Quote from: Lori Dee on March 29, 2025, 09:23:44 PMClean it? LOL

Mother Nature provides plenty of free car washes. It was raining again today and trying to snow. It the summer, when it is dry, the wind blows most of the dust away, so I don't worry about it. It's a Jeep. It's supposed to be dirty. 

White is a lot cooler in the summer. I have the back side windows blacked out with insulating panels that I made. That keeps the sun and prying eyes out if I am sleeping in there, or just storing mining gear. From the outside the look like tinted glass. But up close you can't see in them.

The panels are custom fit to each window. They are just a layer of Reflectix sandwiched between two layers of thin foam board. Then the assembly is wrapped in black cloth and hot glued together. It works great.
 

Lori,

I was filling up my car at a station yesterday where all the other gas pumps were empty, no cars, it must have been a slow time.  So I took some squeegee water and suds and washed all the light lenses or covers.  Then I decided to do all the windows.  Then I decided to do the hood, top, and trunk lid but I left the suds on the top after rubbing with the squeegee, as I did not want the windows to receive the water from the top.

Crazy but I knew it was going to rain very soon and it did.  When I arrived home, the car was clean on the outside and I essentially got a free car wash.

I would not necessary recommend this frugal practice but considering the circumstances were all just right, I went ahead and did it.  Who knows when or if I would ever do this again.

If anyone saw me, perhaps they were wondering what that silly woman was doing!  But I doubt anyone did, or cared. 

Chrissy

ARRRRRGGGGGH! Windows Update:

Downloading 26%
Downloading 68%
Downloading 98%
Downloading 7%

Wait, what?

Downloading 36%
Downloading 68%
Downloading 98%
Downloading 99%
Downloading 100% ...

Five minutes later...

Installing 24%
Installing 36%
Installing 63%
Installing 78%
Installing 96%
Installing 99%
Installing 100% ...

Five minutes later...

Your computer needs to restart to complete the installation.
(Then why did you say Installing 100%?)

Computer restarts...

You're almost there... 36%
You're almost there... 42%
You're almost there... 56%
You're almost there... 78%
You're almost there... 84%
You're almost there... 97%
You're almost there... 98%
You're almost there... 99%
You're almost there... 100%

Five minutes later, I can finally log into my computer.
Now I have five apps that need to be updated.

Twenty minutes later...

You need to restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

Restart the computer. After a looooonnnnnngggg reboot process, I can go back into Windows services and turn off all the crap it turned back on and don't need anymore. Why is Windows Update still running? Stop and Disable. Rinse and repeat for about five other unnecessary services.

Meanwhile, I have spent most of the day just updating my PC.

It's a good thing that computers were designed to save us a lot of time. 

Well Lori things could be worse.

It may not have restarted.


Chrissy

Quote from: ChrissyRyan on April 01, 2025, 04:31:19 PMWell Lori things could be worse.

It may not have restarted.


Chrissy

So true. I should be thankful. 

Lorri,

Perhaps now there is yet another update waiting for you to install, even after completing that installation.  It is easy to tell, when clicking the power icon it will give options to update if there is another update available that Windows wants you to install. 

All available updates, including the less important updates would be found under settings, Windows Update, check for updates, and you can choose any available ones from the list.

Perhaps you actually had more than one update applied during your prolonged time of frustration waiting for the completion of the install.

Looks like the Windows Blue Screen of Death may be going away.


https://www.pcworld.com/article/2653470/microsoft-kills-iconic-blue-screen-of-death-it-looks-like-this-now.html

Quote from: Lori Dee on April 01, 2025, 04:29:40 PMMeanwhile, I have spent most of the day just updating my PC.

It's a good thing that computers were designed to save us a lot of time. 

I just leave 'Get the latest updates as soon as they are available' enabled and set active hours for updates from 3 AM to 5 AM. That way, any interruptions happen while I'm asleep.

Quote from: Lilis on April 01, 2025, 08:05:27 PMI just leave 'Get the latest updates as soon as they are available' enabled and set active hours for updates from 3 AM to 5 AM. That way, any interruptions happen while I'm asleep.

