Wednesday, November 25, 2015

AT&T services sucks

sitting at home and there is no service on my AT&T phone that I pay $250 a month for (5 lines)... the worst part is there is no way to contact AT&T online after a certain hour so service is out, i have no phone in case i need to be reached in an emergency (or if i need to call out in an emergency) and the $250 a month i pay to AT&T for phone service is ridiculous... the service is never great at home and i've been considering switching to another carrier (after almost 20 years with AT&T) because the service is deteriorating and this is the worst, not having service and not being able to reach AT&T on the web to report a service outage or find out if they even know there is a service outage in my area... that is the worst service a company can provide, no service and no alternative way to report no service... that is why i will not bundle all services with any carrier or company... so i can connect to the web through the mediocre brighthouse service, but AT&T web page services are shut down overnight so they just don't care about customers or cusotmer service...

bad timing, AT&T... i will be shopping around for other carries now...

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

blind vista

windows vista is locking up again... task manager is locking up after i closed the browsers that were locking up and closed a mess of svchost files... one of those refused to allow me access to close it or get properties on it or anything else and it locked up task manager when i tried... i can still type into the notepad and save it, but the computer just popped up with a "failure security options" dialoge box when i tried to get task manager to open again... now the task manager window is just a black hole in the middle of the screen blocking out the desktop behind it and it is not responding so i am forcing it closed... after closing, bow it will not open again and a security box issue keeps popping up when i try to open it... so i will have to reboot windows vista to use the computer... thanks again microsoft, for not letting me use my computer...

so i return and all is well and i decide it is finally time to back up stuff on an external drive and i decide to use kaspersky back up which is part of the security software and it seems to have four preset backup modes for documents, photos, videos, and music and all four are not selctable at the same time so it is a four step four click operation and it seems to be taking forever to transfer the files so i will try drag and drop next time and see if it any faster... computers require more time than they should to maintain them...

of course kaspersky decided it was time to update as i am backing up the drive so there are backup errors and slowing to a crawl... you'd think they would write the code so that the right hand knew what the left hand was doing, but not kaspersky... it may be rated one of the best protection programs, but it's really not very smart...

elapsed time 38 minutes 38 seconds and 18% is backed up... i wonder if it continues if the computer goes into sleep mode as it does when i walk away or does kaspersky expect me to keep using the computer for a few hours while the backup continues... the more i use the computer, the more errors i suspect because it can't very well backup files i have open... not impressed...

elapsed time 1 hour 3 minutes and 27% backed up... about 25 GB have been backed up... very slowly... i wonder if this is going to be a disk drive image for restore purposes only and not easily accessible files... kaspersky doesn't say much...

i went to sleep... it finished, more than 100BG used (for less than 50 GB of files), but i don't see files so i will drag and drop for easier access anyway...

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

power trippers

had a cop with a major inferiority complex stop me today... he was barely as tall as my car and had an obvious chip on his shoulder... after asking for my license registration and insurance from my back window, the guy would not come to the window... he stood at my back door and had his hand on his gun the whole time speaking with all sorts of attitude... i turned to look at him so i could hear him and he unbuckled his gun and yelled face forward... i explained i can't hear him because i have diminished hearing in my left ear and he said "are you not cooperating?"... i sat back and remained silent... all this was in the middle lane of a three lane road and since he was standing next to my car, he was blocking the left lane too at morning rush hour... dozens of cars were backed up and i finally said officer please call for another officer because i feel unsafe and i will call 911 if you continue to stand in a threatening stance... he snatched my paperwork out of my hand, dropping it on the ground and as if i had done something threatening, he drew his gun and almost fell down as he bent to pick up my license... i pushed dial on my steering wheel and said 911 and he ran back to his car... i almost reported "officer down" but did not want to spend the day in the middle of a stupid investigation as i was on my way to work...

when he came back he still wouldn't come to the window and said i didn't stop at a stop sign until i was in the intersection... he lied because i stopped before the stop sign, before he could see me because he was hiding behind a building were he could not see the stop sign... and even though he stated himself that i stopped, he wrote me a ticket for "running a stop sign"... not enough, he wrote me another ticket for "not displaying my registration" because i could not find my paper registration yet the license plate displayed my registration sticker which is more than enough for any cop who was not looking to provoke a confrontation... he handed me the two tickets without the usual explanation and i asked for his badge number... he walked away and almost hit my car as he sped away into traffic and dozens of cars behind him started hinking and several almost hit each other trying to get going faster than anybody else... when i pay the tickets i will be including a letter to the court detailing the interaction, the threatening posture, the unsafe traffic situation, the contradictory reasons for giving two tickets, and filing a formal complaint against the cop... i doubt anything will come of it, but it'll satisfy my sense of justice and maybe his supervisor will keep the guy from killing someone one day...

some people simply should not be cops...