs around
for an age while it check ' god knows what '.

I tried to use the uninstall facility in the BT crap
I got to dump the SoftTalk software.. But guess what,
XP couldn't find the shortcut and asked me to find
it. Strange that BT disabled the uninstall. Didn`t
stop me. Also, even with crappy Yahoo browser disabled
it still created all the shortcuts on the desktop from
webpages to Yahoo. It also still put the Yahoo search
facility in IE, and locked the Toolbar. Anyway my first
series of uninstall and disable was to uninstall all the
Yahoo junk, all the BT junk, disabled Messenger from the
ROOT, kicked out all of BTs fancy net nanny software and
independent mail support. And I guess I am now getting
somewhere. 

I guess I need a Router to get this working properly. That
way I just may be able to get this Win98 machine working
with Broadband, and fingers crossed the Amiga.

I have resorted to two things I have never done with the
Amiga this weekend... Switching off the PC while active,
and kicking the cabinet ( really hard ). 

Clever technology.. You gotta be kidding me. Nothings
really changed, speed wise. It's all about the internet
now, you see. The actual computer activities are just
not that important to MS.

' You wan`t to use your computing for what ? None internet
activity !!! Are you mental ? '

Well I guess I am. This XP machine will be tamed. It will
work for me, and not for MS. If not it will get more than
just a kicking.

[ Written in Notepad on a Win98 machine with no fancy 
HTML creator, Word software and just a simple spell
checker I downloaded in 1997 Ctrl-Alt-F12 .. And guess
what... I am not connected to the web. All on my own,
and such a great feeling ]