Eliminating Irritations and Time-Wasters

Yesterday I finally decide to spend some quality time with tech support again, as my computer issues have not healed themselves. As you may recall, the last time I spent time with tech support, they showed me how to clean up my computer. And it has been running more quickly.

However, it didn't solve the problem of my computer freezing up two or three times a day, which is a huge irritation and time waster. Each time it freezes, I have to manually turn off my computer and restart it. Tech support suggested we add more memory, which we did. But that didn't solve the problem. They said that if that didn't cure my computer, I may have to take it back to the original manufacturer's date, eliminating all my data.

No problem. I have Carbonite, which I have blogged about before. So I checked to make sure my files have all been backed up, and they are only 95% backed up. So I wrote a tech support ticket for Carbonite. When I follow their instructions, it doesn't solve that problem. Wrote another ticket to Carbonite and haven't gotten an answer.

In the meantime, my Palm Centro started freezing up when trying to hot sync it. Called Palm and they had me do a hard reset two or three times, which doesn't fix the problem. They also had me uninstall Palm, which erased all my data on my desktop.

So now my phone is the only device that has all my contacts and calendar information. I'm scared to death I'm going to lose it all. During the process the lady at Palm started yelling at me because I can't understand what she's telling me to do.

She gave me some instructions and told me to call tech support back when I'm finished. Her instructions don't fix the problem. Is my phone problem related to my computer problem, I wonder? Who knows?

To test it out, I installed Palm on my laptop and it does the same thing. So did my desktop corrupt my phone and transfer the corruption to the laptop? Or is it a problem with the phone? Who knows?

Can you see why I'm reluctant to call tech support?

So, that brings me up to yesterday, when I muster up my courage and call Dell tech support. He took one look at my computer and said he thought he knew the problem: too many anti-spyware programs. I don't know how they got there, but he said that they have pop-ups that threaten disaster if you don't allow their software to run. I probably clicked yes and ended up with anti-spyware programs that were fighting with each other.

He keeps what is necessary and takes off the rest. My computer immediately starts running faster. And whatever he did fixed my Carbonite problem. So the anti-spyware must have been fighting with Carbonite, too. So now my data is 100% backed up. It remains to be seen whether the freezing problem is solved. We'll find out today. But at least I can restore my computer if we have to start all over.

Tried my Palm hot sync, hoping it fixed that problem. No such luck. So after we drop off our foster daughter back at her regular foster home last night, we stop by the Verizon store to see what they could do. They couldn't get it to work, either. They call headquarters telling them it must be a hardware problem. Headquarters wants me to call Palm again - uh uh, no deal. So they are sending me a new phone, and I'll take it to the Verizon store so they can transfer all my data.

Did it take a lot of time to deal with these irritations? You betcha. But the alternative is continued irritation, inefficiency, and wasted time. So even though the thought of handling these problems was overwhelming to me, I'm so glad I took the plunge. Maybe soon I might actually have everything working properly! Won't that be a happy day!?!

Related posts: Protecting Your PC from a Crash, Save Time by Cleaning and Defragmenting Your Computer Disks