Wasting time with Jet

Mother Dearest is so pround of her son that she offen exaggerates of his abilities when it comes to computers, and every so often, one of her friends calls in a marker and I'm Drafted into service. I usually don't mind helping the helpless (as are most of MOM's senile friends...) but it really kills me when I see a fly PC system being WASTED on a someone who probably uses it as a damn table ornament!

Anyway...this old friend of MOM's (Who apprently used to BABY-sit ME when I was little...) had TWO computers with problems and lived all the way up in Mount Vernon, Westchester. It was a journey to meet her halfway on the last stop of the 5 Train at DYRE avenue.

We left at 12pm and made it to the place in question by 2, where I soon got to work.

PC # 1 Was a Dell Dimention 8300, fully equipted with XP and all the trimmings 92GB Disk Space, 2.8 P4 Processor with a 512MB Ram and nice lil baby 14in Flat Screen. If I had a PC like this, I'd could conquer the friggin planet! I don't know how long she had the damn thing, but apparently her 13 year old daughter had set up a GUEST account and had accidently "locked" the admistrative account with a password she couldn't figure out (My Mom's friend, not the daughter who's at camp somwehere, who knows, shit, I'm still jealous of the system!).

SO, the one way I know how bypass passwords and accounts for XP is go into "Safe Mode". So, I press F8 on startup and go in and check the registration info in System Settings...and long story short, THERE WAS NO PASSWORD!!!! You logged in as GUEST with no password, it lets you in, you change "Guest" to the original login (Which was the woman's first name) and click "OK" with NO password, and her original configuation came up. I wanted to cry...this woman was locked out from her PC for who knows how long over some DUMB SHIT!.

Okay, so once I was in as the administator, I took off that "guest" bullshit and made logging in with a password a thing of the past. The friend then took her time to check her Yahoo mail for a bit since she hadn't been online in her house (She reads her mail on the job, I guess) in a...ah, who cares. Her second problem on "Souped Up PC #1" was her printer wasn't idenitfied by the PC. Damn, even the printer was nice...Copier, Fax, and Printer all in one, I was biting my knuckles...

I turned the machine on, printed a test page, then tried to print one through windows. When the Windows one didn't come out, I deleted the printer and re-installed it again and the connection was finally made. The second test page came out and we tested the photo scanning capabilities on a picture my mom brought up from some neighborhood reunion she went to a couple of weekends back (This friend of her's is from the old place where she grew up, she's been meeting all her old neighbors and friends from "Da Block" lately). The picture came out nice and I was good to go on that PC.

PC #2 was a bit older "Bucket-of-Bolts" PC that still had Windows 2000 on it. This one the woman just got from her office (who was ready to throw away) as a side PC for the daughter (I guess), she brought a new printer to go with the PC, but it's a USB Port and the PC's so old it doesn't have one. She thought the computer had one but it turned out to be a mangled phone jack with some of the pins bent arwy. So, she was smart enough to get a Parallel Plug, however the printer only has a USB B type plug and the Parallel wire has an A opening, so we needed an "in-betweener" sorta speak.

Once I figured THAT mystery out, I figured my work was done. We were gonna drive to Best Buy, find the piece and "BOOM" head back home. But then something else came up. The lady wanted the 2nd, older PC to share her Broadband Cable connection the other "Fly" PC had. She brought a router (Wow, for someone dense, she was lucky enough to find THAT particular component) and a Cable long enough to connect the two. Damn, dealing with spliting connections is always tricky...it was a real BITCH to do it in mom's house when WE got Road Runner. There's installing the driver for the router on each PC, re-wiring the modem and hoping the signal works it way through and still reaches the PC's...it was a bit of a headache. I did the wiring the best I could, but had trouble getting the internet up.

I did all the tricks, unplugging the cable modem, unplugging the router, adusting various settings. at 5pm, we decided to take a break, find the "in-betweener" and get some food. We went to STAPLES and BEST BUY, and came up empty...it's a rare piece, and it's so hard to explain to these sales guys this crazy situation, so I told her that I was going to have to find it on my own in the city. We then went to KFC and Mc Donald's respective Drive-Thru's and then went back.

It was occuring to me that the cable signal may have had to be resent so we called her cable service operator and asked them to do so...it still didn't work. I knew I could have figured it eventually, but it was getting late. Worst case scenario, she calls the cable company and they cofigure the router and the modem. SO, I decided to put the connection back to the way it originally was. When I did, the "Fly" PC wouldn't connect either. MOM was getting frantic now, with her faith in my abilities wavering...but another HOUR later I discovered her "Road Runner Medic" program on the PC which finally fixed the connection (Which also made me wonder if the MEDIC program could of helped with the Router installed?).

It was going on 8pm and with the whole day spent, we figured I helped enough (She was locked out of her PC by a password that didn't exist for christsake!), I told her I'd find the other piece and said my good byes as we went back on our long ass journey.

Helping all these people, I still had my Cousin's PC to fix, and I was making NO progress there, it may be too far gone. Coming home and seeing my little eMachine C1641 tin can, I couldn't help but sigh to myself..."What a waste, that woman will never use that computer to it's full capabilities...what a waste."

In the meantime, I'll be on a quest, to look for USB FEMALE to FEMALE ADAPTER...



I should order the bloddy thing online and be done with it, But I love a challenge!