2009-10-01:

Did my paperwork last night, as expected. Not quite as fun as being waterboarded, but at least I was dry at the end. Setting aside the tax money was just as painful though. Then writing, then bed. Today my first one was pretty easy, dead power supply. Replaced it, the case was already open and waiting for me. What service! Had to use the one my sister gave me, as I had sold my new one two days ago to the hotel. It's a pretty decent one, not sure why she gave it to me, it's not like they get outdated or anything. But I have her a deal on it and charged her half an hour so she got a good deal. Then just a few minutes late to the Mac upgrade. Seemed to solve the weird mail problem he had picked up- sometimes Mail would get stuck processing a single message and just hang there, trying to finish it, or something. But it all came down once the upgrade was done, so I think that's licked. Went home and talked to the carpet guy for an hour because I guess I forgot to enable authentication on his outgoing mail server. He had both his old and new laptops open so I said "just make all the settings on the new one look like the old one." So finally I get a message from him, but he's saying it's still asking for the password. At this point I say "maybe that version of office needs an upgrade to work with Vista, go run the upgrades and I'll call you back because I have to leave." It wasn't even a lie, I did have to leave. So I did. Picked up a system currently being anti-virus scanned by my Mac. I knew it was pretty far gone and I had only scheduled enough time to go look at it because he said he had to leave soon after I arrived. So I saw the problem (it's a PC) and the solution (hammer) and stuck it in my car to work on at home. Then over to the enclosure guy, the one who "lost" the drive I just recently set up. I walk in, turn it on, check the USB cable, check the power cable, and what do you know, there it is! So I say to the guy "So what's the problem?" Sigh. Back home, called carpet man. Still no luck, so I say "okay, I'll come over there." Turned out he had messed up his INCOMING mail settings somehow. Even though he was looking right at the settings on the old machine. Total time to diagnose and fix: forty five seconds. Time to drive there and back: a hour. I suppose it was my fault, I should have tried sending something, I just received so I assumed it worked. So I guess that was my punishment. Home, looked at the infested PC, took a bunch of stuff off it, but still can't find one thing that's still popping up. That's when I decided to try my newfound NTFS-G3 + ClamXav technique of scanning it on the Mac. It's whipping through, even found some stuff, let's hope it gets everything. Ate food. Looks like only three calls? Wow. How did that happen? Got a comic penciled. Unboxed a power supply for a guy. The fan stopped working on it, wonder why? Ever seen the inside of a computer owned by a person that smokes? And this guy lights one after the other, yeah, that's healthy. If his computer looks like this I don't know how he can even still breathe. Which brings up a question- this guy's puffing away all day, how does he sleep? I doubt his body's craving just magically goes away when he's trying to fall asleep. Protip: QUIT SMOKING! Or the Lord of Pain will pay you a visit all too soon. Made my calls. Thought it was going to be a run around day but actually got two customers on chili ave one right after the other. So it's Hilton->Chili->Chili->return system->Grandma's. Still icky. No Sean? No note from Sean, so I guess unless I get something soon, nothing this week. I suppose that's good, otherwise it would have been chili->chili->return system->grandma's->chili which makes my had explode. One for saturday morning, but she's coming here, so that's a plus. Have to do a little cleaning, though it's not too bad around here. My scan stopped. 47 infected files. And.... naturally the one thing I'm trying to get rid of is still there. Running malwarebytes on it. Looks like the second time running it took it out, thank goodness. Wonder why the clamX scan didn't catch it? Humph. UPS guys out working late, got a small HD I ordered to back a system up. It's the one with the lost icons, going to back it up to that, wipe it, reload it. I suppose I should do it now, but.... But it'll be saturday before I can return it anyway, and they all have laptops, so they're not hurting for it. My neighbor has a large TV I can see from my basement window. Every time I go upstairs I glance over and it's on. I feel sorry for him, not having anything better to do. I could give him a few things. Of course, I'm writing in a blog, so can I really talk? Well, yes, writing is a brain-active activity, not a brain-passive one. So there. Current Mood- Sliding into brain-passive- shoot I have to place an order at newegg for an IDE DVD-RW and a replacement power supply, can't be brain-passive yet!