Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Mercury Retro Still Pursuing Me Up Computer Creek?

Mercury Retrograde (or something) hasn't quite finished with me yet!

There I was, yesterday, thinking I was all ready to go, clean machine at the ready, Norton 360, like a big butch bouncer at the gates warding off nasty viruses and malware...."Yipee-ki-yay moth......" well ya know!

Then I tried to use my astrology software.

Didn't work, hung up before displaying the chart with data I'd input. Error message. Decided to uninstall and re-install again in case something hadn't quite "taken". Couldn't find the file to uninstall - not in usual place. Installed again anyway. This time when I tried to use it the software wouldn't bring up the atlas. Husband couldn't help in this case, though he tried. I then recalled, from somewhere in the far recesses of memory, that since I bought the cd for my astro software in 2006 there had been an update, to which I'd been entitled as part of the original purchase price. I'd accessed this via download, maybe 2 or 3 years ago. I still have my customer code number etc, so contacting the firm should solve matters.

Decided to contact the astro software firm this morning. First contact phone number I found online was no longer in use, a further search brought up a different number which worked. The lady who answered, after checking my customer number quickly offered to send me a link to a download for the updated version. She said it would cover the two old installations I have sitting useless on my machine. It didn't, but it seems to work. However, it looks completely different from the version I had. Hmm.....can't remember how I'd managed to keep the old look of the interface. Not to worry, maybe this is a second update of the original I've never had before.

Other minor snags arose too. I'm not too keen to have those ghost files from my old Windows installation, but they're probably safe enough. Norton found 2 viruses and a trojan on a full system scan, so the ghosts are clean enough, just cluttering up the works. A go around with C.Cleaner doesn't seem to have removed them.

My e-mail program was a licence paid-for version but can't find anybody - any human -to offer information on how to re-access the paid-for version. Screw it! I'll just use my internet provider's clunky e-mail program for a while.

Had enough for now. Back tomorrow, I hope.

8 comments:

CherryPie said...

I use this free email programme on my lap top computer:

http://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/thunderbird/

I also use Open Office on my lap top because it is free.

Anonymous said...

GP: Commiserations, T. Don't stress youself in all this. Maybe it's even good for you to have a break, away from the "net". After all, Mercury or not (I do not really suscribe to much of those anxieties), it's your life, and there is more to it than spending the best of your time being hassled by "system problems".

Remember those early cars. Heating when driving up some steep hill, etc. And who continued accepting (faithfully) were the "dumm consumers"...

Twilight said...

Cherry Pie ~~ Thank you for the link. I did download that prog. late yesterday, but it told me it couldn't find my server. Will try again when I'm feeling fresher. ;-)
Until then my internet provider's prog is better than nothing.

Twilight said...

Anonymous/Gian Paul ~~
Thanks, GP..... yes, I agree. I hate to be beaten by these things though.

I think I'm reasonably good-to-go now. My astrology software is working on both the old version and the newer interface, so the download link the firm provided me must have allowed my older version to kick in.....don't understand how or why, but it happened! Never look a gift horse in the mouth!

Should have a post up tomorrow, but likely to post less frequently until I've caught up with myself a bit.
:-)

James Higham said...

Get a Mac, Twilight.

Twilight said...

James Higham ~~ Maybe at some point in the future I shall do so. At presrnt I'm practicing a bit of lite frugality, mending and making do. :-)

Wisewebwoman said...

T:
A partial healing, then. Me too, I still have a pop-up I can't get rid of called "carrier"and web search tells me 'danger' and my system is "off". Can't explain it. Mouse slower, tax software lazier. Weird.
Total sympathy and empathy.
XO
WWW

Twilight said...

Wisewebwoman ~~ thanks WWW. It's a worry, I know. Once a really virulent virus gets into the system and spreads it's hard to know where the damage stops. I hope you can get your system completely cleared, in time.
:-)