Down and Out in the HD

I've just gone through a bad 4 weeks of fighting a bad infection. During that time I did not touch my various computer systems.

The Linux Box and the PSP I had little concern for, they just "keep on Truckin". But my Vista Acer Laptop gave me pause for concern...

On week 3 1/2 of non-use I decided to switch it on and see what was what.

Vista would not boot.

Crap! (under my breath I said: Windows, you've done it to me again)

Vista said a hardware error had occurred and would try to fix it. Would I like a restore to try and fix it?

The mouse pad pointer was there but dead, and the tab-key that should let me move to the Okay, try restore box didn't work either.

Crap!

I tried booting from a Live Linux CD, but that would only tell me the hardware was working fine, it was just windows having a problem.

The Acer notebook was being run off of AC, and I remembered that my cable box had problems during the same 3 weeks, and got stuck in the on position and wouldn't let the remote control it.

I disconnected the Acer from the wall and ran it off the internal battery (which I hoped was fully charged for a restore).

I rebooted the Laptop and the same screen of trying to fix the problem came up But this time, the mouse-pad was working.

I clicked yes, and 10 minutes later my Laptop was up and runing again.

Thank you Windows, Thank you Vista.

Lokking for a simple EDITOR (ARGHHHH)

First up, working on the ACER with the little mouse pad thingy in the middle IS-A-PAIN.

Where in the heck do you rest your right palm if you're a hunt and peck typist, like me? (Now I'm sounding like a Techie Andy Rooney).

Anyway, I'm kinda getting used to the different keyboard, that just takes time, but in Vista, why don't the have a simple text editor like the old notepad?

Word Pad Is Not The Same. Too much for Q&D editing of blogs. I like editing my blogs, and ideas, on something like qedit on Linux

Put in notes, add web addresses copy and pasted from Firefox or Opera. Simple, elegant.

From My notes and rough blogging in qedit, I just cut and paste to Blogger and then in Blogger add the Highlights, Color and Text sizes.

Simple, elegant and mainly the way I like to work.

So where can I find a simple, no frills text editor?

That is the question....

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Vista Vectors Welcome: Just Like Old Times...

My dvd drive died after a week of work on the new Windows Vista. Turns out it didn't die it just disappeared. Vista didn't know it was still there.

Googled the web for a fix and found I wasn't the only one having this %&^# problem. A quick fix was erasing a line in the registry (Yeah, that is Spooky!), but it worked for me.

This is the link to the registry hack similar to the one I used and matches my possible cause of error, Putting a blank DVD in the the drive and leaving it there. Hmmm.

Vista DVD -Drive registry fix (be Very Careful with registry modification).


Ah, windows, just like OLD-Times

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Side notes to myself:
Python on Vista?
Someone's done it, this from his web page:

June 22, 2006
Installing python msi on Windows Vista

Finally I've managed to install python on my Windows Vista!
Every time I tried to install the .msi package it was stopping work just after selecting the destination folder and I was going crazy to find a solution..
Then I managed to install it correctly using msiexec

msiexec /i python-2.4.3.msi TARGETDIR="C:\Program Files\Python24" ALLUSERS=1 /qb

( http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.4.3/ where to get python-2.4.3.msi )