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A Computer Named 'Frank'
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Posted by: laborat
Things you can ponder while I make pasta salad for the Family Reunion:
Frank (my new computer) is a marvelous blend of old and new parts (hence the name) and not unlike his namesake, Frankenstein or steen. Also made of various parts of a complex anatomy, Frank (the monster) went on to crash and burn and be pitchforked by peasants with torches. I am hoping this will not be the case with my 'Frank' but there appear to be similarities in other ways.
The story of the Labby comp is a long one and started when SK and Wargy got tired of Me crashing on these boards and others with my vintage copy of PetScrape. Just so you know, I got my first real mailorder PC just before Diablo Wun came out, and it had been running ever since thru duststorms, coffee spills, and pizza droppages. I feel I can speak with authority about most computer idiots who know how to drive but can't change a flat tire. (The only time I ever actually looked under the Computer Hood, I got woozey and had to get my nephew to close the case.)
In any event, the E3 gathering pulled together a great group of people with spare parts and 'Frank' was born. Wargenstein and T'Igor did a marvelous job of using that lightning machine thingy to give it life, (at least a couple of times) and with some serious consult with JANNA and SK, finally got it to my Casa and got me up and running. (note: if you contributed to this computer in any way, I want to say thank you again. mucho thanko)
Anyways in some ways, 'Frank' is smarter than I am. Just the other day after spending an hour trying to connect to Earthlink, I get this little pop-up message saying that passwords were case sensitive and I should check my CAPS LOCK. Sure enough, I had my caps lock on and didn't realize it. Another case, 'Frank' said that my programs seemed to be not responding a lot when I go to idle and gave me the option of not idling. Since I was embarassed to be caught idling, I said yes, don't let me idle. My ME for Dummies book says, "At times your software will do things you don't understand, the best thing to do is to just go along with it and keep it happy." Makes perfect sense to me.
One of the Things that Wargs insisted upon putting on my comp, besides his copy of Diablo TEW was Zone Alarm. I think its a firewall. In any event, I get these popup Alerts that tell me it has blocked access to my comp from some series of numbers that if I investigate further appear to be from someplace in Korea or Colombia. I am starting to get paranoid which evidently is a pre-requisit for getting Zone Alarm in the first Place. I am just playing catch up. BTW I never seem to get these alerts except when I log on to the-group.org or opentechsupport.net. 
I am in the process of investigating how 'Frank' actually works. Using windows explorer, I am file by file going thru the whole damn setup looking at stuff and wondering what it does. I am convinced that when I am finished I will at least know where the stuff I haven't a clue what it does, is. This is important to me for some reason. I guess because, as I try to de-mystify the inner workings of my Comp (Frank), I will hopefully become more adept at doing things to crash my comp. (Since most of my online tech buddies are always re: formating this and defragging that, I feel like I should have some horrors storys of my own to tell around the Forum Fire.) Amazingly, my comps have all been fairly dull and have never acted up, just got old and in the way.
So, anyways, if something goes wrong, I am certain that someone can at least point me in the right direction. Well, maybe. Sometimes, I just seem to have stuff happen to me, that could best be explained on a show like "alien autopsy". Like the twenty times I had to reconnect to the internet just to finish this column.
Frank was on top of it though, with his little boxes giving me options on what I could do about it. Reconnect was right on top so it was a no brainer for me. I suspect its those Sun Spots again or Net Traffic or maybe one of those DOS attacks you read about. I am not even sure what a DOS attack does, or even if there is a DONTS attack as well. I guess I will have to wait for Frank (my comp) to figure it out for me and give me an option.
Posted by: tkron
Believe me, my friend, you do not want to be like all your online buddys who are reformating their hard drives and re-loading their operating system.
Personally, I am happy I have been able to avoid doing that.
Posted by: Chako
Yes…whatever you do Labby…do not touch the puter if it is working…and consider yourself blessed!
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