Reflection: Those (Very) Protective Anti-Virus Programs

September 18 was the day Toto's free trial of McAfee ran out (or so it told me). It was hard to use the little netbook in the days leading up to September 18 as McAfee kept flashing dire warnings. I felt I had things under control, but the security program knew how to tug at my heart strings.

On the evening of the 17th, I looked up security programs, some free, some in the neighborhood of $30 to $40. It seemed like the free version of AVG did less than it used to -- understandable, I suppose, in a freemium world. Still, the free program would stave off crisis. Windows gave us a firewall, and AVG would at least momentarily give us our anti-virus; later I could decide if I wanted to purchase something additional for Toto and Snookums.

Now here is where things got curious: AVG proceeded to download more than it indicated it would -- or so it seems. (It wouldn't want to see anything happen on its shift.) Also, it is the 20th now, and McAfee is hanging around longer than indicated. It appears it is thoughtfully giving me a grace period. (Will it win my heart yet?) It put up an icon that we were in a state of alert (no protection? low protection?) But when I plugged my camera in, it warned me that there was this device connected... and did I want it to scan the thing? Perhaps McAfee has downgraded itself, but it has not left. I picture it like the Cheshire cat -- some part remaining.

Choices, choices... I guess most security program companies offer some sort of free download that's separate from their trial. Some offer more, some less. McAfee has a curious program that will let you know whether the security program you currently have installed (whatever it might be) is behaving properly. It will tell you things like, "CA Security reports that things are peachy keen. But if you want even more protection, you can upgrade to McAfee TOTAL Protection now." Snookums-the-Netbook has one of those programs. So far I have not felt the need to get Toto one.

photo: pittaya

Reflection: Occupational Therapy with Cyber-Slime

Sometimes I am struck by how much my netbook is like me. I have determined that the dear netbook has a processing disorder... no, no, I am not talking about its hard drive, I mean more of a sensory processing disorder. It's hypo-responsive to some stimuli.

It happened off and on for a couple months: There were several keys that would sometimes be difficult to use and then sometimes go out altogether. (Ever tried to paste in periods at the end of sentences?) Ah, but then it would be fine again, completely fine.

When one of the afflicted keys would go out, they would all go out. When one of the afflicted keys would return, they would all return. I wondered if temperature changes were causing condensation. It appeared to be something more than dirt, and yet -- here's where the story starts to get strange -- I learned that it really liked the yellow cyber-slime I bought to clean it. I mean, it really liked it. I mean, those keys could be the cleanest ones on the whole keyboard, but if I took a moment to massage them with cyber-slime, voila, they worked again! Like magic! Over and over again, the trick worked. As odd as it sounds, it's no coincidence. It might take a few therapy sessions over the course of a day before the keyboard is ready to work smoothly for an extended period, but then things will really kick back in gear and it will be fine for a long time.

I am actually at a bit of a loss to explain this. Is something slightly warped or out of shape? Or... Well, I've heard that occupational therapists sometimes have some success using sensory materials to rewire the processing systems of children with autism or SPD. Whatever the underlying cause, it appeared that my netbook just needed a little occupational therapy.

Now here's something that relates (though it doesn't involve netbooks or cyber-slime). I've added quite a bit to it recently, and it's probably the best job I've done telling my own life story on a Squidoo lens or a webpage: Memoir of a Hyporesponsive Child

Hard to Keep Me Off the Internet...

It is hard to keep me off the internet. My phone and internet have theoretically been moved to my new room today -- I moved down a floor in the world! -- but there are some obstacles in the way of actually getting ethernet up and running. This is after all a 1920 building. The phone jack, which of course wasn't designed for ethernet, almost appears... well, walled over. The apartment manager, Jack, is going to come up later to remove the old phone jack and try to install the ethernet one. Hopefully Jack will have the jack -- and the internet -- working later today.

