The Befouled Weakly News
13 July 2008 Good morning from soggy, squelchy, sodden Byfield. We’ve endured rain, rain, some more rain, a bit more rain, and then some rain in all its forms this week – drizzle, downpour, mist, drizzle, downpour, drizzle, downpour, downpour, drizzle. Sun. Rain, drizzle, downpour, drizzle, etc. (Yes, the odd bit of sun has sneaked in from time to time just to tease us, I suspect. Having said that, this morning (Saturday) we are seeing a bit of sun which is doubly welcome – more details below). Had an enormous struggle with technology on Thursday when I was working at home. Ms Playchute placed a call to her technical support staff (i.e., me, downstairs) indicating that her computer was on a “go slow” and would neither retrieve e-mail nor connect to the internet. So, I re-booted the router and went upstairs to attend to her needs. After about an hour I was completely and utterly defeated. The computer was working fine except that it could neither retrieve e-mail nor connect to the internet, in other words, exactly how she had described the problem. However, another computer (my laptop) when connected to her cable could access everything just fine. I could ping her computer and her computer could ping others on the network and external sites. What was going on!!??!!? Those of you who read the technical news or who have experienced the same problem in the last few days will know the issue but I was utterly and completely stumped. How does this work – two of the three computers on the network could access everything yet they are all, essentially, set up the same. Well, you can imagine my discomfort and perhaps you can imagine Ms Playchute’s disgust with the inefficiency of her technical support contract. In the night, however, I had a revelation, as they say – I wondered to myself whether it could be something going on with Zone Alarm. So, on Friday morning I disabled Zone Alarm, enabled the bog-standard Windows firewall and, hey presto! Everything was working again. So, I began to do a bit of investigation and ran across the following on the BBC site:
I still was not quit clear why two of the three computers were still working fine but certainly downloading the new, patched version of Zone Alarm did the trick. Then, later on Friday the laptop ceased working with exactly the same symptoms. The third computer, my desktop, is still working fine with the original Zone Alarm yet it too has downloaded the latest Microsoft updates so who knows what’s going on. One of the more amusing aspects of the saga (it’s amusing now because I was able to solve it; if I was still scratching my head it wouldn’t be so amusing) is that Zone Alarm sent an e-mail out to customers which I received this morning. Problem is, if one is affected by the problem one has no e-mail or internet access; difficult to receive the message, I would have thought. Back to our glimpse of sunshine this morning (Saturday): we are delighted to see it as we are off to Northampton this afternoon for Naomi Butler’s (Penny’s brother Jeremy’s eldest) wedding and it would be nice if the sun did shine a bit. I’ll try to give you a brief bit of feedback and, hopefully, a photo or two later (i.e., in a second or two as you continue reading). I failed to mention the dilemma I faced last Saturday concerning what particular bit of sport to watch on the television: it was the first match of the Tri-Nations rugby competition which is held annually between Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. This particular match was between New Zealand and South Africa and was a great match held in the pouring rain. Sandy might know the answer to the question – why are the southern hemisphere sides so strikingly better than teams from the northern hemisphere? And so, to Naomi’s wedding which passed off exceptionally well. She was, as you can see, a beautiful bride and Lee, her now-husband, is a very nice boy who has learnt the lesson to a long and fulfilling marriage very early in his relationship with Naomi – do as you are told. The sun did shine, long enough for the photographs to be completed outside the church and the only shower of the afternoon came down while we were inside eating. Jeremy’s speech as father of the bride was very good and quite amusing, accompanied by a slideshow of photographs and video clips of Naomi at various stages in her infancy and childhood. Unfortunately, he experienced some technical difficulties and we, apparently, were unable to view about forty photographs he had chosen. With hindsight, I suppose that might have been a blessing as it did reduce his speech to a mere forty minutes for which I guess we should be grateful.
Even the lady Penelope and I managed to scrub up to a tolerably acceptable standard.
Love to you all, Greg A wife one evening drew her husband's attention to the couple next door and said, "Do you see that couple, how devoted they are? He kisses her every time they meet. Why don't you do that?" "I don't know her well enough." General Motors doesn't have a "help line" for people who don't know how to drive, because people don't buy cars like they buy computers -- but imagine if they did.... Call No. 1 CUSTOMER: "I got in my car and closed the door, and nothing happened!" HELPLINE: "Did you put the key in the ignition slot and turn it?" CUSTOMER: "What's an ignition?" HELPLINE: "It's a starter motor that draws current from your battery and turns over the engine." CUSTOMER: "Ignition? Motor? Battery? Engine? How come I have to know all of these technical terms just to use my car?" Call No. 2 CUSTOMER: "My car ran fine for a week, and now it won't go anywhere!" HELPLINE: "Is the gas tank empty?" CUSTOMER: "Huh? How do I know?" HELPLINE: "There's a little gauge on the front panel, with a needle, and markings from 'E' to 'F.' Where is the needle pointing?" CUSTOMER: "It's pointing to 'E.' What does that mean?" HELPLINE: "It means that you have to visit a gasoline vendor, and purchase some more gasoline. You can install it yourself, or pay the vendor to install it for you." CUSTOMER: "What!? I paid $$12,000 for this car! Now you tell me that I have to keep buying more components? I want a car that comes with everything built in!" Call No. 3 CUSTOMER: "Your car sucks!" HELPLINE: "What's wrong?" CUSTOMER: "It crashed, that's what went wrong!" HELPLINE: "What were you doing?" CUSTOMER: "I wanted to run faster, so I pushed the accelerator pedal all the way to the floor. It worked for a while, and then it crashed -- and now it won't start!" HELPLINE: "It's your responsibility if you misuse the product. What do you expect us to do about it?" CUSTOMER: "I want you to send me one of the latest versions that doesn't crash anymore!" Call No. 4 CUSTOMER: "Hi! I just bought my first car, and I chose your car because it has automatic transmission, cruise control, power steering, power brakes, and power door locks." HELPLINE: "Thanks for buying our car. How can I help you?" CUSTOMER: "How do I work it?" HELPLINE: "Do you know how to drive?" CUSTOMER: "Do I know how to what?" HELPLINE: "Do you know how to drive?" CUSTOMER: "I'm not a technical person! I just want to go places in my car!" A butcher's shop in Moscow in the old days. It's winter and a gale whips around the queue. After an hour the butcher comes out and announces: "There is less meat today. All Jews should go home." An hour later it's snowing. The butcher declares: "There is even less meat than I thought. All non-party members should leave." Finally, much later, with a blizzard now howling down the street, he emerges to say: "I have no meat at all. Everybody can clear off." As they leave one old woman grumbles: "Typical - the Jews always get the best deal." Back to Greg's Temporary Home Page
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Many users of the ZoneAlarm firewall have been floored by a fix to the net's addressing system.
