Monday, May 2, 2016

Computers Make Our Lives Easier

HOLY CRAP!!! I will likely spend two hours or so typing this blog post and then hit the "publish" button and receive some sort of warning in numeric code that basically means, "Sorry, Bill Gates wants to force you to use more of his increasingly incompatible crap. We won't tell you what, but here's a meaningless error number. By the way, that error was yours, not ours. AND... you can't blog until you figure all this out."

Let's see, how did this begin... Oh yes, I just got home from work. Yesterday at about 9:30. I had a little spag and decided I had better get down to the business of upgrading resumes, work histories, self-introductions and all that jazz. I don't know if yesterday was the straw that broke the camel's back but after totally shafting me on my contractual 10 days of vacation just a couple of weeks ago, I got screwed out of a 4-day weekend this week. You see, May 5th is Children's Day here in Korea. May 6th is a Friday. Since it's a sandwich day the government of Korea has officially made it a national holiday. I asked if I will get the 4 day weekend and got the usual, "Well if it's an emergency, we can cover your classes." Ask any teacher, taking a break from teaching? Yes! Emergency! But just a few minutes later, the REAL boss barges into my classroom and in her fake baby talk sweet voice says, "You will need to teach on Friday. Not elementary school kids but middle school kids. Because if you don't they will be confused." That night I taught the classes that will be "confused" without me on Friday and most of them said they most likely won't even show up on Friday.

So, I am being kept around to teach 3 classes that will have only a few students each, if that. And one happens to be the class with my nemesis, Frank. What do you want to bet HE shows up?

Anyway, rather than start new documents for my resume and self-intro, which is what I should have done, I went into the old files I had created on my Indonesian computer on Microsoft Word. I did this because some prospective employers were telling me that they couldn't read the Open Office files I was sending them. NOW I remember this! I updated my home address and visa type on my resume and I took a children's camp intro and converted it into a general self-introduction. Part of doing so was deleting three pictures I had included from past children's camps. It took a couple of hours but I was satisfied that I had explained my work history and current situation. I added a more recent picture and sent the resume and self-intro to Gangneung Wonju National University, which is nearby and would be a convenient new job.

Sometimes I like to check important emails right away, and this was important so I immediately went into the "sent mail" area of Gmail to see what GWNU had received. I was shocked! The changes I had made to the resume were not saved. The resume I sent says I am currently living in Icheon on a Canadian visitor's visa. And when I looked at the self-intro, it was worse! The pictures I had deleted had somehow, ghostly reappeared in the background of my new self-introduction. I re-opened the file on my computer - no ghost pics! What the frig?

So, I get to thinking. These documents were written on my old computer, which I think I bought with Windows 10 on it. The computer I have now has been sitting in Canada for two years without being upgraded. It's running Windows 8.1. I check and find it's also running Open Office 4.0 and there's a new 4.1 available. So I figure this is a good place to start. Oh yeah, AND, now when I try to start a brand new file in Open Office 4.0, absolutely nothing happens. So I look for Open Office 4.1 and it's easily enough found. I start the download and it works. I start the installation and it stalls. "Could not complete installation. Check if there are Open Office files running." Or something like that. I figure out the Windows 8.1 Task Manager and see that there are a dozen Open Office 4.0 files running and I can't close them or find them. I go into Windows 8.1 Control Panel and figure THAT out. Not easy, but I finally find the way to add/remove programs. Open Office doesn't appear on the list. I have it - but I don't have it. What the friggin' frig?

So I do a Google query and find out that many of my fellow netizens had trouble getting Open Office 4.1 on Windows 8.1. Not compatible, you see. So the obvious solution is to just bite the bullet and get Windows 10. So I do. By now it's almost 2 in the morning and I am actually BEHIND where I was at 9:30. I forgot how tedious Windows 10 installation is. It starts and I go to bed. I wake up in the middle of the night and hit install and go back to bed. By morning I have a new wallpaper, a new browser, a whole new icon for just about everything and a new layout. I make a cup of tea and heave a huge sigh, and grab the mouse, hoping that it will work. By a remarkable stroke of luck, it DOES! Although I am positive I will need to disable the touch screen again.

The first thing I need to do is change my wallpaper. Easy enough. Go into internet options. So I swipe to the side. I swipe to the side. Yeah it usually takes a few swipes, I swipe to the to the, I swi, I fucking swipe to the what the HELL, MAN??!! Not that I like it, but I had gotten used to the power options being in the bottom right corner. Where are they now? And WHY? Guess I'll have to go to Google and find out how to find the internet options on Windows 10. Ludicrous! It's something I use all the time. It's gotta be easier to find! Come on, Gates! So I click the Internet Explorer "e" on the bottom of my screen, which looks a bit different in Windows 10. Up comes the MSN webpage in a completely user HATEFUL format. There's no File Edit View Favorites Tools Help. So I can't click on Tools and get to internet options THAT way. And now I need it to change TWO things! Where the shit is it?

Eventually it dawns on me that this is not Internet Explorer. This is Microsoft Edge. The new and shyte web browser Microsoft is trying to push. So I find in the dot dot dot area a way to display the page in Internet Explorer. It works. I find internet options and change my wallpaper and my homepage. I click on the "e" again and it doesn't go to the chosen homepage and it doesn't come up in internet explorer. I get this friggin' Edge again. Back to Google. How to get internet explorer to start in internet explorer. I had to type internet explorer into the search area, after bypassing the 1500, "Hello, my name is Calgon or whatever, and here's what I can do for you!!!" messages. Then I pinned it to the bottom of the screen bar. I then UNpinned The Edge. Sorry Edge, U2 crappy.

SO, now I go back into Gmail and start apologizing for the messed up application package. While I'm typing I notice a message at the top of the screen. Error #007. I now can't reply to emails on Gmail for some reason. So I just start a new email. I apologize for the messed up application package and tell them I really am not computer illiterate. Then I press send and get Error #007.

Back to Google.

It seems I'm not the first to have THIS problem either. The suggestions for troubleshooting this problem seem to all include NOT using Internet Explorer. So Gmail works with internet explorer on Windows 8.1. I had no problem sending the fucked up email at all. But Gmail doesn't work on internet explorer on Windows 10. What the frigging frigging FRIG???!!!

Am I going to be forced into using Google Chrome now, which I have tried and hate?

Why can't these software and search engine companies just get along?

I just want to send out some resumes.

Waaaaaaaaaaaahaaahaahaaaaa! GRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Addendum: I got Windows 10 and Open Office 4.1 working and tried to update and save my resume again. And again. And again. It says the existing resume will be replaced by the new one but it isn't. Also my printer, which was super easy to plug and play with Windows 8, is not recognized by Windows 10. It reads it, but the installation went on and on and on... I had to give up.

So the resume I tried to send and the lesson I wrote for today, after about 8 hours of fucking around on my computer, absolutely no good. In fact the resume will likely hurt my chances.

Computers make our lives easier...

No comments:

Post a Comment