So where am I typing this post from now? No, not the local library, which doesn't open til 1:00 on Tuesday. I am typing from... my new mini-studio on floor 3. It juts out a little into the alley, see, and I am a little closer to the free wi-fi zone on 'the Ave' a block over. Close enough to... I am sitting on the day bed by the window enjoying a very week internet connection, courtesy the city of Seattle. This city-of-Seattle-sponsored-freebie wouldn't do at all for, say, internet teaching -- that's reason alone for ethernet -- but if I don't mind pages timing out quite frequently, I can engage in some internet activity!

I think it may help to raise the (adorable) netbook more to window level, but I do want the (adorable) netbook perched in a very secure position. So I have my arm and the netbook resting on... no, not a lap table... a large stuffed bear.

Speaking of which... I was taking some pictures of my 'recording studio' and the studio, in general, but there is another little obstacle. The computer that's hooked up to the scanner at Online Coffee is down. Actually all the computers in that corner were wearing "Out of Order" signs this morning. But... there is another Online Coffee with a scanner that doesn't work as well, but, last I knew, was working.

It can also be hard to keep me from scanning pictures if I have a mind to do so.

Now if only everything else were so easily solvable... using will alone.

Reflection: Uploading Oneself to the Internet...

I did an online test of my netbook's internet connectivity speed. The upload speed was slower than the upload speed, yes, but not by as much as is usually the case. The upload speed measured at close to average for all computers with similar ISP addresses, while the download speed was markedly slower. What does it mean that the netbook has a much better upload speed than download speed? It (like me) shows, relative to the general population, marked adaptation/ preference for uploading itself to the internet as opposed to merely downloading.

Reflection: A Global Netbook

The picture is of my six-year-old niece with my netbook, taken when I was in Arizona. I was tutoring ESL via petite netbook this morning (a Cambridge student of Chinese background).

Just occasionally someone sends a session request via eduFire for a subject I don't necessarily promote a lot, like conversational ESL. I thought I might encounter difficulties this morning -- or issues regarding mechanics being in and out of the apartment (loudly) replacing the pipes -- but no, it went quite smoothly. (Hey, one needs to earn a bit of money to survive -- and it's been tough.)

Now about the talented little netbook that does tutoring... it has a Squidoo page: My Acer Netbook (Snookums). One of the first I put up after getting my giant squid status.

Reflection: Netbook Attachment II / Beautiful to my Ears

I read somewhere that if a netbook quieted down when you picked it up, the noise was probably coming from the fan, and not the hard drive. So does that mean netbooks are like babies -- they seek human contact and go hush-a-bye when you hold them? (Or do you suppose it has more to do with circulating air?)

The netbook in the picture is mine. It was christened Aubrey, but it answers to Snookums. I have thought at points of doing a Squidoo page for this here netbook. It could recommend some products/ security programs, and I could include some blog posts where it appears as the charming creature it is.

Perhaps I shouldn't personify it too much, though... I've been concerned about it this week. It's a bit noisy, though not as noisy as the noisy Acer netbooks people have seen fit to post to YouTube. If it were to need a major new part... ah, well, better than getting a new netbook.

Snookums, you and I are going places! This here is the best netbook because... well, rather than give you pragmatic reasons I could give a mishmash of stuff straight out of The Little Prince and The Velveteen Rabbit. Seaking of which... do you suppose there might be a Blue Fairy for netbooks, a fairy who swoops down and gets them eventually, and says thing like, "You have been an absolutely awesome Acer Aspire One netbook. Before you were real to Karen. Now you shall be real to everyone."

Reflection: CA Security and 'Snookums'

After the two-week trial of McAffee security software wore off (some months back) I installed the CA Security Suite that Radio Shack had included as a promotion. I preferred (and indeed somewhat missed) the McAffee program. Still, I am glad that I have not only refrained from referring to CA as "the currently installed dictator" but that also, when CA sends up a popup telling me what it's protected me from thusfar (mostly 'inbound connections' and adware) I say "Thank you," quite politely as I click the message.

