The Vent and Rant Thread

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Good luck.

I can get the touchpad working by uninstalling the driver but on the next reboot it's back to unresponsive. The keyboard refuses to do anything.

Sent from my XT1528

[Blossom]

I give up. She can take it to the Geek squad. I'm convinced it's a virus and she won't give me permission to format. I can't back up her files. Anytime I open File Explorer and click on anything it thinks I'm hitting the delete button. It's got to be a virus.

Sent from my XT1528

[FizzyWater]

Any chance of running Linux in a Thumb drive and pulling her files off? I had a WinXP computer damaged by a storm electrical surge that wouldn't boot up. I was able to run Linux from a thumb drive, pull my personal information off (and I believe I mounted an external hard drive to move them to), then reformatted the laptop back to original.

[Blossom]

No because the keyboard and touchpad doesn't work. I can't even get into BIOS.

I hugged my Samsung laptop after dealing with that HP headache last night.

I tried resetting the motherboard by removing the battery and pressing the power button and that didn't work at all. The keyboard just doesn't work at all. The touchpad will work if I uninstall the driver but it just reverts on restart. It's a touchscreen so I'm able to use the accessibility keyboard but not the touch keyboard it just pops up and then down. I can't install programs that don't auto launch from browser download. Touching desktop thinks I'm hitting delete on the icon. I can launch from start menu but that's it.

Sent from my XT1528

[Katsunami]

If they keyboard and touchpad don't work in a basic manner (typing, two mouse buttons), it's possibly a virus, if in Windows, but if it doesn't work in a live Linux or in the BIOS (the keyboard at least), it's probably broken.

[Freehunter]

Just a thought. Don't know how old the laptop might be, does it have a port for an external keyboard? Or possibly try a USB keyboard.

[PeterT]

Remove the hard drive, install in a USB enclosure, attach to another PC and take a backup. Reinstall windows and restore data

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Freehunter

Just a thought. Don't know how old the laptop might be, does it have a port for an external keyboard? Or possibly try a USB keyboard.

It does have USB ports but I don't have a USB keyboard. I own a laptop myself. A Samsung ATIV Book 4. My Desktop is old (2008) so it uses a PS/2 connection. Thanks though. She'll take it to Best Buy. They are more equipped to handle the problem.

Sent from my XT1528

[DMcCunney]

There are days it doesn't pay to go online, and this has been one of them. A contact on a newsgroup I read posted a link to a death notice for a woman named Amy. It might just be the worst news I've gotten.

I first met Amy decades ago. I'm a science fiction fan, so was she, and we met in the context of SF fan gatherings. I lived in Philadelphia, and she lived in DC, so our paths crossed too rarely for my preferences.

I later moved to NYC where Amy was then living, one thing led to another, and we became involved. She affected me on levels I wasn't aware I had. She was the shining star in my firmament. If I'd been a young noble fool in the middle ages, I'd have donned my armor, mounted my charger, and rose off to battle with her kerchief tucked against my breast as a talisman. I loved her more than anything.

The relationship didn't work out. The breakup was too painful to confront directly. All I could do was lock it away in the deepest, darkest corner of my mind, and concentrate hard on what I was doing. As long as I was occupied and busy, I could keep it at bay. I spent years not sure which terrified me more: that I wouldn't see her again, or that I would. I wound up changing residences, careers, and lifestyles in consequence.

I described Amy on occasion as the Ex I didn't get over. Normally, when you're in a relationship and it doesn't work out, you're heartbroken, you cry, but sooner or later, you get over it, put it behind you, and get on with your life. That was not the case for me. I put it behind me and got on with my life, but I didn't get over it. I never stopped loving her more than anything, and I don't think a day has passed that I didn't think about her and wish things had turned out differently. I realized we would not have been a good long term combination, and it's as well we parted when we did, but the intellectual knowledge isn't a shield against deep regret.

She later married a chap named Jim I also knew from back then, and they were together for 17 years. She was what I wanted, but he could be what she needed. He made her happy when I could not, and since I wanted her to be happy beyond anything else, I was glad he was there. Jim died in 2008, as a consequence of metastasized melanoma, in her arms at her family home in Michigan. I was horrified, and dropped her email simply to tell her I loved her and was sorry. We stayed in irregular contact. She was living in the family home and providing elder care for her father and mother who were in their 90s (and are both now gone.)

