Newark Technical Support

Yesterday morning, my computer screen began blinking in and out. It would stay on for about two seconds, then blink out, to reappear for a second or two before blinking again. Now, I'm a man who is rather complimented by a wink. Just not from my desktop screen. What to do, what to do. I know! I'll contact Newark, Ohio Technical Support.

Once the texts had begun, I filmed around a half minute of the monitor winking and sent it. The tech asked me to try hitting four buttons on the keyboard all at the same time. No result. So he said to try three different keys. 

The screen changed. I snapped a pic of that and texted it. Aha, we're getting somewhere, responded the tech. Click on blah-blah option.

A new screen came up. In fact, it was the start up screen. Enter your PIN, I was told, and see what happens. 

Viola! The computer, she worked, and right fine. I expressed profound gratitude.

Newark Technical Support. Five stars!

Printing Woes

On Monday after much hassle, I finally had current proof of insurance for my two cars. Yet it didn't stop there.

After finally getting updated insurance forms, my printer decided it didn't like me. It refused to spit the darn things out because, as it informed me politely, it did not recognize my computer.

An easy enough problem to solve, oui? Non. Non, non non at all.

Going to the settings file on my desktop, I located a window which said to type in a code which my printer would give me at my command. Lo and behold, it did. So the printer appeared to recognize my device.

It turns out that it was snickering with evil. I typed the eight digit number into the window on my screen and that spinny thing began which supposedly means something is happening. Great. My issue would be resolved.

Then I heard that evil cackle. The access window on the printer was flashing; it reported that the time frame to use the code had expired. What? It had not even been 30 seconds.

I tried again and was given a new eight digit number. The code expired almost as quickly as I entered it.

Third time's the charm, oui? Non. Non, non non non at all.

In desperation I emailed my cards to me brother Phil, who conveniently lives at the other end of the block. I had to have the cards or else Tuesday I could not legally drive my cars. He came to the rescue, printed them, and brought them down to me.

So, insurance problem settled. But me and that printer are going have a talk. Perhaps an attitude adjustment is in order.

Dadburn Literal Computers

I just went through an excruciatingly aggravating episode with my AOL account. I kept getting told that my password was incorrect, even though I was sure I had been typing it in quite correctly. I was at the point of hitting every key quite precisely to be absolutely certain that AOL and my computer understood my intent.

In my mind I was doing everything right, of course. But somehow AOL wasn't accepting that quite obvious fact, and I was getting very angry.

Then I noticed that some numbskull who shall remain nameless (because it wouldn't be fair even to call him Cloyce in this instance) had hit the CAPS LOCK key. So of course AOL wasn't understanding my password. I was essentially hammering it in precisely the opposite of what it literally was. Make sense?

So I was mad at AOL, the Internet, and computers in general all the while the victim of my own mistake. I'm glad I didn't raise too much of a ruckus.

A man's man

Three hours this morning, three hours I tell you, I've spent trying to get online through my desktop computer. Thank goodness for cell phones or I couldn't have posted anything to facebook.
After trying restarts, after unplugging and replugging various HTML cables and connectors over and over, after allowing updates to install, after running the troubleshooting program ad infintum, I am online. I can play my daily games. I can like posts and post some more. I can create today's blog (which you've noticed I assume). I am Marty; I am a man who can solve first world problem deftly. Well, I suppose not deftly as three hours is a chunk of time. But I did it. By gum, I did it. I am online. I have solved the problem.
The trouble is that I don't really know how. Expect tomorrow's blog to be late.