calliopes_pen

Yesterday, the bill arrived for Comcast. We expected this month’s bill to still reflect things from before we cut out watching cable due to whatever reason, but no. It’s better than that. This month, we seem to owe nothing, and we have been credited $65. So…next month the bill should be $5 once that's subtracted, until this returns to the expected $70 in November, I suspect.

Odd, but nice for once.

Meanwhile, as I hunt for a new computer, I realized that just in case of any emergency that requires me to go—either due to being forced to travel out of state again, or not—it might be best to search for laptops. So I’ve been looking at the HP* Pavilion 17 inch sort, since that’s held up well for Dad. He hasn’t had any problems with his, since he got it in 2013.

And since I prefer Windows 7, I purchased an OEM for Windows 7 Professional 64 bit, which should arrive sometime next week. I’ll use it once I have an appropriate laptop actually in my possession. I have also done in depth research of the Intel CPU, which one would allow an installation of 7 over 10, and which ones wouldn’t. I think I’ve figured that one out. I have far too many links gathered for all the steps to everything, so that’s what I’ve been doing this week! I also gathered all relating links to drivers that still support Windows 7 in either the CPU of Intel or AMD.

I also asked questions at Reddit, Seven Forums, Tom’s Hardware Forum, and Bleeping Computers so that I would have everything straight. As a side note, from one of those I gained the alternative of the Acer Aspire desktop, should other ideas not work. So that’s why I’ve been a bit quiet—research!

And on a non computer note, The Collinsport Historical Society has their round-up of everywhere that Dark Shadows can be found this Halloween season. If only I had Decades and TCM, I would be so happy on October 28th.

*We have a local place that works on all things HP, so if anything happens, straight to the manufacturer it can go.

Thanks to a firmware update from HP that was pushed yesterday, I believe I can safely cross off HP printers from my list of potential printer purchases.

Basically, the update blocks all non-HP ink from functioning correctly. There weren’t that many from HP that I had included on my list just yet, thanks to everybody's recommendations and advice (thank you for it, by the way) along the lines of Canon, Epson, and Brother.

This merely narrows the field a little more for me.

The time is approaching when I will need to get a new computer. This one can’t handle streaming sites like Hulu and such because of a faulty nvidia driver that keeps briefly crashing when stressed by such sites. I tested it, and confirmed that the issue was there after I used GPU-Z. This computer is so old that they no longer make the sort it would need.

What year did I get my current one? 2004. Yes, this one is 13 years old, and has lived through Windows XP, and the upgrade to Windows 7 about 4 years ago. Based on the sticker, it had a brief period before it was sold to us when it was Windows Vista, too. There’s only a dual processor in this one, and Dad’s laptop has a quadruple one, and is able to handle streaming.

Mine will be a desktop, not a laptop, I should point out.

While I can easily recommend HP Compaq from 2004, I have absolutely no idea without further research what brands are good these days. Does HP still do well? Is Lenovo dependable? Does anyone have a particular brand they wish to declare their love for? It needs to work well with streaming. I don’t care about gaming, as I don’t play any games.

I'm doing all the searching I can long before blue screens of death. Just the black screen on occasion (although, that had been a couple times in a short span, hence the getting a move on searching) if the poor thing is stressed by nvidia.

Does anyone know of a program that would just switch over preferred settings? If not, I’ll be jotting it down by hand.

Whatever I get, it must be compatible with Windows 7, as I love that. It will not be refurbished, since I spotted a lot of issues with those as I searched a couple sites. Going that route seems like it might end badly. I still have an OEM build of Windows 7 Home Premium, so I should be able to deactivate this build and then activate it in the new one without a problem.

If it turns out I don’t need the OEM, and whatever I purchased is good enough with the 7, that’s fine and I’ll just have a back-up. I also still have the links from the last time (still valid, and still in stock) we purchased Windows 7 Home Premium OEM, should a purchase of any sort become necessary.

When the time comes, I’ve already put all of my installers for all the programs I use (but not PrintKey yet; I’ll hopefully find something just as good, but that’s not from 1998*) on a large external hard drive. Almost everything I need to keep has been put there, just in case. I’ll grab my licenses for Emsisoft and Malwarebytes shortly.

Before everything is actually done, whenever that is, I’ll do one last screenshot of the desktop, so I’ll know how I preferred it all.

*My version of Office was procured back in the year 2000, when I was in college. It’s the one I prefer, but I might migrate over to LibreOffice after any change since .doc is compatible with it, and the portable version of LibreOffice works nicely for me.

The Heartbleed security vulnerability seems to be affecting a large portion of sites that use OpenSSL on their platform. If you haven’t already heard of it, here are a few links that explain what Heartbleed is, and how it could expose passwords and other sensitive data, such as credit card information.