Well, CA has come to the netbook's rescue on two recent occasions. Once I got a message of some threat that appeared to come from Windows, and foolishly clicked; immediately it was obvious that I had entered some other website that was merely masquerading as a Windows window. CA sent up a message about a virus-infected file; apparently it dealt with the file quite adequately (zapped it? cleaned it?) on contact. It was then that I threw in the "dear". "Thank you, dear," I say when it sends up one of those boxes to numerate the various things it's blocked or otherwise dealt with, and remind me that it's protecting my computer.

Then came the second incident. Apparently there was a third-party module on Squidoo that was briefly compromised/set to download contaminants. CA dealt with that smoothly as well. Well, hmmm, there are only so many ways one can express gratitude to a security program. I'm already calling it "dear"; I'm not about to upgrade it to "Snookums". (I reserve that term for the netbook itself.)

That picture is not Snookums, by the way. Snookums is "wittel-wer" and cuter. A few people might recognize that laptop photo from my "Struggling to Pass Brain Chemistry" piece, linked to in a previous post.

Now about that piece: I came home to a message from a "Giant Squid" who had written something in my "guestbook" that she had intended to be anonymous but that her name appeared alongside. She wanted her words deleted as she was concerned that they might reveal information that was told to her in confidence. I deleted of course -- but I was glad for the opportunity to have read her words. I had titled that guestbook "Similar situation?" but I hadn't necessarily expected another Squidoo-er would pour out so much in that particular spot. There are a lot of writers on the site, and sometimes one of them has indeed been searching for something similar... In our hearts and minds, we are sometimes closer than we realize, but we don't know 'til we open our mouths.

Reflection: Listening Across Time and Space

I've been listening to my Squidoo page, Going Greyhound Without Going Crazy. Now you might be thinking that there are a lot of interesting people in the word to converse with, and wondering just what my Squidoo page would be doing that's got me listening to it with such rapt attention. Well, you see... it sings. I added an Amazon module with some clips of road songs and other songs about going home: It's got two separate songs titled "Home" in addition to "Homeward Bound", "Travelin' Blues", "Teach Your Children Well" (You, who are on the road, must have a code...)

So I am intending to have 50 of those pages completed and become a 'Big Squid' along about this summer. Some webpages have more of me in them than others. This Greyhound piece is a fairly straightforward commercial piece, with the exception of a couple things like... well, the ad modules. My netbook is recommending a particular carrying case for travel. If one reads the fine print of that Amazon module, they will see that, in addition to its other fine attributes, the netbook case is quite comfy, or at least that I've heard that it is, though I can not actually fit inside it myself.

I'm not real good at doing the commercial thing -- I tend to do what pleases my heart and/or aesthetic sensibilities. But, since so many things in life have 'theme songs' that Amazon module is handy. I'm planning on putting up a couple more 'lenses' soon that include music modules: Amazon and YouTube. One lens is going to use, as its main text, an essay from I wrote a few years back. School will resume next week -- with just a few more weeks before semester break, but honestly, the most useful thing I can probably do this week is keep my nose to the... internet: internet writing, internet teaching...

I've got projects -- some personal, some bigger than personal -- that I'll write about soon.

Reflection: Inside the Flood Begins...

I thought one's apartment just got flooded like this on TV. I think they must have been working on plumbing/ replacing pipes at my apartment building. Bad timing on my part. I turned on the faucet and found it not working, and then failed to turn it the right way to 'off'...

A bit later, the water came on not in a regular way, but in a the-dam-has-burst-way. It happened in extraordinariyly little time. I was laying in bed when I heard a sound I could not at first place. When I came out of the closet (the one I sleep in), I found that the waves had spread out from the bitty bathroom and into the main part of the studio; obstucted by a mattress that I had carried up from the "free things" area downstairs, the water formed a wading pool in the part of the studio nearest the bathroom.

