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What a day...
A customer came in on Monday with a pile of single- and double-sided brochures and wanted them copied in color. (We do advertise color copies.) The only problem is that our "copier" is one of those H-P jobs that must be fed a regular diet of tremendously expensive cartridges (all of the cheap knockoffs we've tried to date have not worked out), and in the end, the buck a copy we charge is barely enough to break even.
So, this morning, it turned out that Caleb's jury duty had been rescheduled, so Galina took the opportunity to drive to Durango and have the copies done at a place that has a real color copier. While that solved the copy problem, it didn't solve the staffing problem, so I spent most of the day in the store.
Part of my mind was occupied with figuring out what could possibly cause - and what could possibly cure - my eSlate's predilection of booting to a state where one can move the mouse on the screen, but where neither clicking nor typing does a thing.
As soon as I got home, I got a call from Feht, who's been having troubles of his own. It turns out the hard disk on his desktop went to the Great Disk Graveyard, and the fellow he called to fix the problem really only fixed half the problem (he installed a new disk and Windows 2000, in preparation for installing a bidirectional satellite dish). However, the consultant could not figure out how to make the Compaq visible to Feht's two Macintosh machines, which is driving Feht to distraction (to the point where he asks me over to see if I can help... "over" being a 16-mile trip each way over twisty dirt roads.) I went and could not figure out a way to make the machines see each other.
I swear, there are days I can do no wrong in the networking department, and then there are days it seems I don't know where to find the Big Red Switch.
Anyway, coming home, I finally sat down to figure out my eSlate's problem, and it has somehow "gone away," at least after I disabled the BlackIce program... and I'm not at all sure there way any cause-and-effect there. I just noticed that the only keyboard action that was allowed in "freeze" mode (Ctrl-Alt-Del) would bring up a task list showing BlackIce to have stopped "responding."
So, I used the boot disk to give me access to the machine and then I renamed the executable so it would not be loaded during the boot procedure. The first time I booted the machine after doing so, it still hung, but I noticed that clicking on an icon while the tray apps were loading would cause the icon to be highlighted; the hang only occurred after all the tray apps were loaded. The next time I booted, I opened a DOS window, and at that point, the problem appeared to have gone away.
Well, at least now I can hope to use the machine while on the road. I have to make sure I bring along my Windows Me CD, just in case. And the boot diskette, too. (If it turns out I need a sledgehammer, I've still got one in Houston...)
On a whim, or out of desperation, I called Sony to find out the status of my VAIO. After what seemed like forever, a tech support person came on the line and was pretty efficient, for once. He said the fan parts for my unit just arrived; that they had been on back-order. There's no way the unit will go out tomorrow, nor on Monday, by which point I'll be in Houston. So the eSlate only has to wear Windows for a couple more weeks only, until I get back from Texas...)
Cheer...
A customer came in on Monday with a pile of single- and double-sided brochures and wanted them copied in color. (We do advertise color copies.) The only problem is that our "copier" is one of those H-P jobs that must be fed a regular diet of tremendously expensive cartridges (all of the cheap knockoffs we've tried to date have not worked out), and in the end, the buck a copy we charge is barely enough to break even.
So, this morning, it turned out that Caleb's jury duty had been rescheduled, so Galina took the opportunity to drive to Durango and have the copies done at a place that has a real color copier. While that solved the copy problem, it didn't solve the staffing problem, so I spent most of the day in the store.
Part of my mind was occupied with figuring out what could possibly cause - and what could possibly cure - my eSlate's predilection of booting to a state where one can move the mouse on the screen, but where neither clicking nor typing does a thing.
As soon as I got home, I got a call from Feht, who's been having troubles of his own. It turns out the hard disk on his desktop went to the Great Disk Graveyard, and the fellow he called to fix the problem really only fixed half the problem (he installed a new disk and Windows 2000, in preparation for installing a bidirectional satellite dish). However, the consultant could not figure out how to make the Compaq visible to Feht's two Macintosh machines, which is driving Feht to distraction (to the point where he asks me over to see if I can help... "over" being a 16-mile trip each way over twisty dirt roads.) I went and could not figure out a way to make the machines see each other.
I swear, there are days I can do no wrong in the networking department, and then there are days it seems I don't know where to find the Big Red Switch.
Anyway, coming home, I finally sat down to figure out my eSlate's problem, and it has somehow "gone away," at least after I disabled the BlackIce program... and I'm not at all sure there way any cause-and-effect there. I just noticed that the only keyboard action that was allowed in "freeze" mode (Ctrl-Alt-Del) would bring up a task list showing BlackIce to have stopped "responding."
So, I used the boot disk to give me access to the machine and then I renamed the executable so it would not be loaded during the boot procedure. The first time I booted the machine after doing so, it still hung, but I noticed that clicking on an icon while the tray apps were loading would cause the icon to be highlighted; the hang only occurred after all the tray apps were loaded. The next time I booted, I opened a DOS window, and at that point, the problem appeared to have gone away.
Well, at least now I can hope to use the machine while on the road. I have to make sure I bring along my Windows Me CD, just in case. And the boot diskette, too. (If it turns out I need a sledgehammer, I've still got one in Houston...)
On a whim, or out of desperation, I called Sony to find out the status of my VAIO. After what seemed like forever, a tech support person came on the line and was pretty efficient, for once. He said the fan parts for my unit just arrived; that they had been on back-order. There's no way the unit will go out tomorrow, nor on Monday, by which point I'll be in Houston. So the eSlate only has to wear Windows for a couple more weeks only, until I get back from Texas...)
Cheer...
