#technology woes

[theangrypomeranian]

good news! my Chromebook still works so I can write!

bad news...everything is so tiny now and i kind of hate it lmao

[dog-with-anxiety]

which cookies holds the tumblr site settings bc i've just been deleting any i don't recognise/want out of my list of cookies & it keeps on removing my specific site skin (vampire) and just setting it to dark mode

[kellyeddington]

The livestream? A fiasco! You can read more about it here if you’re interested.

[anonsally]

Days 0-1 of L.A. trip

With one very major exception, Day 0 of the trip went well.

I was fully packed and ready to go well before my planned time to leave the house. I had time for a good healthy lunch and then still had almost half an hour left, so I took out my computer. I had packed it when it was a bit warm and its fan was on, but since I'd closed it I figured it would just go to sleep. However, I had put it in a synthetic laptop bag, which meant the heat hadn't been able to dissipate. When I took it out, the fan was still running and it was burning hot. ...And it wouldn't wake up or turn on.

I tried not to panic--after all, once it had time to cool down, perhaps it would be fine. So I packed it directly in my somewhat breathable backpack without the laptop bag, and hoped for the best.

I left about 20 minutes early and took BART to the airport (this involved changing trains twice and waiting each time, but the last segment is a driverless double funicular (it changes cables halfway through), which is very cool, other than the fact that constructing it was hugely expensive and perhaps not the best use of funds). There was a short story dispenser in the airport, so I got a little story to read while waiting to board. The flight was on time, uneventful, and short; my aunt picked me up on the other end and we came home and ate dinner with my uncle.

Then I plugged in my computer and tried to start it up, to no avail.

I've had this laptop since November 2017, and it is definitely wearing out; I've known for a while that I should be preparing to buy a new one. But I was not expecting to need to buy a new computer on this trip, and I was afraid my data might not be recoverable. I made an appointment at a nearby Apple Store for the next day.

On the morning of Day 1, my aunt and uncle and I visited a Japanese garden associated with a water treatment plant. It was beautifully landscaped and had several ponds, so there were a lot of good birds. My uncle and I took photos of several of them. Back at the house after lunch, I did some backyard birdwatching, including trying to get photos of the Allen's/rufous hummingbirds at the feeder. I also did a little research about prices of new computers.

Finally, my aunt and I went to the mall to see if anything could be done to resuscitate my computer or at least recover the data. I tried not to get my hopes up. But the technician had some special tricks and miraculously managed to boot it up! He ran a couple of basic tests (which came back fine) and said that they could run more extensive tests for free but that I should first buy an external drive and back up my data (kids, please back up your data regularly! I hadn't done it since 2019 due to some software incompatibility and inertia). He also explained that repairs, if needed, would cost $500 and only come with a 3-month warranty, which would not make sense for such an old computer. So I will likely buy a new computer next week (I can get some credit for trade-in as well as an education discount), but at least this computer is not fully dead. I picked up an external drive to back up to and we came back home. I spent the evening catching up on 2 days of Tumblr and email, and then backed up my data.

[taperwolf]

Our cable internet is out.

Our cable company used to have a pretty extensive web site with outage notices, troubleshooting help, and technical support chat. Now they have switched primary access to a phone app, which offers very few options, and a mobile-optimized site with fewer still.

This is now the complete process: "Oh, your modem is not connected. Unplug it and plug it back in again," followed by a ten minute pause. "Oh, your modem is still not connected. Sucks to be you. Do you want service people tromping about your home tomorrow? Pick a five hour block of time you'll be available."

I was able to convince the automated system, after some abortive attempts, to tell me that nobody else in the neighborhood had reported outages. So at least I know that. And we've been having enough troubles with our connection to probably warrant a service visit. But honestly, although I have a lot of anxiety about phone calls, my wife's anxiety about unexpected visitors is worse, so I'd rather spend some time talking to someone trying to fix the cable than attempting to do a one-day clean and vacuum of the apartment.

Now to see if I can get Bluetooth internet sharing from my phone to my laptop working so I can update the SIFAS Daily Theatre archive with today's episode.

[formlessvoidbeast]

So, my trusty laptop Riven (a Dell, aka Riven-Dell) very politely waited until I was home to die a noble death via catastrophic hinge failure. Given that it was four years old and I paid all of $200 for it, I’m not mad about it. I was able to get all my files, as well as my firefox bookmarks, off it, too.

On the upside, I am now able to replace it with a slightly less bottom-of-the-barrel laptop! I just have to wait for the UPS truck to bring it to me.

The laptop before Riven was an Acer named Maple (because Acer is the genus of the maple trees). The new one is an MSI, which is somewhat less inspiring on the naming front. Suggestions are welcome!

[doctorjameswatson]

I’m feeling the need to change my icon pic to berena with their foreheads pressed together during the proposal. Just need to figure out how to capture the right shot etc.

So what I’m saying is, prepare for an icon change at some point in the next few days 😂

[samcat18]

Welp, i had the thought and the universe got me -- just yesterday i was like "huh, it's been a minute since my laptop keyboard randomly stopped working in the middle of what i'm doing, requiring me to drain my laptop battery so it can come back up, completely fine, as though nothing had happened"

And about two hours ago that exact thing happened so i am still sitting here staring at my laptop as it "restarts" for two full hours, and i try to get some work done on my phone to very little avail 😭😭😭