4:43 a.m. - Monday, Jul. 12, 2004
When It's Midnight At the Oasis...
This weekend I had a humongous major computer crash. I mean I lost everything! I lost all my files, all my photos, even some of my extra programs which I had purchased. And I lost the receipts for the programs because I filed them into a folder on Incredimail. I never could retrieve my files or even my stationery back again once I re-downloaded Incredimail. I have learned from this never to store anything on Incredimail that I need to keep. I will from now on store registration keys, receipts for goods purchased, etc. on Yahoo or Bravenet where I have a paid account for storing things.
It began last week when I noticed that I couldn't get scan disk to work. Then I began havin' problems with openin' things up. Finally images on the desktop all at once duplicated themselves and overlapped each other in the strangest way. I called Dell Technical Support. All of Dell's people are in India, half a globe away, and they all have cute American first names. So here I was talkin' to "Conrad" from Dell at like 2 pm my time which was about 1 am his time, something like that. I hate calling Dell because those people have to get out of bed to talk to me and that makes me feel very bad. Conrad and I were on the phone for, I figure, over three hours over my messed up desktop. He had me throwin' out everything but the kitchen sink. He had me delete some of my programs, start and restart my computer half a dozen times and finally havin' me key in certain codes which I could enter only after havin' hit the F12 hot key twenty dozen times rapidly after each reboot to keep the computer from goin' to the screen that shows the user name to open up Windows. Nothin' he had me do worked. But after spendin' all that time with Conrad I was beginnin' to get to know the guy pretty well. I think he realized this too and at some point in our three-hour plus conversation the line went completely dead. No more Conrad.
I don't lose my cool when things happen that I don't understand the why of. Later on, after givin' it some thought, I came to the conclusion that Conrad just got plain too tired to talk to me any longer and, in essence, said, "Forget you!" And then he hung up but did it quietly so that it sounded like the phone just went dead.
So rather than get mad, I phoned back again to the toll-free number I'd gotten from the information I have from Dell. And the next time I got "Shirley" in India. Her heavily accented voice was a bit more perkier since it was gettin' to be daylight there by then and she'd gotten more sleep than Conrad. I explained what had happened and what the problem was. The messed up desktop was only one of my problems at the time, but it was the most annoyin'. Just like with Conrad, I told Shirley that I had run every test I could think of includin' the virus scan several times. There was no indication of a virus. I told her what all Conrad had me do. I was very calm while I explained. My voice remained even, no hard feelin's. Why get angry at someone livin' on the other side of the world who probably didn't know much more than I did about computers even though she was supposed to. Finally, Shirley, in her friendly Indian accent, excused herself to conference for a moment with her supervisor who might be able to suggest what to do. The line once again went dead, but I didn't get a dial tone back again so I continued to hold.
While I was holdin' for Shirley to return from her tete a' tete with her superior over my computer woes, or probably actually havin' a cup of coffee and the first cigarette of the day, the thought entered my head to check the screen saver. I have no idea what caused that thought, but I had it. I changed the screen saver from the Matt Damon one I had made myself to one that Dell had installed on the computer. Suddenly the desktop was okay again. There were no duplicates any longer. And just then cheerful Shirley came back online most likely with a system now fueled by caffeine. I couldn't contain my excitement as I explained that I had found out the answer to the problem (no thanks to Dell). She stuttered a bit and then expressed her glee over my havin' righted the desktop. But there was also a tone to her voice in that last sentence which said why have you wasted my time for this? I thanked her profusely just as though she had been the one to correct the problem herself. As I hung up the phone she was laughin' and happy just like someone with good sense or on drugs.
Then my computer crashed completely. Deader than a door nail.
Now that I consider it and after havin' spoken with my sister, the family computer whiz, about it, I honestly am beginnin' to believe that all of Conrad's efforts were the cause of my fatal crash. Maybe I'm wrong. But after I got off the phone with the Dell reps in India, my desktop looked good, but nothin' would work. Nothin'. My sister, C, said that the F12 hot key caused me not to be able to access the Internet. And there's no tellin' what kinds of damage Conrad may have inflicted by havin' me remove so many programs, and other items which I have no idea what in the world they were for to begin with. Well, I will never actually know for certain.
It took two days for me to get back online. C had to do a complete recovery with the Dell recovery disk. Then she had to re-install Windows. Then we had to re-install my programs that Conrad had me take out like Incredimail, Music Match Jukebox, etc.
Finally C added some things to my computer, includin' a fire wall. She thought that a hacker had gotten in somehow and messed up the computer so that it wouldn't do a scan disk, or defragmentation, etc. She said the hacker had removed somethin' called a boot thing-a-ma-jig. It was completely missin' she said. I know that hacker had to have been me followin' Conrad's instructions. C told me that she closed some ports which were open on my computer that hackers can access. Then she added on two programs that allow me to scan for and remove spyware from the computer.
As long as I can stay away from surfin' the Internet I should be fine now. Today I surfed for some Incredimail stationery because I'd lost all the stationery I had saved. Unbeknownst to me, I downloaded the Keen worm that was attached to one of the items. When a pop up on my screen informed me of the presence of the worm, I hurriedly ran my virus scanner and got rid of it. I need to stay away from the Internet.
Tonight my computer has been purrin' right along just like it was brand new. It is almost. It has all new insides again. It sure felt good to be able once again to run my scan disk and defragger. I'm so excited and relieved to have my computer back that I can't sleep tonight. So here I am wide awake at 4:39 am in the mornin'...
Wonder what Conrad's doin'? It's afternoon in India. At least by now he should be fully awake.
