h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Poxy bloody (alleged) technology This is why I don't drive.

Guess 1
The Bus Broke down?

Ahh, but there has* to be more....

The bus broke down, because* the sat nav failed... or the electronic bus tracking notification system failed...

Perhaps he couldn't get in the car because the keys wouldn't open the doors.

No, it's keyboards

I try to blame the keyboards, but everyone else insists that it's a PEBKAC








Problem Exists between Keyboard and Chair

I'm still trying to make the connection between keyboard and driving.

I do know that driving games suck when trying to play them on keyboards.
[A]-left, [S]-right, [W]-accelerate & [Z]-brake, just doesn't cut it.

This is actually the latest in a series of PC-related problems.

Short version: a lot of things are banjaxed and money is tight and I'm annoyed

Long version...

The PC's been doing some odd things lately and I think it's getting close to time for another reinstall of the operating system. I hope it's not malware - I'm very careful about that sort of thing but no computer or system is safe these days. Reinstalling the OS isn't such a big deal - I've done it many times, and finding a brand new speedy PC is great (until it isn't speedy any more), but making sure everything is as it was before always takes some work, and I can't always remember where I put that box with the discs that have the application/hardware drivers, particularly as I've moved since the last time I reinstalled and everything's in a different place

Sometime last year I decided to install a 64-bit version of Firefox. This isn't an official Mozilla 64-bit Firefox (because they still haven't issued one) but it's based on the Firefox code so it's not actually another browser - it overlays itself on your existing 32-bit Firefox like an update, which is great in some respects - your cookies, settings, add-ons etc are all there and you don't have to anything. Install and carry on as if nothing had happened, except it's supposed to be faster and it can use far more RAM without crashing. But there must be some thing in it that aren't quite right because my Firefox hasn't been quite right since then. Mostly, when I launch the browser first time after turning on the PC, nine times after ten the bookmarks toolbar is empty, and to get my bookmarks back I have to turn off the toolbar and then turn it back on.

Whenever I reinstall the OS, or uninstall Firefox for any reason, I use MozBackup to save my profile and then restore it afterwards. It's so good knowing that you can make everything the way it was. So I've uninstalled Firefox and downloaded the installer for a new, clean install, but the 64-bit version must have added something that won't go away because all the little problems I had with it I have with the 32-bit now. When I use MozBackup to save my profile it goes through all the usual 'Saving settings; Saving cookies; Saving Add-ons' routine, but then it ends up with 'Saving unknown files' which didn't happen before I went 64-bit. I'm going to have to do a completely clean, non-MozBackup install, and hope I can get it back to where it is now.

The wireless trackball isn't as easy to use as it used to be. I think the three little pimples that ball sits on inside the hole where it revolves have worn down. It seems like they used to have a slick surface, like Teflon, but maybe that's worn away and the ball's running over the plastic underneath because it's nowhere near as easy to to move around, especially where some accuracy of positioning the cursor is needed.

And now the wireless keyboard seems to have died. It hasn't just died, it's intermittent which is twice as irritating. Are you going to work today or not? I have a couple of spare wired keyboards - the ones I used before I got the wireless one, just in case something like this happened. If your keyboard dies and you don't have a backup your PC is pretty much useless until you get a new one.

But one of the wired ones now also doesn't work, and the one I'm using using is so old it's like trying to cut a lawn with a pair of shears when you've been using a lawnmower. But the biggest issue here is that I use my PC while I'm sitting on the sofa, and the lead on this keyboard just *barely* reaches the PC, which is a real pain in the fundament.

And which, together with all that other stuff, is why I got so bloody last night.

Speaking of Firefox, btw, the update that was released yesterday (Firefox 29.0) took away several very useful aspects of the browser - the Firefox button in the top left-hand corner that allows me to access... almost everything - history, options, add-ons, bookmarks and more besides - from one place; tabs in the title bar; the add-ons bar, and changed the look of the tabs. Thankfully, someone has made an add-on that restores all those things, although the add-ons bar isn't quite as it was before.

So that was something else that stoked my yesterday.