Blah, Blah, Blah!

by Bob Seidel

As I sit here on a rainy Sunday afternoon, my brain is numb. Perhaps it's the endless Olympicommercials from our friends at NBC. OK folks, I have seen the commercials. In fact, I have seen them many times. I got the message. I want to see the competitions, not the twenty-second repetition of your offer to tell me how great your company is. We should have given the Olympics to cable TV.

Maybe it's the news. I just read that Nicky Hilton is the daughter of a famous hotel magnet. Oh? Does he attract money like iron filings? Does he have a North and South Pole? Or, perhaps, is he a MAGNATE, not a magnet! Why don't journalists study propa English langwidge?

It could be the effect of about six hours without power yesterday. (Oh, by the way, thank you Brunswick Electric for getting it back so quickly - I thank you and my freezer thanks you.) I haven't done more reading on a given day since when I can't remember. Oh, we did get out and pick up some limbs that had fallen, but we had little damage. Unfortunately, that is not true for some of you. We walked to the beach strand and saw a fair amount of damage - roof shingles off, siding off, etc. And the waves overwashed the dunes, at least in our area, but they held. I hope you all get repaired and back to normal soon.

Also mind numbing is the continued onslaught of viruses, trojans, worms, and spyware invading our PCs. Its getting harder and harder to disinfect them. In some cases, I have to recommend reformatting the client's hard drive and starting over, rather than spending hour after hour trying to disinfect the PC. If you don't have an up to date virus checker, a good software firewall, a hardware firewall (router) and a high-speed Internet connection, you are just grist for the bad guys' mill. The bad guys are getting smarter and smarter every day, it seems.

Oh, and I am still jousting with the company that I buy my PC parts from. Since they offshored their customer support, it is beyond horrible. If all goes well, and they ship my stuff on time, no problem. But lately their shipping has been very late, prompting me to call 1-800-2-INDIA, and speaking with a person who has no information and no power to help me. I am particularly incensed that they continually used the word "inform", as in "informing" me that 5 out of the 7 items I ordered were backordered. I informed them that using the word "inform" in this case was insulting. I do not want to be "informed" - I want to be helped. Oh, I looked up their corporate offices and phoned. I was politely routed to a non-working number!

Or could it be today's product manuals? The manuals for my new digital camera and flash are technically correct, but impossible to use. Oh, sure, the simple stuff is there, but if you do anything complicated (such as use the flash in wireless mode), you are lost. Thankfully, there are lots of folks out there on the Internet in various newsgroups and forums (I hate the word "fora" - and I have 3 years of high school Latin) who try to help. Unfortunately, on the main Nikon D70 forum on dpreview.com most of the posts are of the "Look at this photo of my dog Spot" variety and you have to work hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Sigh.

So, there it is. I will now go off and take a Xanax, and perhaps I will be better tomorrow! Scis quod dicunt: quod fiat fiat. Abeo!

(Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport / Oak Island area. You can visit his website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail him at bsc@bobseidel.com).