A couple of years ago, she was diagnosed with colon cancer. She went through chemo and then surgery, and was left with a right foot she couldn't feel as a side effect of chemo nerve damage. She's from a large family - one of ten children - and various sisters rallied around to assist, for which I was grateful. She had a lively sense of humor, and her emails describing the process are classic. More recently, she had a hysterectomy, as part of a continuing effort to keep her cancer free. That it was found necessary did not bode well, and I dreaded the possibility of learning she was gone.

Today I found out she was gone. All of the efforts to keep cancer at bay had delayed the end but not prevented it. One of the things on my to-do list was email to Amy to see how she was doing, but I delayed too long.

I'm stunned. Part of me wants to do something I simply don't do, and get blind stinking drunk. Another part wants to curl up in a fetal ball in the corner and cry helplessly. Instead, I have the Strawbs "Hero and Heroine" album on. It dates from the period, and the title track pretty well sums up my feelings.

Farewell, Amy. If there is another phase of existence beyond this one, perhaps you and Jim are together again. That would make you happy, and that was all I ever wanted for you. I'll simply do what I've done every day since we parted, and take it one day at a time. And if there is another phase beyond this one, perhaps I'll see you again too. I'd like to think so.

In the meantime, a star has gone out in my sky.
______
Dennis

[Katsunami]

There isn't much I can say besides that I'm sorry for your loss.

[wodin]

She didn't pour a cup of coffee into it?

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

There are days it doesn't pay to go online, and this has been one of them. A contact on a newsgroup I read posted a link to a death notice for a woman named Amy. It might just be the worst news I've gotten.
______
Dennis

First, so sorry for your loss Dennis. It is sometimes crushing to learn the death of a loved one, however far away in time and distance. Finding out via the internet is often harder because you have nobody to respond to - the funeral is long over. Contacting the family? For what? Just be assured that there are others with similar experiences, and I think you are doing the right thing - listening to something to memorialize your feelings and remembrances rather than doing something to forget.

[badgoodDeb]

Huggs, Dennis.

[Hitch]

A while back, we had a client that started a book with us. She said, at the time, that it was going to be in two parts, and that she was really tied up, busy, with all her projects. All-righty, then.

She didn't complete the production of the book, in the initial spurt of energy. We got as far as making the ePUB (that's the first step, if a client has a book that seems, possibly, unfinished to us, or at least, unedited), and we didn't hear back. Time passed. (Insert that tune from Jeopardy, or whatever that show is, you know the one I mean...doo-doo-doo--DOO, do-do-doooo...)

So, this go-round, the first book gets made, and now we're endeavoring to wrap up the second book (Vol II). We get an edits sheet, and one of our bookmakers (we'll call her Jill), sends out the revised files on October 18th. More time passes.

Yesterday, 11/14, we get this email from the client:

After going through the first pages of [NAME OF BOOK] Volume II Kindle version, the First Round edits are not included.

Please review and re-edit and send back so I can finalize this version.

I have already prepaid for my edits but they were not made.

Now time is of the essence so I can start selling this book. Otherwise the date would have to be changed and I am not willing to pay any more for it.

Thanks very much.

Note that this email, about the passing of time, comes one day shy of a month, from the time we have sent the files.

Moreover, the edits were made; she's obviously viewing this in ADE or iBooks, both of which have caching issues. (In other words, the reader will keep displaying the first book that you upload to it, not the most recent version or the new one.) So...I tell her this. And I'm still waiting--now--to hear back that yes, when she removed V1, she could see the VII, complete with edits. Nothing so far, essence or otherwise.

But still, none of this recitation really imparts the true essence. To know that, you'd have to know this next bit, which is the date of the first "do" of this book--the one that got interrupted. This "time is of the essence" pair of books.

The original order? October 4th. (Not so bad, right?)

Of 2011.


Yup, kids, you can't make this stuff up.

Hitch

[Cinisajoy]

Mind boggled again.