Github has a list (last updated 2 hours ago, as I post this) to determine whether or not a particular website is vulnerable to Heartbleed. Dreamwidth has determined that they seem to be okay, and has a good explanation as to what could happen where they’re involved in this dw_maintenance post. I haven’t seen a statement from Livejournal as of yet.

A few tools were posted in this comment that help to determine a site’s vulnerability on an individual basis. If it isn’t vulnerable, feel free to change the passwords if you feel that you need to. If a site I were registered with happened to be affected, the best advice I’ve seen (and that I agree with) is to wait until it is no longer vulnerable.

Due to the fact that support for Windows XP ends in April, I have been preparing to upgrade to Windows 7. Dad has 8 on his newer (his old one imploded at long last) laptop, but I think I would prefer Windows 7 Home Premium. So far, based on running Microsoft’s Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor*, everything should be okay.

So until I purchase an upgrade from Best Buy, Wal-Mart or Amazon, I’m reading up on all the changes that I can. Since I have Windows XP, I know that I’ll need to wipe out everything via reformatting the hard drive, and reinstall all my programs once I’ve got it in.

However, does anyone know if Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit would be able to run Windows Office 2000 Professional? Because I would like to be able to use that version of Microsoft Word, and not somehow mess up all my files. I’ve already read enough posts across several forums to know that Outlook Express wouldn’t work, and I’m fine with that. I’m just finding conflicting reports on people who were able to get Office up and running.

Windows Professional has XP Mode—however, as I would only need it for Word, I don’t have to have it. I can try to locate an older version of Office that still used the doc extention, and looked similar to 2000.

*I am honestly amused by the fact that my printer from 1997 is still compatible.

Something tried to hijack my computer yesterday. I was running a Full Scan with PC Tools Internet Security, and it noticed something. I was suspicious about it. And when whatever this thing was realized it was noticed, it went into action. Shut down PC Tools Internet Security. Shut down System Restore. Shut down every program that could possibly help me. Threw up a fake antivirus notice that wanted me to download it to get access to everything else, and force me to pay to fix what wasn’t broken. I'm not an idiot, so I knew better than to click on anything

It wouldn’t stop with the whole thing (for those that wonder, the fake is called Disk Antivirus Professional) so I turned it off until Dad made it home. We teamed up, considered wiping the whole thing clean and starting over. Got back in through Safe Mode, without getting that accursed pop-up, and I tested System Restore. It worked there, so I had an idea. I was able to get in. Went back in time to before this mess started. Started up PC Tools safely, got rid of the thing last night. If it ever returns, it knows to throw it in Quarantine and it's on the blocked list.

So now, off to read my friends list and see what I missed. (And I have saved anything I desperately need, that hadn’t already been saved, to the external hard drive. Just in case.)

(So Fannish Items will be yesterday and today combined this afternoon, and I’m off to catch up on everything I missed from 1 PM to this morning.)

5 AM, woke to Mom saying tornadoes were on the way. In under 10 seconds, I managed to change into day clothes and get in and out of the bathroom. And then the sirens started. Along with 60-70 mph winds, hail, sideways rain, funnel clouds spotted on the highway. It all stuck around until a little after 7 AM.

My best wishes go out to everyone in Marion, Illinois and anyone else that may be dealing with this weather, since if what I’m hearing is correct, Marion has been wiped off the map. There’s damage in numerous other areas, as well, but I likely won't hear how extensive it is until the noon news.


Something on a far lesser scale of insanity: Thanks to the pop-up from Comcast that (as of now) never goes away, and blocks my view of pages unless I can shift it over, reading websites is going to be interesting. They seem to think I have a Botnet called DNS_Changer. Usually, this thing goes up once a week, since I changed my DNS. Because the ones they provided for me were seized by the FBI. Last time we attempted to discuss the DNS issue with them, they only suggested I scan for viruses, and were baffled when I told them what I used.

The most logical course of action would be to uninstall their support suite. Which...I’ve never had installed in the first place. Given the problems with Norton, I refuse to install that—it’s something that their website always suggests to me. Next step is likely to attempt a battle with customer support. Just in case they have their script that’s pointless, I’ve written up every step I’ve done. Everything I use to block things, every firewall. DNS addresses from when everything went weird back then, as well as now. I kept track of it all. PC Tools Internet Security. Malwarebytes (as of this morning, which comes up clean). PC Tools Performance Toolkit.

My LJ’s banner is large enough that the pop-up covers it. Thankfully, the pop-up doesn’t normally follow me as I scroll. So at least I’m still able to look at what’s going on through my friends list.

For reference, this is the message: "Malware known as 'DNS Changer' has infected your computer and is directing your web traffic to malicious DNS servers.

The Primary Account holder must call Comcast Security Assurance* for instructions on how to fix your computer and to remove this alert from your browser."

*Removed their phone number.

(Oh, nice. I hit random icon, and the exact one appropriate to this post came up.)

