Beverly Hills

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

Well Darrin had a design job today and so we drove to Beverly Hills (I was the navigator with my GPS on my laptop).

I was sitting in the car with Flower while he was doing his job by looking at the rooms that he is going to be designing. I didn’t want to take the focus away from him by being there especially with Flower and I heard a dog barking so I figured staying in the car was the best course of action. I was wrong.

This woman whose house we were parked in front of was getting paranoid. Well, who could blame her, its million dollar mansions in Beverly Hills. She called AAA because I guess 1 of her cars wasn’t starting and she came up to the car and I rolled down the window and she was all “how long are you going to be here?” and I said that the person I’m here with is a designer and he’s across the street and I was asked to stay in the car.

She walked away but I was so uncomfortable being in the car so I just came up to the house and rang the doorbell and they let me in. I sat on the couch while Darrin was telling them what he was going to do blah blah blah. Of course the focus was then on me and Flower lol.

Anyway, it’s good he has a design job. No painting WOOT! Hehe.

Update: They decided not to do it with Darrin after all and we wasted $60 on gas to get down there for nothing.  Darrin asked to be compensated for the gas and his time but they refused.

Kodak Printer

On By Michel McDonaldIn Products I Like, TechLeave a comment

Ok, today Darrin printed a couple of things and the ink levels have not changed at all. This means that the print head WAS the problem and I’m glad we didn’t give up and just get a new printer, that I went to Kodak’s website and complained and got a new print head sent to me. Thank goodness.

XP Antivirus 2008

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, Scams, Tech1 Comment

I was looking at a website and it said that I needed to download active-x or something to view a video and we had to go to the grocery store real quick. When we came home I noticed Norton Anti-virus was going nuts saying it was blocking a virus and I saw this program running called Antivirus XP 2008 on my screen saying I had all these viruses on my computer and wanted me to click something to get rid of them. I knew something was wrong because I didn’t install that program and for some reason it wouldn’t allow me to uninstall it through the control panel. I used the laptop to search for it on Yahoos search engine and found this:

http://www.xp-vista.com/spyware-removal/xp-antivirus-2008-removal-instructions-xp-antivirus-2008

Please, take a look at the pictures and memorize them so if this happens to you then you will be able to arm yourself. You don’t have to bookmark this site or keep the email if you don’t have this issue but just remember to search for it through a search engine so you can be able to get rid of it. I was able to get rid of it but I had to follow the instructions on this website. I hope for your sake you don’t get this but in case you do make sure you get rid of it right away. Oh, one of the things you will notice is that your screen will be blue or maroon, your wallpaper will be gone. That is a good indication that you have problems.

Update: After I went through all the steps to remove this thing I went to lay down on my bed to watch TV and I noticed that it went to the Windows Login screen so I got up and clicked my name and went to see the screen saver settings, I right clicked the desktop and clicked Properties and there are 2 tabs missing.  Desktop and Screen saver.  They are gone!  I don’t know how to get it back.  If I have to reformat my hard drive I’m gonna be pissed.

Another update: I get these email supposedly from CNN.  They are usually 1 line emails with a link and I clicked it to see the video for a news story and it said that I needed the active x thing and that is what happened.  I was trying to see a news story.  I am not going to click any of those emails ever again and just assume it’s a link to a virus.  My Norton is still finding virus’s left over from that and deleting them.  So, if you get emails from CNN make damn sure they are really from CNN and not a fake website.  Just go directly to CNN.com instead just to be safe.

Doctor Who Season 2

On By Michel McDonaldIn TVLeave a comment

I’ve finished watching Doctor Who Season 2 which is 1964/65. It’s very interesting to watch and even though I shall miss them, Ian and Barbara found their way back home although 2 years into their own future (they left in 1963 and returned in 1965, I guess they couldn’t go back to where they left). Poor Susan was left behind on earth in I think the 23rd or 24th century right after they defeated the Daleks. At any rate, he has 2 new companions and I can’t wait to see their further adventures in season 3 which would be 1965/66

Kodak

On By Michel McDonaldIn Products I Like, TechLeave a comment

Well, today I received my new print head with a complimentary black ink cartridge, color ink cartridge as well as 5 sheets of 4×6 glossy photo paper. My printer is back to normal again. I hope it lasts this time.

I’m satisfied with Kodak. It’s a very good printer as I said before and I love that the ink is so cheap, that was the selling point you know? Darrin was ready to just go out and buy a new printer and I was like no this one cost you a lot of money, I’ll just deal with it. But why should I just deal with it if the problem can be resolved by emailing Kodak and asking them what to do? As I said, I’m satisfied.

Kodak

On By Michel McDonaldIn Products I Like, TechLeave a comment

I sent an email to Kodak the day before yesterday and yesterday I got an email back from them asking for the serial number and the model number etc as well as my home address and phone number. I did the tests they asked me to do and it really pissed me off that all those tests sucked up an entire cartridge of color and black ink. That’s $22 of ink that is gone now.

