All in a Day’s Inability to Achieve Anything
I began the day with good intentions. Actually, I began last night with good intentions for today, which, of course, meant that I didn’t sleep well (again) because (this time) I was thinking too much.
Morning finally arrived, and I, with too-little-sleep, attempted to work on something academically intellectual and in that task I succeeded. Then, feeling less guilty about that, I moved on to the real work at hand. I meant to review the video plug-in for a website I was working on, and if I liked it thought I might compare it to another, and then to yet another that was better than the one we used for CCN. I didn’t get there, because I very much needed to upload a png to the RL project site on an OS Second Life sim, and for the life of me I have not been able to construct, modify, layer, or save a png that was not gauzy and not at all opaque in some areas and transparent in some areas.
I finally begged help from a very good friend, who, even though recovering from an illness, took the time to walk me through the procedure. Unfortunately, the program I was currently using was as not the same as hers and although I thought the steps would be similar, they were not. (At this point I should have closed my beloved tried-and-true program and taken the time to use the virtual desktop privileges I have through school and connect with the correct program online. I’ve done that often before, but it was extremely time consuming, and very resource intensive. Basically, it is two desktops running at the same time, I think. My little lappy is a trooper but not that powerful anymore. So I didn’t go that route, I tried to use what was at my disposal without wasting any more time.)
Three hours later, no program I already had installed would work for a darn and I finally decided to follow her instructions exactly. I could not find my installation CD to save my life. (I had uninstalled that program when I got my tried-and-true program because that old one also took a LOT of resources). Argh! Already five hours had passed, during which time I’d decided it was a good idea to maybe host a Guild of Healers’ event and not only give myself something else to do but poke my neck out for lopping off of my head if lopping was to be had.
Fortunately, in this case no lopping was to be found. We really do have a great Uru Community, lol.
Back to the day.
I finally located my installation CD and began to clean out resource to make room for it. Of course I complained the whole way, but this did remind me of what we used to do during UU. Defrag, give it more virtual memory, add RAM (which I’d done last year), stop any unnecessary processes… I pulled up task manager — why does every single application want to start up first in the morning, even when I don’t use it but once in a while? This old one was like that, too, and I knew it would install several little companion applications it thought had to be running all the time…. Part of the reason I uninstalled it. Argh. At that point I noticed a strange process running… now which new and freebie application was that for? It didn’t want to stop when I stopped it…. No programs claimed it…. Took that computer offline, googled the process on another computer…. found out it was a medium risk malware… oh jeeze, how did that get there? Lots of warnings on the internet about a banner ad or program or something… Could be that modeling or video editor I had tried out the other day? (I have got to stop trying all these new things…. ) I saw very few helpful tips on how to remove it as it seemed to be fairly new. Jeeze! Which site to go to for advice, even? They all want to download cookies, flash cookies, and they have gizmo’s and gadgets that will scan my pc for all malware (but will they refrain from installing something else????) Do this, do that, it’s dangerous, it’s not. For pity’s sake! The techie site I usually went to was now gone…. so I chose a big (hopefully safe) one…. they were not very helpful… Try safe mode, registry editor, use my crazy antivirus they said — that was worthless this time and picked up nothing. Even good old Spybot didn’t think anything was wrong. I could feel my head preparing to explode.
Now look, all I want to do is make a decent png, dammit!
Another four hours passed. Fortunately I had decided to cook dinner while installing my old photo editing application. That, at least, was tasty — the dinner, I mean. Course, there are even more dishes to be done now. My beloved husband just smiled and nodded as I complained, mentioning in passing he had nearly lost a huge clay vase he’d been working on for three days because there was a weak seam on one side. That took him all day, too, and he had as much work to finish as I did. I said, “awwwww, I bet that was frustrating and time consuming,” even as I maintained the opinion that my problem was much more important.
I am here in my study, back at the old computer, (the problem was on a newer computer which is actually fairly old now) and I not complaining to him any longer because it is late, I’m getting tired and beyond cranky, and am running a scan (on the newer computer) using a new (and I hope trustworthy) little malware-seeking program that is supposed to fix this lickity split. It did find some ‘infected ‘objects already (whatever that means anymore), more than either spybot or my antivirus. I hope it doesn’t want me to get rid of something I really need.
I looked disgustedly and unfairly at the CD on top of the pile of papers. I knew that old program was instrumental in helping me notice the malware, but I also knew that it will cause its own set of problem. So, I decided I would try the virtual desktop option just to see whether the steps even work, because if they don’t then I don’t have to uninstall yet again. I know, I should have done that in the first place, but I really was trying to avoid wasting time….