ETA: I stand corrected. Marion was hit hard, but not wiped off the map. Harrisburg sounds like it was--names were being confused on the news. 200-300 homes and businesses destroyed in Harrisburg, and the windows were blown out of the hospital. 15 are dead so far.

A comic strip called Hijinks Ensue does their take on the news of Joss directing The Avengers. whedonesque discusses it here.

This man has made a suit entirely of glass—he did an amazing job. Future supervillain, or horrendous accident waiting to happen? You decide.

Cultural Leanings reviews Prophecy Girl. whedonesque discusses it here.

Io9 posted Everything You Need To Know About Doctor Who.

Blogtor Who has an introduction for Time of the Angels, and three just released clips.

If anyone uses McAfee, there’s a problem with the latest update. Just to let everyone know, half the school computers in a certain area of Kentucky (I’m not sure which counties) were taken down because of it. They were talking about it yesterday on the local news, and didn’t know what to do when they wanted to take a test. They said paper and pencils was like being sent back to the dark ages. Wow.

Remember when I was trying to change my computer’s resolution, and it never would work? The other day, without warning, it suddenly worked again. Dad doesn’t know what he did, but everyone’s happy. And in really strange news? Since I could finally get into Ulead again, I was looking around and discovered that all the files are still there for each section of The Tomorrow People. Despite the fact that it’s been at least two reformats--possibly more--since then. I opened the first part of the first episode, and it’s still working fine.

I am now registered on Dreamwidth, if anyone wants to add me over there. Just so you know, I won’t ever be using it unless Livejournal dies completely, and nobody heads for either Insanejournal or Inksome. Username’s the same as it is almost everywhere else--calliopes_pen. I really don’t see what all the hype is about, but I've registered.

From Io9: The Wolverines That Weren’t. You get clips from Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, as well as Pryde of the X-Men. (The only good thing to come from that last one was the arcade game, which I played a lot back before Showbiz became Chuck-E-Cheese) And a couple of bits about who almost got the role of Wolverine, before Hugh Jackman.

Five Favorite Star Trek Rip-offs. A couple of them I’ve never even heard of. Phoenix 5 and Switchblade Honey.

Amber Benson made a bet with her fans, where she ended up having to do the Macarena. You can watch it here. She even sings it. You can read commentary on it at whedonesque, over here.

It's definitely a Windows Update mess, because I've discovered that it has also messed up things in Outlook Express. Formerly, you could just look in the e-mails and see everything perfectly fine. Now? Well, looks like any picture (for example, of cookies from Saralyn's Cookies since I get updates from there) has been turned into numerous attachments. One for the picture of the cookies, one for the picture of the logo, one an htm file, and one a notepad file.

So things I've noticed wrong so far:
-The address bar is missing, and will not come back even when I use the steps I've found that are supposed to bring it back.
-The Outlook Express strangeness I've just described.
-The thing Dad mentioned, of the Control Panel not working if you're using the Classic Start menu option.

There may be more, but that's just what we've noticed so far. Any ideas on how to fix this? I'm currently using IE 6 for Windows XP (service pack 3). Should I install 7, or uninstall 6 and then reinstall? Or would that make things even worse?

Dad says he tried to go back, but it won't let him go back any earlier than this morning at 6:30 AM.

Okay, I have a bizarre problem going on with my computer, and need some help—specifically, an issue regarding Internet Explorer. Yesterday, everything was fine. Apparently, at some point, Dad allowed a Windows Update and it did something, (although it didn’t record it under Add/Remove for this month) and now we no longer have an address bar at all. Even though I’ve gone in and looked, and it’s still checked as being there.

It won’t let us go back a day to when it was there. Just to this morning, which is when the problem started. It’s a major pain, since now I can’t get anywhere without having a link. It was a lot of work to get over to Insanejournal, since I had to hunt through this journal until I found a link that happened to go to a group over there.

According to Spyware Doctor, it’s not a virus or Trojan doing it. Does anyone know how to fix this? We have Internet Explorer 6, I believe. If I could get over to Yahoo Answers, there might be something there…

ETA: Okay, got into Microsoft Updates, and I can see that an update was indeed done this morning. Anyone else been having issues from this? Or something similar?

ETA 2: We can’t get into the Control Panel using the Classic Start menu option, according to Dad. After a moment, he showed me exactly what he meant.

This means that when you right click the task bar, select properties, select start menu, and select the option of Classic Start menu—which is what we normally have—and then go and click on Control Panel, it won’t open at all. So it definitely sounds like an Windows Update issue of some sort, since everything was fine yesterday, and we hadn’t downloaded anything new--except for the update, apparently.

For the past 3 and a half hours, my computer has been acting insane. It said that it would try to recover files that hadn't been lost. Then, it said it was deleting every single file I had. It was apparently a 3 stage process, that just finished 5 minutes ago. It said it was done, and opened up Windows. To my delight, it didn't remove or delete anything from my computer. I've checked, and there wasn't a virus.

Does anyone know what would cause a computer to act like that?