2013-11-29:
We did. We totally did.
Fri:
So today was terrible.
Pulled up to the car dealer guy, who had a frontier problem so nothing I could do about it, and when I got back to my car, my iPad was gone.
It was a cruddy day, and as I got out (this was on the outskirts of the city) I thought about locking my doors. "But Robert," I said to myself. "It's crappy out. No one is going to be walking around this run down place between a bunch of abandoned buildings and car dealerships, right? Not for the ten minutes I'll be here."
Well, of course he didn't get there for 20 minutes.
Naturally my first thought was- there are cameras everywhere now, right? Looking around I saw my salvation- a camera pointed DIRECTLY at my car. The owner was there and said we could take a look.
Oh look, your system is not actually recording anything! Fantastic! I mean what's the point of having a security system if it's broken? It's like having a dead butler. Ok, you've got a butler, but what's he going to do?
So I hastily changed all my passwords- email, dropbox, etc. Set the "lock this iPad" in iCloud if it ever goes online again, and checked the "notify me when this happens" box. That'll brick it as far as I know, the last iPod I tried to wipe for a customer that had a passcode, you needed to enter the passcode to restore it. I included a message with my phone number and address.
I have accepted it is gone. I don't mind the theft so much, I mean it was my "fault" but if I had bought it I wouldn't be nearly so mad. It was a gift, that's what burns me up.
Anyway, the rest of the day didn't matter, because of that. I did report it stolen, for what good that would do.
We're at a dangerous point, really. I can't "hack the planet" and track it down like in Shadowrun. Cameras that should be helping me aren't. Nor does it have the ability to be tracked without someone actually going in and connecting it manually. If they wipe it without going on wireless, will it still trigger? I have no idea. Technology needs to go a lot further in my mind.
Sat:
Called someone in the morning to see if they were there, and they were.
An odd situation all around. He was using a virtual machine to run a (pirated) copy of Office (that was pirated) and got himself infected. But the story doesn't end there. No, this virus was a little different. It actually encrypted anything it found on the machine and demanded $300 for the key to unlock it again. As his Mac drives were shared with the PC environment, it happily encrypted everything on his Mac, too.
Of course he had no backup.
So I copied everything from the ancient PC I originally used, which was about 2 years ago, so he's mostly lost everything in the last two years. And I thought losing an iPad was bad news. Guess it can always be worse?
It is worse, it's snowing like the dickens out there, whatever that means. The ground is covered, and I mean covered by this icky white, nasty cold stuff. Do Not Want.
He also gave me a laptop with a dead hard drive to work on, I ordered him a new SSD (for the win) and went to my 1:30, which didn't exist before I left. It was the router people again, just can't get away from them, I guess. Got her straight, again, and went to my actual 1:00 that I had actually scheduled before.
His hard drive is also dying. "One or more unrecoverable problems" it said. He wanted a new machine anyway, so I took his drive, told him I would get off what I could. Get him a new machine, and bring it all back working.
So I came back here, ordered everything, and that was that.
I had finished Sean's gift at long last, and boxed Neil's back up, so that's all a bit of good news.
Had a whole hour before I had to leave.
Sun:
Game went well the night before. Had a very good meal provided by Stan, and game provided by Stan. So thanks, Stan. We delivered the teacup and I lost a drone but gained two. So take that, mathematics.
Spent the day playing games, which I haven't done in ages. "Won" torchlight, and played more Path of Exile. Even managed to get the Galactic Arms Race working, which I had never been able to play before. It's pretty fun, now that I've figured out what I'm doing.
Couple of calls over the weekend, but that only resulted in one job. So I have two for tomorrow.
I did get some RAM in, so I'll call that guy when I'm done with lunch, so hopefully it'll turn into three.
Mon:
Switched things around a bit, did two jobs in the morning then went shopping in the afternoon. I'm a wild and crazy guy!
The first was setting up some iPads (I had one, once) and a wireless printer. Hoped to be done in half an hour, but they had some other questions too so I was actually there for an hour and fifteen minutes. Then as it was on the way I stopped down to 185 Exchange Blvd and let me say how much I love downtown. Parking, in particular, is quite a treat. Of course after driving around their garage trying to find a place to park, parking, walking all the way back up, waiting for the person… I was told I just needed to call 311 and I could have the serial number added to the report that way. She couldn't do it because "she wasn't a police officer" which I guess makes her too trustworthy to do something like that. (I joke! I kid the police officers who never use "excessive force" especially against really young people who pose absolutely no threat to them)
Oh wait.