Well! It looks like I am going to lose very little of monetary or emotional value from that particular mishap. My dear netbook was safely on higher ground, and I swooped a bit of tech equipment from the vicinity when I realized what was happening. (When I woke the netbook up and asked it how it was doing, it told me it detected some wireless networks in the vicinity -- pretty much what it usually says when it wakes up from a nap.) Most of the paperwork that was stacked up (and staunching the flow) in the corner was old worksheets, though I may have lost some receipts and records. The closet I sleep in is near the bathroom, and there were items that got some water-soaking/water damage. I staunched the water flow with lesser a couple old pillows and various articles of clothing that needed to be thrown away, mended, or turned into household rags. Eight grocery bags later, I was seeing dry land.

As I noted, this particular 'minor calamity' won't even cost me much money-wise, much less emotionally. That is more than I can say for many of the events of the past couple years. Sure money is a bit of a stressor -- I may decide to move out of this apartment -- but ultimately practical losses occupy the tiniest fragment of my mind, very unlike the emotional ones... I was having trouble finding any tags to fit this post, so I created a couple new ones, naming one of the categories 'minor calamities'.

Reflection: Netbook Attachment/ Beautiful in my Eyes

I was thinking about a previous post regarding the distinction between dependency and attachment -- and I was also thinking about this bitty netbook here. An acquaintance said a person can only be termed 'attached' if they're unwilling to trade their special something for something else of equal or greater value... Well, I surely agree, and I guess I'm a little attached to my netbook; I can't envision trading it for a laptop of twice the price. Partly, the attachment has grown from personifying the bitty computery-wutery in my posts, a bit like I once personified the great city of Seattle (though not to quite the extent). It's not a person, it's not a kitty-cat; ultimately, there's a limit to how much I would pay to get it repaired -- yet there's this pang in my stomach when I say those words. Ah, attachment! There's a limited number of objects I'm attached to -- and a limited number of people. Attachment often traces back to some initial recognition of positive qualities in the 'other', but it wouldn't be attachment if that's as far as it went. Dr. Laura titled a chapter of one of her books "Stupid Devotion" -- and then wrote about women who tried to change people because they really weren't happy with them at all! That's not devotion. Again, I think it's dependency. If you're devoted to something, then that something becomes, in the words of Joshua Kadison, "beautiful in (your) eyes."

A Related Flash Memoir: Sylvia Angel

Reflection: If You Need Anything, I'll be in the System Tray

Several computer giants are competing for the allegiance of my small netbook. My Google toolbar offered to import my Microsoft favorites, and then Microsoft told me it could post to Blogger for me, using Windows Live. I clicked on the Windows Live icon out of curiosity even though I don’t have an account. Lo and behold, a Messenger showed up, and, like a genie sprung from a bottle, it refused to leave. I clicked on the Messenger’s ‘X’ and it told me that, just in case I were to need something, it would still be running in my system tray. I actually was writing this particular entry in Microsoft Works, offline, when an ad appeared for Hotmail -- 'Get it now!' -- with a picture of a guy whopping himself in the head like he just realized he could have had a V-8. So the other day, I was installing a security program that Radio Shack had given me as a promotional giveaway… I unchecked a couple boxes as the program was installing. If I hadn’t unchecked those boxes, you know what the security suite was planning to do? It was fixing to set Yahoo as my homepage and install my new Yahoo toolbar…

In-Between Reflection: Faster friends?

First of all, meet my computer: It's a bitty Acer One netbook that runs XP: the kind of computer you want to talk baby talk to , not because it's a lesser computer, but because it's cute. As soon as I turned the thing on, it started sniffing around for wireless connections (now that seems like major technology to me!) and sending messages: "Google would like to install a toolbar here. Please let Google know whether it can install a toolbar here." The computer seems so competent, it made me wonder: just what are those important tasks the expensive laptops do that this bitty wittle computery-wutery (please do excuse the phrasing) does not do. I was thinking about that when I passed a sign -- "3 G: faster friends" Faster friends??!