The computer Gods aren’t happy

Robert,

I thought that you might use an offline edi9tor like the OPML Editor or something like w.bloggar to do your blog posts?

After using programs like that, I will never go back to writing my posts on the web.

But that's okay because you restart every day to keep the computer gremlins away.

Bob, nah, after getting hell about it I don't restart anymore. I just sleep my computers and restart every weekend. The weird thing was it just never came back from sleep.

Weiyen, yeah, I have to start using one of those.

Why would you use Internet Explorer anyways? You're not with Microsoft, so feel free to admit that you want to switch to Firefox because it kicks ass. Oh, and I'm typing this from OpenBSD using links. Yes, I'm using a TEXT BROWSER. w00t, I'm hardcore. ;)

Cody: cause I'm using Vista and I like IE, actually.

Bleh, IE sucks. Just because you're using Vista isn't a reason for using IE.

Robert, why don't you use Word 2007 to do your blog posts? Beta 2 seems like it's pretty stable for such tasks; far more so than a web browser, especially since it has auto-backup.

Nick

The Microsoft gods are finally turning on ye ... you should not have left the mothership ;).

Following-up a bit on Cody's comments...

How come your site's title is still "Microsoft Geek Blogger"? (does that still fit well for you or have you just not gotten around to changing it? ;)

What version of Firefox are you using? (1.5 or are you testing out 2.0, aka Bon Echo? Also, have you tried Opera 9? a comment or two about IE 7 vs FF 2 vs Opera 9 would make a great post, BTW... hint hint ;) and are you using any extensions or themes? (if you've customized it a bit, I don't suppose you'd mind sending a screenshot to the Firefox Screencap Project? :) http://katyggls.blogspot.com/2006/06/firefox-sc...)

I see an Apple Computer in your future Rob
Learn from your son !

JP

Dunno if it applies to your case, but I have a BenQ notebook that works wonderfully well EXCEPT that sometimes it won't come back from sleep mode IF I've unplugged any USB devices while it was dormant. That is, suppose I have a USB keyboard and mouse, and I put the laptop to sleep and then unplug them. I have to remember to plug them back in (possibly even in the same port; I don't remember if that affects things) otherwise when I tell it to wake up it just sits there with a DOS cursor at the top left of a black screen until I press and hold the off switch to reset it.

Presumably it's all to do with one part of the system not realising it's been asleep, and getting confused about whether it needs to wait for all its bits and pieces to come back on line. Maybe this is what happened to you?

Incidentally: how's the reliability of IE7? Better than the previous ones? I've had no complaints about IE6 from that POV; I just use Firefox because it's not 2001 any more, and I prefer not to use abandonware if I can avoid it. I'll check out IE7 when it arrives, but it won't convince me to switch; it won't be as good as Firefox at the things I care about, being as I am a web developer.

I wondered what happened! Hey, I enjoyed that interview on Ch9 with Jawad Khaki. I appreciated the question, "What will IPv6 do for me at home?". I think I am still digesting his answer but glad you are asking the questions.

Lenovo then?

It is only a matter of time before the Scoblizer comes into the light. You can only hold out for so long until you realize that everyone else in the web 2.0 world uses Macs. And yes you can still use Mac Office (which by the way is Windoes Office 2007 only released a couple of years ago).

Robert, you should have tried the new Opera 9 :)

All these problems. All you need to do is get a Mac.

Well you got company at least, take a gander around the Tablet PC scene, Lenovo models are Horror Story Double-Features, not to mention running with Vista (I had tons of lock-ups on my Tosh test laptop, so much that gave up).

Opera 9.01 just got released, and although it has no Firefoxy extensions, it's faster than a rocket. Opera 9 becoming my browser de jour. I haven't used IE as a workhorse in years, and if needed, usually with the Avant front-end. The Opera tie-in with Bitorrent is an annonyance however, wish they made that optional.

I usually edit (and periodically save) longer posts in Visual Web Developer (as HTML files). This has eliminated the frustration I use to have when the computer gods decided to punish me. Which for me, I blog a lot, was several times per week.

Doc Searls had lots of problems with his Macs over the years. Macs aren't immune from hardware problems either. Always back up, no matter what your religion is!

But, don't tell anyone, but I just ordered a MacBook.

Are you going to run OSX on the Macbook, or Windows XP? or both?

The new core duo kit from Apple is nice. And you're right, "always make backups". There's no magical data protection aura cast by an Apple logo...

Hey - you might want to try out the new Opera - v9 just came out.

Thats strange when I tried IE7 - I couldnt use Firefox - just kept crashing - ended up removing IE7 now everything is fine again :-)

Ah-ha! Now you see why I stick with clunky old MSN Spces. At least it has the blog-by-email function, and the random "burp" at the beginning of each post is easily removed.

I'm currently using Firefox as my default browser, but that won't last. It annoys me greatly.

I used Fox for about a year and I really liked being able to use all the extensions. But I switched to Opera recently simply because the latest versions of Fox have become incredibly hardware-hungry, and on an 18-month-old office laptop this is simply ridiculous. Opera works fine for me, not so many extensions but then, it has some nice features (like RSS feeds and a much better download manager) built in by default... and doesn't take ages loading...

i tried firefox 2 and dont like that crap, IE7 is much nicer than it and for me is a better rendering engine. I like Avant Browser 11, its uses IE engine but is able to be customised with skins and the like

How to use the Recovery Console from the Microsft website
You can enable and disable services, format drives, read and write data on a local drive (including drives that are formatted to use the NTFS file system), and perform many other administrative tasks. The Recovery Console is particularly useful if you have to repair your computer by copying a file from a disk or CD-ROM to your hard disk, or if you have to reconfigure a service that is preventing your computer from starting correctly.

If you cannot start your computer, you can run the Recovery Console from the Microsoft Windows XP startup disks or the Windows XP CD-ROM. This article describes how to perform this task.

After Windows XP is installed on your computer, to start the computer and use the Recovery Console you require the Windows XP startup disks or the Windows XP CD-ROM.

For more information about how to create Startup disks for Windows XP (they are not included with Windows XP), click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
310994 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994/) Obtaining Windows XP Setup boot disks
Note To start the computer from the Windows XP CD-ROM, you must configure the basic input/output system (BIOS) of the computer to start from your CD-ROM drive.
Computers and Network Repair