Hilary Booth... of course!

Has anyone installed Office 2007 in Vista? I was having issues with a security update so Microsoft suggested I reinstall Word. Okay, fine, I found the dvd and tried to reinstall it today, figuring it'd be a simple fix. But setup.exe keeps crashing on every attempt. From what I've read it's some sort of Data Exception Protection issue with Vista, but I can't get around it. Suggestions?

I've been having my share of computer problems this month. My desktop needs more memory like whoa, so it barely runs anything right now. At first I thought my laptop problems were limited to needing a new a/c adapter, because of all the error messages I was getting when it was plugged in. And then Saturday in the middle of a mindless chocolate making game, the computer froze and crashed spectacularly. It splits between two stages. I can either get it to work in safe mode and *only* safe mode. I pulled off all my documents but not music or pictures. Or it can't find the hard drive at all and suggests I "reseat it". Has it become loose or something?

Needless to say, I'm utterly terrified. Software I can troubleshoot, hardware is another story.

So to update my life:

The temp assignment ended on Friday with a bit of a whimper. The holiday party was on Thursday, so the bulk of the staff didn't bother coming in on Friday, so it was just the boss and me. That worked out well for a slow and leisurely day. During the day I learned about the impending snowstorm. So I trudged to the local store on the way home to load up on the essentials. Note to people in store: saving a place for someone in line is all nice and stuff, but when they bring in a massive cart of stuff? Don't expect the people behind you to be all friendly-like.

The snows are quite impressive. The white stuff has filled up the entirety of my non-balcony outside which makes for a scary sight. No power outages, thankfully. Hopefully all the roads and airports will be cleared in a few days when I disappear from DC for a week. Going from 30s to 60s/70s is going to be so much fun this year.

I spent some of the time emptying and deleting boxes, so I can return my apartment to some form of sanity. New bookshelves will just have to wait for the New Year, if at all. The amusing thing is I decided to try switching around some of the contents of said bookshelves to see if they'd fit better. So my skating shelf has been moved to a new location and I get to look at my writing and miscellaneous books from my bedside. suricattus gets good company with Nick Bantock & Jasper Fforde.

The only snag in all of this is on the technological front. I put together the computer, only to lack an internet connection. I have a cable internet/router combination. I think I have the correct ethernet/modem cables I just can't figure what goes where. And my entertainment unit is *still* in shambles. I really should have written down instructions for that. For a self-proclaimed geek, dvd/vcr hookups are strange and mysterious things. Plus finding the paper for the printer and the mp3 player cables...

Writing wise, not much to report, other than Yuletide successfully written and uploaded. remember_wenn is having its first annual fic fest in February and are taking prompts. I've dumped in a whole bunch of prompts.

The new Dell laptop is here. He is a matte finished ruby red Inspiron and so far the learning curve isn't quite as steep as I expected. Occasionally I need to hunt to figure out where Vista has hid things, like downloads, but otherwise it isn't too bad. Because the router was all set up (yes, it's locked down), all I had to do was use my password to access wireless. I still haven't gotten used to the Mac-like desktop with the big buttons on the desktop.

But I have Firefox installed and Rough Draft 3 appears to work in Vista, so we're all go for Nano in November. I've also reclaimed my ljlogin plugin, which is a nice godsend, unless you have to upload anything to scrapbook.

I had an interview yesterday in Chevy Chase for a potentially long term assignment. I'm still waiting to hear how that went. Then tomorrow I head off to the City of Brotherly Love for a vacation with my parents. (It's also a scouting/research trip for the upcoming Nano, but don't tell them that.)

*plays Taps*

The Dell laptop has a defective motherboard. As a five year laptop, it's simply not cost effective to fix him, so tech support will be getting back my data (all my writing files! *wails*) and I will go laptop shopping. Oye. Not what I wanted to do this year at all.

Can someone wake me when it's 2009? That has to be a better year.

The job is a job. Thank god it's short term.

The new laptop battery is here. To borrow a Tim Gunn expression, I'm concerned. Occasionally there will be LED light blink, but mostly everything looks dark. Is there anyway to tell if it's the a/c adapter that's gone? I don't have a spare one around, aside from the ancient Toshiba one and I'd be frankly scared to hook that up into the relatively newer Dell. Should I be? I'm hoping that all it needs is a new juice maker and not a fried motherboard. I haven't had a chance to back up all those files yet. I don't want to send him off to Dell and have nothing left!

*pats pats* I'm okay, really.

Still logging in from the library. Comcast rescheduled the appointment for tomorrow, instead of Sunday. Apparently I'm not the only one in this building with connection problems. So maybe this will get solved. Maybe. All I know is I want my regular Internet connection back!

New monitor from Dell arrived yesterday. It's another 15" flat screen, but appears to be a different model from the one that broke twice. Now everything is hooked up and lovely. Gosh, I can actually sit down and read email or LJ without fearing the connection would disappear. This is a Good Thing.

Now if we can work on that pesky Job thing.

So I came to the library to look at their resume writing books. My resume needs a massive overhaul to reflect more of my strengths. Their wireless connection is a little spotty. I'm beginning to wonder if it's my wireless card. How do I find out what type of card was installed in my laptop? It's several years old, so I'm suspecting the wireless world has surpassed my poor old Dell. Meanwhile I need to call their tech support about the monitor. It's the power cable. For some reason, it can't seem to stay connected for too long. One minute it'll be working fine and next it'll be blinking at me.

And I want to randomly strangle the web designer for a fashion designer's site. Forms should not be the only way to contact someone -- an actual email address would be nice! Right now, the form doesn't think there's an internet connection, even though there clearly is. Never mind they probably won't answer a peon like me, but when in doubt, ask the source.

The replacement battery was here when I came home.

Everything else has been not nearly as thrilling.