Somewhere East of Life

I feel bad for not updating more, but to be honest it's been more a case of lethargy. I have finally been able to put a name to my condition and that is familial hemiplegic migraines. For me, they tend to manifest as vistibular migraines. But that basically means is I get dizzy and confused quite often. Unfortunately they are completely out of control and I'm getting migraines on a daily basis, which is frightening because a serious condition will see people having them one week. What does that say about me?

 

Rethinking life goals

 

There are a few things I have had to rethink in my life. The most obvious is my ability to work. I don't think I will be able to seriously hold a job outside of the home anymore. Which is a really hard thing to face. But given my job skills I don't have this set required to telecommute at any serious level. Which means, I need to go back to school. I will have to re think my degree and change fields completely.

 

In that I am actually hopeful that I have an idea for my future. It is just going to take a helluva lot of time and effort get there, mostly because I have to come up with a way to pay for my schooling while I'm having trouble being able to do any significant amount of work. But I will find off way before, because I am very determined.

 

That's it for now

 

There is more to this thing called my life, that but that is not enough depression for one day. Maybe I can try to update more than once a year. We will just have to see how that goes, right?

Mini rant ahead. I'm a bit frustrated right now.

Got a virus on my system. I'm pretty sure I cleared it off, but I don't have sound on my system any longer. Video is fine if it's done through Shockwave, otherwise it doesn't work either.

I've gone to an unbelievable amount of trouble to reconfigure my system trying to find the source of the error, to no avail.

For now, I've moved my speakers to my mothers computer so we can watch our TV from that one. Her computer is quite a bit slower than mine though, so I'm hoping it can keep up.

Gah!

Okay, better now. :D

How's everyone else's weeks going?

MIA for now. I thought I'd picked up a virus yesterday and ran scan after scan, but as it turns out someone jumped onto my internet connection (and I've got cable internet, with no wireless router). I figured out how to dump the riders off my network, but I'm currently working to protect my network from them. Wish me luck!

BTW, I saw the first episode of that Sherlock Holmes series last night. LOVED IT! Couldn't stop smiling the whole time. Those two do nothing but flirt the whole time. Was so much fun to watch!

"I'm not a psychopath, I'm a high-functioning sociopath."

*snerk*

More later. *waves*

Rather sick of computers right now, not enough to go without mind you, but still... no love lost between us.

Bought cheap used computer. Not a bad system for what I paid for it. They'd assured me it'd been thoroughly checked over, and then had the drive wiped clean (since they don't have distribution license for the various OS they sell). Not a big deal as I've got an OS I can install in it.

Got it home. Hooked it up to my monitor, and nothing...

( Click for the nitty gritty details. )

If anyone on my flist has suggestions, feel free to offer them up. Otherwise it's going back on Tuesday.

My Windows Explorer randomly decided to stop working. I can see it's there in the Task Manager, but it's not loading. I can try and open it manually through Task Manager, but it says it's missing and won't do it.

I've tried the sfc /scannow thing to replace it, but that didn't work either.

Anyone got a Windows XP SP2 or 3 Explorer.exe file I can borrow? I need the one with the computer monitor for an icon.

Either that, or if anyone has any other suggestions, I'm open to them.

HELP!!!

I've been playing. I got bored, what can I say? This time I downloaded a few gadgets to spruce up my desktop.

• I got a thingy that will arrange the icons on my desktop in cute little designs - Desktop Icon Toy
• I got another doodad that will simplify the process of making my Windows taskbar transparent - Transbar
• I downloaded a bunch of custom desktop icons from various people - deviantART

Heee! *bounces and claps* Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a craving for pecan pie I need to satisfy. *hops off to bake pecan pie*

Got a virus.

I tried to play an episode of Chuck I'd downloaded. Windows media player was the only one that would open it, saying it was an HD file. It said I needed to download a new codec, so I did.

Then I shut down the player and opened the file again, and it popped up a message saying there was a new update for security risk.

Clicked on that one.

Big mistake. Turned out to be a virus. A self-restoring Trojan. *head.desk*

I'm still trying to get the damn thing off. I've got a virus scan running, Spybot doing several scans, and I keep getting Windows popping up a message telling me to install some anti-virus software to get rid of it.

After being dropped a virus by Windows Media Player, I'm not so sure I trust Windows right now.

*sigh* Why me.

Did I mention I had been watching the downloaded episodes with my Mother while the virus started popping up internet windows featuring porn sites?

*looks for a wall to hit head against*

I made it to about 12:30pm yesterday before I crashed, without having made pancakes or cleaned the kitchen with an old toothbrush.

I only took a nap for about an hour though.

When I got up I did half a sink of dishes before getting bored.

I then proceeded to reorganize my computer. Found a nifty site that turns graphics into ico files, along with several collections of system icons. I'm now the proud owner user of a snazzed up computer. (from stuff all found here)

I'm sure my mother will be thrilled when she sees the Dracula icon (pic) I replaced our C drive standard icon with. She should be thankful I didn't use the mummy one (pic). Or the werewolf (pic). (from the Haunted Hard Drives collection)

I went to bed about midnight and didn't wake up again until 10:30am. My cat tried to wake me up for food about 8, quite cutely I might add, to no avail.

Note to self: Your body doesn't run well on 5 hours of sleep when you get up at 3am.

P.S. Apparently the forgetting to eat (I ate a little) caught up with me and I also lost 2 and a half pounds from yesterday.

Found a cool guy that refurbishes computer. Sells them within my budget. So far I'm very pleased. He was obviously very well educated in this field. I had a great time asking him about a couple hundred questions.

It's a rebuilt eMachine. The parts of that computer that tended to fail? All been replaced. Got a new power supply, new harddrive... um, forgot the rest. But it's clean and new and even has a fresh copy of Windows XP. Interestingly enough, even though the XP version is a Home edition, he didn't install the office suite (except for Frontpage). I did however get OpenOffice. It's interesting so far, but I haven't had a lot of time to play with it.

I did have a few backups, but not of everything. My poor mother didn't have anything of hers backed up. We're working on rebuilding those.

Today however, I've taken up residence in the computer share and am quite happily hogging said new computer. Mostly I'm installing my backups, installing my favorite programs (firefox, spybot, virus protection, irfanview, vlc, semagic, etc.). Ooh, and bonus? There's room enough on here to install my backup copy of Photoshop. Yay! *bouncebouncebounce* More manips, here I come.

Speaking of which, here's the request for help. I need an archive unpacker of some sort. I vaguely remember bunnyohare mentioning a freeware one to me once, but damned if I can remember what it was. I need something to unpack the rar files I've got my backups stored in (the ones with the number extensions). Any clue what I can use that doesn't cost me anything (and I hate WinRar, so that's out)?

Right. So, my computer crashed some time back. Y'all know this. I've been on my Mom's computer for awhile trying to save the money to buy me one since the ex is being a butt and isn't getting me the one he owes me. *grumblegrumble*

You know what's coming next, right? Mom's system crashed. The harddrive motor is out of commission. The tech said the data is only recoverable using some special data recovery service (like you see in TV). Only it's gonna cost us $900. We're going to save the drive out and see if we can do something like that at some point down the road.

Mom is buying a new system on Saturday. The tech guy had some refurbished systems laying about. We're trading in her old system and getting one that's about the same as the one of mine that had crashed.

I'm going to have to rebuild my data... again (yes, I had backups... but nothing from Mom's system because she had no way for me to do it). I've got my bookmarks saved, and that's about it.

*moop* Send more chocolate.