Anyway, so I called the number and had the serial number added to the report for the one in a million chance it's recovered somehow.
Then off to my 12:00 which was a Mac, so I couldn't do much. I cleaned up her filesystem a bit, renamed things, gave file extensions to things that didn't have one, that sort of thing. Her internet was really, really slow; like too slow to run the speed test. Ouch. Her modem reported 62 Kb/sec which can't be right. Frontier scheduled to come take a look.
Then did the shopping. Target disappointed me with their selection of <gift item> so I'll have to order it or something. The nerve. Otherwise nothing too exciting there.
Got home, ate lunch, called the guy I got the RAM for but he wanted tomorrow. Called and didn't reach someone I apparently called once then never again a couple of days ago. Didn't reach her. Called someone else but she said she was going to just get a new machine rather then repair this one. Then got talking to the person from this morning, who couldn't print anymore from the iPads I had just set up. Everything seemed to be working fine, so I couldn't figure out what was going on. He called Canon and the just had him turn the router off and back on. Huh? But everything was on the wireless, it could print from the PC just fine. I looked at the printer page so it was talking. No clue.
By that time it was too late do to more.
Got a few things ready for the trip, like the taxi and such. I know a guy who does that, been a customer for years, so I called him. Got the book in I'm going to read on the way down there (the last volume of the Wheel of Time) and started packing some clothes.
Cold. Like 20s and there's Winter Storm Warning for tomorrow AND wednesday until 1AM Thursday. Accumulations of up to a foot? Wonderful. When does winter start? Oh, like three weeks from now? Okay.
Tues:
Only the one job today, installing the RAM and updating an iMac to 10.9 from 10.6. That went smoothy, if boring, and I came back again.
Finally got that old game machine of mine oiled and put on craigslist. We'll see if I get any offers at the price I want. I can always lower it later, after all.
Then worked on reloading this system I've looked at before. Ran the RAM test and complete HD test (which took three hours as I recall) which all passed. It BSOD he says, so he wanted windows reloaded. So I did.
Bit of snow, but it's supposed to be pretty steady, but there hasn't been much accumulation yet.
Tomorrow, just one job again, as I got zero, yes zero calls today. Sigh. Think I'll finally get that gun painted and maybe get Starbug on shape ways.
Wed:
You know what the pushiest company is? Omaha Steaks. Seriously. I've gotten a steady stream of mail advertisements from them, but today took the cake with not one but two separate mailings from them. How much is this company paying for shipping all these offers? No wonder their prices are so high.
Went to my 12:00, cleaned out two machines and answered some questions for him. Shoveled.
Got the HD in for the laptop I got from the father of the kid who "infected" his Mac last week. Sadly the laptop has a BIOS password so I can't actually work on it. He hasn't yet returned my call asking for it.
Otherwise, cleaned, as Heather is coming to get a tour of the house and I don't want her to think I'm a total slob. It needed to be done anyway.
Steam sale! I bought Skyrim, something I wanted to do next year and maybe do some work with the creation kit, for $8.00. Eight. Dollars. Guess I don't need to wait. First thing I got was Dovahbit. A cute bunny companion with a pack on his back to hold heavy stuff and a tiny little helmet over his face. He's the cutest thing ever.
Thus:
Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
Had a great day, no surprises this year. Except I had to go home twice, once because of my own stupidity. Oh well.
Showed Heather the house, it's a house. Made sure mom's gift I bought her worked, it did, thank goodness.
Picked up Final Fantasy 7 for $4.00. What? Four dollars? What if I gave you four dollars? I picked it up, figuring I play the game again every once in a while, and playing it in HD is going to be much nicer then digging out my PS1 again. Take that, Sony- you don't have to remake it now, so there.
Huh. Galactic Arms Race, Path of Exile, Recettear, Skyrim, FF7... I have more games to play now then ever.
Anyway, it's Friday morning as I write this, and I've already called someone and done some laundry and started that laptop reloading so it's been pretty busy around here. No calls as of yet, but I do still have that one for tomorrow.
I'll post one more entry next week then it's off a week, then back to finish up the year.
Is this next week going to be bumpy or smooth one wonders?
Stay safe out there, everyone.