Daddy tech support

[MurphCID]

Decided that I probably should update the work laptop I have been issued, since I have not updated it in almost three months. Also I haven't charged it in several weeks either. I was issued an HP Probook, with an i5, 16 gb ram, and a 256gb NVME drive. It is a really nice laptop, lots of ports and a very nice screen. I just don't ever use it since the VPN does not connect (never has worked right) to the county server. So I don't use it at all. We were supposed to have these for working in the field, but since we cannot connect to the VPN, we use them for Zoom meetings.

I have had a little "snake bite medicine" tonight.

[MurphCID]

My Captain texted me last night asking if I was going to be at work today. He seemed pretty insistent that I come in and get back to work. I told him I would be there. He and I are the last of the "old guys" other than the Sheriff at work. There is no one else who has been there as long as we have, and a five year gap between us and the next senior guy. It is kind of sad really. He got there in 1989, and I arrived in 1994 (1993 really but I was with another department). Both he and my direct boss are like; "Are you coming in on Monday?!" I am bored, but mostly because I have not been able to do anything I wanted to do while I was off. I'm really tired because I have not slept well the last two days due to a persistent low grade pain in the knee and leg. Really odd.

[ivar]

I have had a little "snake bite medicine" tonight.

like ...:

"Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snake bite and furthermore always carry a small snake"

[MurphCID]

I have had a little "snake bite medicine" tonight.

like ...:

"Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snake bite and furthermore always carry a small snake"

Yeah.

[MurphCID]

Phone rings:

"DAAAAADDDDD!!!!!"

Me: What now?

Youngest daughter: DAD! Things are so expensive! OMG, bathroom cleaner cost so much! A scrub brush is $6! I have to get two packages of bacon for a sorority event, and BACON!! is so expensive! OMG! Do they think we are made of money?! What do I do?

Me: Budget.

Youngest: DAAAADDDD! I NEED this stuff! My roommate turned the shower floor ORANGE!!! AND SHE HAS AN STD!!!! PLUS SHE SMOKED WEED IN THE DORM! I cannot shower until I clean it!

Me: Get some bleach, rubber gloves, and wear clothes you don't care about.

Youngest: I hate it she is such a slob! Plus she has a meltdown every two hours about how bad her life is, and how she just cannot function. Dad, she is 23 and DOES NOT DRIVE! She is always asking us to drive her. She told me that she hopes her dad dies, but only after he finishes paying for her college! OMG! I want to move out!

Me: Welcome to life. You are not moving until next semester.

Youngest: Dad!!! I am serious! It is disgusting!

Me: Welcome to life.

Youngest: DAAAAADDDD!!!

Me: Welcome to life, your feelings do not matter, only results, so go study.

Youngest: FINE!!!

Her room-mate is a piece of work. An extremely entitled liberal Hispanic girl from Houston who hates cops (she cannot explain why though), hates White people (but she is sleeping with one, and got her STD from him), hates her dad, but wants him to keep paying for her Theater degree, had a panic attack because one of her classes met in a different building, and she could not handle the change of venue, and called my daughter in a panic because she did not know where the restroom was located (seriously). She does not drive because it "scares" her, so she bums rides off of everyone. She never cleans their common restroom area, and is constantly putting hair dye on and leaving the mess.
My daughter is a bit of a clean freak when it comes to the restroom. She was absolutely revolted when the trash can fell over because her room-mates (it is a 4 plex suite set up) had piled so much trash in it and never took it out. She is getting a post-grad education in entitled millenial BS. All three room-mates are theater majors..... They never clean up the common areas, and blare music and noise to all hours of the night (my daughter is very schedule oriented), but she is getting into the College kid time schedule (sleep late stay up late). Her suite mate actually pissed off my little lovely Hispanic wife and her equally Hispanic sister when they went to visit....

Perhaps I am being unsympathetic but to some degree I believe in the adage: "That which does not kill you makes you stronger".

[chiefjim]

Phone rings:

"DAAAAADDDDD!!!!!"

Me: What now?

Youngest daughter: DAD! Things are so expensive! OMG, bathroom cleaner cost so much! A scrub brush is $6! I have to get two packages of bacon for a sorority event, and BACON!! is so expensive! OMG! Do they think we are made of money?! What do I do?

Me: Budget.

Youngest: DAAAADDDD! I NEED this stuff! My roommate turned the shower floor ORANGE!!! AND SHE HAS AN STD!!!! PLUS SHE SMOKED WEED IN THE DORM! I cannot shower until I clean it!

Me: Get some bleach, rubber gloves, and wear clothes you don't care about.

Kids argue with us growing up that house rules are unfair yada yada yada. Experiences like she is having now substantiate why those rules were put into place.

Yup, welcome to life.

[MurphCID]

Phone rings:

"DAAAAADDDDD!!!!!"

Me: What now?

Youngest daughter: DAD! Things are so expensive! OMG, bathroom cleaner cost so much! A scrub brush is $6! I have to get two packages of bacon for a sorority event, and BACON!! is so expensive! OMG! Do they think we are made of money?! What do I do?

Me: Budget.

