A Newly Rejuvenated Blog?

...Not Exactly, but I didn't need Tech Support this time!

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Warning! This posting is so boring, it makes My Eyes Glaze Over, and I'm the one who WROTE IT!

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After spending hours (excruciating hours, that is) trying to figure out what was wrong with my blog, and after performing two complete system recoveries, I was perplexed. Just lately, I could post to this blog, but when I went to 'view Blog', the page would freeze up and I couldn't scroll down, and wow, was that ever a giant hassle. And I sure didn't want to talk to some Tech-Support person in Bombay, India or wherever. I'm sure their hearts are in the right place, but I've found their accent, when applied to English, is Almost Untranslatable. Anyway, I've literally been involved in hand-to-hand combat with My Computer, trying to find out what was going on. And, it's close to 3AM the Next Morning, and I FINALLY FOUND OUT what was making my computer malfunction.

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First of all, when you do a system recovery, you end up flushing Everything You've Saved (unless you put it on a disc, I guess). I didn't have anything worth saving, so no problem there for me. After about half an hour of waiting for System Recovery to install itself into your computer, the screen grows mysteriously dark...we're now in the land of Computer Voodoo...and then, FLASH!, up pops your screen again with tons of Icons that you'd never think of using in a million years. So you've gotta delete the icons you don't want. Then, you've gotta go deep inside, into the murky dark depths of "Add/Remove Programs" and again take out all the stuff yer not gonna use, ever. You can gain a lot of free memory that way. I don't care that all the photos I've taken aren't in my computer's memory anymore. They're all posted at Webshots (http://www.webshots.com/), user name "digitaldave72" so I didn't lose any of those.

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And I went around and around, trying to figure out why This Blog Wasn't Working, and the first time around with the whole System Recovery thing, I think I misprogrammed a whole bunch of stuff, resulting in My Browser Not Working At All. Talk about feeling like a raving idiot. There was no way to get online; my blue "hp invent" blue screen just sat there, doing nothing. So I tried "System Recovery" again, once more going through all the procedures outlined above, deleting, deleting, deleting, and got my computer operating pretty-much the way I wanted. So it was time once again to Address My Blog Situation. It still didn't work. Then I begin getting into 'ActiveX' issues since that's the 'prompt' my blogsite said it needed in order to be able to run, but I couldn't get those to work, either. It was getting to the point where my computer was fast becoming somewhat less functional than your average paperweight.

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In my universe, I don't like things that don't work. If there is such a thing as 'anal retentive', I guess I'm it. I want control. I want everything to function the way it should. And I'll plow away at the situation for hours and hours. Perhaps there's some compulsion-obsession in my character as well. Trouble is, my technical knowledge falls far short of achieving the Things I Envision. And then, I remembered something which had happened a few hours previously; I'd inadvertently terminated a program download that involved installing Java. Hmmm...hadn't I heard somewhere that Java has something to do with certain websites? So off I went to the Java website and hit "download". Twice, the program Almost Loaded itself in, but stopped because of some "error 25099" code-thing that, upon further research, I found out that while the Java Folks don't know what's causing the error, they do provide A Solution. The Java website advised me to go waaay deep down into my files and totally Delete the Java stuff already in my computer and then Go back to the Java Site and Download Java once more. Fresh Java. Ulp. So I crossed my fingers and did what I was told...

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Evidently, something in my computer's old Java Mechanism got corrupted. It's like putting new parts in the car, sort of. You cross yer fingers and hope the parts don't break down anytime soon. But this time, All The Java I'll Ever Need installed SUCCESSFULLY into my Fierce Internet Cruising Machine. I then triumphantly returned to my blogsite, excited at the prospect of Once Again being able to Read My Blog, to scroll down, yea, with reckless abandon, to read any portion of my blog that's not yet in the archives. And ya know what happened? NOTHING. With that, I sent off my millionth "computer error report" to Microsoft, and my blog remained motionless. The only way to get out of a page yer stuck on is to go to another website with another window. Then, Microsoft sends you a little gray box that advises you to "report error" or something like that. Then, finally, the site you were on gets deleted.

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One more time, I went back to This Blog's display page. There I noticed a little bar that said "install ActiveX control" and it was a case of "not again"...but I figured now that that Java was working properly, since it managed to load completely, so maybe the ActiveX thing would work as well. And, whaddaya know, the ActiveX Control installed successfully, and hey, folks, we're back in the money again! My Blog Works. I guess there's a Procedural Order to all of this, First install Java, then Go Back to the ActiveX issues. Ain't life grand? Well, no, but now that I got everything fixed, life's a bit better, although it's still raining. Once the Old Java Was removed, replaced with New, Uncorrupted Java, there was another benefit that I wasn't counting on, or perhaps it was the new ActiveX issue-thing that got fixed after the Finally Complete Java Installation, or a Java/ActiveX blend of things, but anyway...

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I've now got BIG FONTS back on my blogsite! As you might remember, I've not been able to make a proper headline, instead resorting to SMALL BOLD LETTERS for the subject line and bold italics to further entice you to see what I'm raving about now. You know, maybe I was born in the wrong era. There are people making megabucks, doing what I've been doing for the last 10 HOURS (albeit they do it quite a bit faster). But, I didn't need to call Tech Support this time around. I'm sure you might wonder why I'm patting myself on the back here; well, I'm not. Instead, I'm just saying, "if I can do this, anyone can." Honestly, you can't screw up too badly on computers. Ya just keep pressing buttons until something happens.

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One more added benefit from Finally Getting It Right, was, that it's easier for me to drag a photo down from the top of this page it to the place I want it to appear. I'd noticed that task became more complicated right around the time I lost my BIG FONTS!!! (Have I lost my mind yet?) So anyway, the enhancement of That Procedure has enabled me to post this photo here, which More Accurately Describes My Computer Knowledge...

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So, in summation, it took me almost a Complete Day to resolve this issue within my computer. Something a tekkie-whiz-kid could do in half an hour. So do I have enough computer skills to work for the Federal Government yet? Surely, the Pentagon could use my services...