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When boners came easily
Years ago I read a book
about a family who pulled up stakes to sail to
the North Pole, or thereabouts, and live for a year on the family
35 foot boat.
The kids would be schooled by mom, and nature. The father made a
conscious decision not to take a marine radio
because, he figured, knowing they had that crutch
would render them subconsciously careless.
My crutch on this adventure
was DriveImage XML V2.12,
certainly one of the top ten free utilities of all time. Because I
could restore any damned thing I wanted, I failed to make
provision
for saving things like bookmarks, history, add-ons etc.. Well, I can,
but first I have to find the right things in the maze of Mozilla's maze
of profiles, blah- blah-blah. I's daunting. So, tonight I'll
prolly
restore the old, bloated waiting-for-disaster system I'm as
least
comfortable with.
What I accomplished by
spending all yesterday reinstalling Windows.
- Since I wiped the disk, I have a very clean system
- I was able to install service pack 3, something I
couldn't do before (for some unknown reason)
- During the hours of waiting for updates to
finish I:
- Watched 5 Mad Men episodes (I'm hooked)
- Watched the Curb Enthusiasm Seinfeld
episode. Clap-clap-clap
- Watched the first episode of Dexter (HFS!!) My
daughter suggested it. I expected a comedy. HFS-not. (She
suggested I not watch a single episode from season 2, which stunk,
but season 3 is great).
- I washed the dishes (MoSop away, day 5)
- Changed my underpants
What I lost in the process:
- My affable fun loving demeanor
- 15 hours of my life
- Years of tweaks, gizmos, and gewgaws that made life
easier.
- My sound (as in the sound stopped working after a
Microsoft sound driver update caused a "near fatal error." Even
though I rolled back the update and reinstalled the Sound Blaster
software, still no sound.
- My mind, my boner. .
On the plus side, the chap I bought the new
software
from agreed to refund my
$50. How cool is that?
I was hopeful that after jumping
through all of Microsoft's hoops I'd be able to load Media Player
11. Nu uh.. Without it, I lose most of my multimedia software
that is
now dependent on it being there. My late F-I-L griped
until the day
he
died that he was a Social Security "notch
baby" Well,
I'm a Media Center Edition 2002 notch baby.
I've also put off doing so many things in real life that I don't know
where to begin with those. Time for some whiskey.
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Firefox is real easy to restore. D/L and I Firefox and open it once, then close it. Take the profile contents folder that you saved, that's the one with the funny made-up name and copy it and all its subfolders into the profile folder under your account\Applications\Mozilla\Firefox. Then edit the profiles configurations settings file with notepad and change the new default profile to the old one. Done.
ReplyDeleteJLW III
For some reason, my XP Windows media player hasn't worked for years. Well, it works but there's no picture. So I use an alternative player. Works for me.
ReplyDeleteMarc M
I don't give a rat's ass about using Media Player, but as media tools I use for video, sound, etc. are upgraded, they all require it. Everyday I lose something else to that monster. Even loading the drivers might help. Anyway, I'm just sick of it all.
ReplyDeleteFor your bookmarks please grab the XMarks (formerly FoxMarks)add-on from the Mozilla website. It's saved my ass many times, and lets you keep your bookmarks intact among several computers.
ReplyDeletehttp://support.microsoft.com/kb/211089
ReplyDeleteHow to export IE bookmarks. the only downside is that they will be alphabetized.
I just gave up on it, upgraded my PC to rocketship status, and loaded f'cking Vista on it.
ReplyDeleteWith the OS and program files living on a solid state drive, it runs acceptably fast.
I expect to get even better speed when I go to Windows 7.
The reason you are having probs here Rodge is that Microsoft does everything in its power to MAKE you buy their latest OS.
If you aren't willing to just buy the latest OS when you upgrade your PC, you need to go to a Mac for video editing.
Video pros either use Macs, or they use full house specialized workstations. They don't do Windoze.
Sorry. The only reason I have a PC in the house is to play video games ... the one thing Windows is needed for.
I've always thought it's just easier to buy a whole new PC than to go through Reinstallation Hell.
ReplyDeleteRodger, I'm mystified.....My HP is a 2002 which I have updated regularly...It has Framework 2.0 SP2--Framework 3 SP2---Framework 3.5 SP1---XP SP3, and some other stuff including, Windows Media Player 11 and IE8.
ReplyDeleteAre you running Windows Media Center Edition software? I bet not.
ReplyDeleteYep, you're right Rodge, but I was able to get the Wn Media 11....wonder why?
ReplyDeleteAtari rocked. My first computer that started me on my way to a programmer analyst and database admin career was the Atari 400 with a wolloping 32K or ram! WOO HOO. Star Raiders was great.
ReplyDelete"Are you running Windows Media Center Edition software?"
ReplyDeleteNope. I also don't like banging my head with a ball-peen hammer. If you are going to get serious about multimedia, you need to walk away from Windows.