1 post tagged “mcafee”

I'm not sure if it's because we're in the tail end of a Mercury Retrograde cycle, but I spent the day today trying to fix all the technological objects that have broken down this past week or so:

• My TiVo started buzzing yesterday at the same time the air conditioner of the building next door began making a loud clanking. Not the best thing when you're trying to catch up on sleep during the day. Thinking it was a bad audio cable, I started switching them around until I found out the right speaker buzzed like a kazoo no matter what cable I used. I thought I'd have to return my TiVo until I found this page on line that said to reboot. One problem solved.
  
• After Firefox installed a new version (1.5.0.5), the Google Toolbar said it wasn't compatible. I cannot live without Google Toolbar. I posted it as a question on the MozillaZine support forum. Alteredcarbon167 said to either "Sacrifice google toolbar for FF v.1.5.0.5, Wait for Google toolbar extension update or revert to the previous FF version." I tried downgrading to 1.5.0.4 and upgrading to the 2.0 beta, but I still got the same message. Finally, I found the answer: Start in safe mode and reset toolbars.
• McAfee VirusScan downloaded a new update. I tried to install it, and the first message I got was that there was a conflict with LavaSoft AdAware. WtF? To me, it seemed like a bullshit excuse for McAfee to wipe the system of its competitors. Then, when I just installed the security center, it became a big nag. It said I was missing a firewall program (so I'd update to McAfee presumably?) and turned on Windows Firewall even though I already am using Kerio. A search turned up this result: "When tuning up a new PC, (one I've not seen before) the first thing I do is remove McAfee or Norton or both. They are both 'Bloatware' and will slow down almost any system." McAfee's aggressive marketing just lost them my business. I installed AVG, and things are a lot smoother now.
• My Linksys wireless router has been intermittently disconnecting me. After I plugged in direct to the cable modem, my pc was many times faster. But my TiVo needs to update so I tried using it again to see what happens. No problems yet, but we shall see. It could be a Time Warner problem, according to this forum message.

Still, if all these companies hadn't written buggy software, I would have a few hours of my life back to waste time in other ways.