I keep everything related to updates disabled or paused. When I leave them on, for some reason, it thinks it needs to check for updates every couple of hours and my mouse and keyboard freeze up. Then it decides to optimize my drives while I am using them.

I went into Task Scheduler and set everything to do maintenance and updates between midnight and 6 am. Yet, it continues to do things during the day. Some of the tasks, I don't have access to change their time and they are set to repeat every 23 hours or so. That causes it to run one hour early each day, so eventually, it is happening at 3 pm, then 2 pm, etc. It's maddening, so I just disable all of the services it needs to make them run.

Then once a month, The Ultimate Super-Administrator, The Almighty Controller of the Electrical Power (Me) grants permission and turns things back on to let it get the updates, clean and optimize the drives, etc. Then I shut them all off again. 

Quote from: Lori Dee on April 01, 2025, 08:45:51 PMThen once a month, The Ultimate Super-Administrator, The Almighty Controller of the Electrical Power (Me) grants permission and turns things back on to let it get the updates, clean and optimize the drives, etc. Then I shut them all off again. 

Hahaha, got it! 😂

Well Windows 7 has its merits.

Quote from: ChrissyRyan on April 01, 2025, 09:00:58 PMWell Windows 7 has its merits.

I miss DOS 5. 

It can take a good 20mins and up to 45mins to load and get my lap top running again but it only down loads if I shut it down first or I click on the down load. Still a PIA when you want to use it quick and it takes a few days before it runs smooth again-----------

It is good to update Windows though for security reasons.

It would be nice if you can save all your preferences and those are always NOT lost or reset with updates.  Sometimes Microsoft changes defaults and you have to change it.

I dislike the ads all the popups.  Sometimes you just want the desktop without all the bloats.

In that regards, Windows 10 is better than Windows 11.

Plus sometimes they remove software that has been there for years.

I think they want you to store stuff in their cloud because after so much space is used, you have to pay them monthly to store more stuff.

Chrissy

Quote from: Lori Dee on April 01, 2025, 09:09:18 PMI miss DOS 5. 

I think in jr. high or high school, some teachers mentioned having insertable disks for updating the computer operating system.  It was not always Windows, and not always on DVDs or downloadable.  Windows came later but after Apple started using that user interaction style.

Chrissy

There was an "interesting" development. I play video games with mods (modifications). So when Windoze updates, I have to update the game, and then the mods need to be updated.

I got that done and tried to load up a game and it froze with an error message that one of the mods was now broken and I needed to remove it from the game and restart. I went through the error log and found that one of the modders had added a script in their update entitled "aprilfools.py".

It turns out that the script was intended to do some kind of in-game prank (they do every year), but this year the mod broke the game! They quickly fixed the problem and reissued a new download (without the prank) that fixed the game and returned things back to normal.

There is a bar in Brooklyn called The Rage Cage where you can smash old computers in the backyard.  Sometimes, that really appeals to me.  I have never had any update go smoothly.

Oh, the good old days learning to program Basic on a Radio Shack TRS80 with floppy disks that were what it said on the tin instead of being stiff and square, with the other students all being about seven years younger.  And coding COBOL onto forms and getting some poor bugger of an operator to key it in for you.  And programming in Fortran and not being allowed to use calls because they slowed the system.  And telling the WW2 vet boss that you supposed that when he started, all of the programs were in assembly language and having him reply that when he started assemblers didn't exist.

I wish that I still had my IBM flowchart template.  They were to programmers what stethoscopes are to doctors.  I think that somebody whipped mine.

   

I think you forgot to mention punchcards and tabulating machines...

Quote from: Iztaccihuatl on April 02, 2025, 05:08:26 PMI think you forgot to mention punchcards and tabulating machines...

I learned how to use punchcards but I never used them professionally.

Quote from: MaryT on April 02, 2025, 05:11:58 PMI learned how to use punchcards but I never used them professionally.

Same for me. I remember as a kid standing in awe in front of an opened punch card reader and watch as the cards flew through the machine. I was also fascinated by punch card sorting machines. And the panels that looked like phone switchboards where they programmed tabulating machines by plugging in wires.

But I still would be able to program an IBM 370 mainframe in assembly language. I actually still have a couple of assembler source files from old projects at college sitting on my hard drive...