Thankfully they are sending me a new print head because they think mine is defective but I wont be able to test out the new print head with no ink so hopefully they will send me new ink cartridges. I told them that it sucked up all my ink and so I have no more ink.

I will cross my fingers that they send me ink too and not just the print head. They are sending me an envelope to send them the defective print head as well and I will include the ink cartridges as well to show them that it’s brand new ink and it’s all gone. If they didn’t send me ink with the new print heads then perhaps sending them the empty ink cartridges will make them see that I was telling the truth and they will send me more ink.

Kodak All-In-One Printer

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, Pictures, Products I Like1 Comment

Darrin bought me a Kodak All-In-One Printer for Christmas 2007. He bought it on Shop NBC and it was a very thoughtful gift. It has a scanner and you can print directly to 4×6 glossy photo paper with its very own slot to keep the paper.

It has SD card slots for several different kinds of memory sticks so you don’t even need a computer to print your pictures from your camera. Just put the memory stick in the printer and it prints directly to 4×6 photo paper.

The scanner does a fantastic job scanning with its Kodak technology where it fixes colors and stuff. It’s a great product. It’s selling point is that the ink is cheaper. The black ink is $10 and the color ink is $15. Good deal right?

Last month, after I’ve had it for about 6 1/2 months, it started messing up big time. I bought brand new ink cartridges for it and it ate it all up and I barely even used the ink and it was printing with white lines and all of a sudden it stopped printing the red and yellow ink. Darrin bought another package of ink (black and color together is $22) and still no red and yellow. I cleaned the print heads with the basic clean and deep clean and mind you these are brand new ink cartridges and cleaning the heads ate up all the ink on these BRAND SPANKING NEW ink cartridges.

The black has like 1/3 left and the ink is less than 1/4 left and it has the ! exclamation point on it saying it is running out and I need more. I haven’t printed anything yet for crying out loud. BRAND NEW! This used to be a good kick ass printer, now it’s crap. All it’s good for anymore is for scanning, that’s it. And it was $250. What a total waste of money.

Update: Kodak did do right by me and they sent me a new print head which totally fixed the problem.  So please don’t let this blog post change your mind about buying a new Kodak All-In-One printer because it really is a good printer.

Skype Phone Number

On By Michel McDonaldIn PSPLeave a comment

Well, I’m sorry to say that I will not have a phone number for Skype. I refuse to pay $24 a year to have a phone number when I wont have it turned on enough to need a phone number for it. And that was with a $30 discount. And I’m not even sure if that discount was for the first year or not. I’m not going to have Skype running or even have the PSP running constantly so it’s just not worth it.

If I want to use it to call someone it will only be because either Darrin is on the phone and wont let me use it or if were not even home and I am too cheap to use the cell phone and we are near a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Which reminds me, I am gonna need to find out how to use the AT&T WiFi hotspots with my PSP. I know it works with my laptop but I can’t get it to work with my PSP. T-Mobile has Wi-Fi hotspots too but since I get AT&T hotspots free because of my DSL why pay more when I will probably only use it once a year you know? I’ve yet to even use it as it is.

Skype for PSP

On By Michel McDonaldIn PSPLeave a comment

Well, today we went to Game Stop at the mall and bought the “PSP Slim Skype Headset Kit” for $32.16 (after taxes) and made a call to my friend Sue. Darrin talked to her for nearly 45 min but then I was able to talk to her for a while until Big Brother after dark started.

The quality of the phone call was really amazing. I’m able to walk around the house, even go outside, just as long as I stay inside my wi-fi zone. With my regular telephone I get a lot of static because the cordless phone in my room is too far away from the main base in the living room so it’s nice to not have any static. So, I’m going to use my PSP from now on to make phone calls. I usually can’t get on the phone because Darrin is always on the phone hehe.

PSP GPS

On By Michel McDonaldIn PSPLeave a comment

WOOHOO I just read at www.pspfanboy.com that the GPS for PSP is coming to the US in 9 months YAY! I can’t wait. If the GPS is coming in 9 months the camera and tv tuner wont be too far behind. You know what this means don’t you? That will make the PSP the ultimate device.

As it is the PSP is a mp3 player, a picture viewer, movie player, game machine, website browser, cell phone and internet radio player. All we need now are the GPS, Camera and TV tuner. The PSP already has the camera option in the pictures menu so we don’t need to worry, just plug in the camera and were set.

EDIT: Ok, I just read some more news, the camera for the PSP will never see the US so you have to buy it from an asia website and unfortunately it’s back ordered lol.  But I have a camcorder with a SD card that I can do video on mini DVD’s as well as take pictures with the SD card so I don’t care about that but the good news is that the GPS hardware is coming this holiday season which is faster than 9 months.  It’s more like 4 or 5 months which is awesome.  I can’t wait because when we take trips I have to use my laptop for our GPS and it gets hot sitting on my lap and if I have the GPS for PSP I can just get a mount for it.