Youngest: DAAAADDDD! I NEED this stuff! My roommate turned the shower floor ORANGE!!! AND SHE HAS AN STD!!!! PLUS SHE SMOKED WEED IN THE DORM! I cannot shower until I clean it!

Me: Get some bleach, rubber gloves, and wear clothes you don't care about.

Kids argue with us growing up that house rules are unfair yada yada yada. Experiences like she is having now substantiate why those rules were put into place.

Yup, welcome to life.

Yep, she is getting an education in more than just studies.

[farkas]

Almost as good as boot camp!
Except there is no DI to inflict pain on non compliant offenders.
She now has a peek at what the "Real World" is like.

[MurphCID]

Almost as good as boot camp!
Except there is no DI to inflict pain on non compliant offenders.
She now has a peek at what the "Real World" is like.

So true, she is shocked! at so much that she is experiencing. Her Psychology professor does not use him/her, wants Xie/Xir. I told her to call him "Professor". She says that he sucks as a teacher, they are learning nothing in his class.

[MurphCID]

The youngest called me last night just totally upset. Seems some unknown person has hacked her iTunes/Apple account, and is doing weird things with her phone. She has been on the phone with (cr)Apple for almost two hours attempting to resolve this issue. She cannot change her password because of something going on. She wanted me to help, I told her that she is going to have to get (cr)Apple to fix this one.

Also she wants to move to the Sorority House (YES! YES! YES!) and I said YES! since it will save over $1700/semester in costs. I told her to go for it next year. She loathes her room-mates since they are messy, loud, and inconsiderate.

[MurphCID]

My almost never used MSI GS65 Stealth that I got at a close-out price is my only laptop that can take Windows 11. So I decided to see just how "flamed up" Windows 11 from Microsoft really is. Since this thing sits in a drawer 98% of the time, I can always revert it to Windows 10. I don't really care, so I am going to experiment. It is taking as usual an insanely long time to download. Then I will get to the actual installation, which based on past experiences is going to be utterly painful. But we shall see.

BTW in the Korean K-Drama VINCENSO, all the characters use MSI laptops. Lots of product placement there. Also Kopiko candy. I purchased some of this, and it is really not bad at all.

Ok, got it installed, that was relatively painless. PLUS it shows local account and did not make me open my Microsoft account. It takes extra clicks on the mouse to get to things, which is annoying. Less customization than in Windows 10. Already had an update after I installed it, so it is now doing the restart thing. As far as setting default apps, it makes it a PITA. I am seriously thinking about downloading the Chris Titus Windows 11 app just to clean it out. Well just had to reboot again since it was not smart enough to install both the .NET framework update, and the Windows 11 update at the same time. Setting default apps, is horrible, you set via file type, instead of choosing preferred browser, etc. I have to say this, it is pretty. Very pretty. There are enough changes that this is going to have some learning curve. I HATE the new menu since it includes ads (read suggestions....).

Update: Just meh. Pretty, but annoying. Takes more clicks to do things, menus buried, no global preferred application (i.e. browser, office, music, video), you now have to set by telling it .docx open with Office, .htm, .html open with Chrome, etc. Cannot move the taskbar anywhere, you can shift icons to the left, but that is it. Menus are more confusing, it is harder to get under the hood. More spyware. Ads that cannot be turned off, sorry "sugggestions". Menu system has no way to shrink that blank space when you delete "suggestions". Worse and more annoying than Gnome, you have to click on "ALL Apps" to see what is there, they have lots of bloatware installed like Adobe Lightroom..... Spyware masquerading as an operating system.

[ivar]

I'v maybe mentioned it before but the O&O shutup / appbuster lets you get rid of some bloat + telemetry without too much hassle : https://www.oo-software.com/en/

I have win11 installed (ie upgraded from win10 pro) on 2 lenovo laptops from 2014/2015 , both needed a registry setting done to bypass the cpu / tpm check. But havent spent enough time with them to dive into the typical "new windows version annoyances" yet.
One thing that seems to work very good on the Yoga 12 is the power management. Suspend/resume works much better than I'm used to, and battery life seems great for being a 6-7 year old i7 notebook. It has been in sleep for one week now , battery at 88% when I opened the lid now.

Which version on the MSI, Home or Pro?
(iv'e got no recent experience with the Home versions but I suspect they're even more bloat-riddled than the Pro version...)

also, 1 nice thing in Win 11 (it kinda debuted in windows 10 as a Store app) - finally a proper terminal :
https://thegeekpage.com/windows-terminal-in-windows-11/

[MurphCID]

Home version. I’ll check the battery today, but since it has an nvidia gpa battery life has never been great (or even good).

Update I installed and ran O&O Shutup10++ and wow can you shut down so much Microsoft crapware! If it is working, no issues so far. Battery life on this particular machine is terrible, but it always has been. If it works like it should then I might install it on the Spouse-Units machine if and when I update it to Windows 11.

Update again Decided against putting it (Windows 11) on the spouse-unit's machine, her head would explode attempting to find the shut down button, it is different enough that she would have a fit. So she gets to stick with Windows 10 which has the traditional place for the Windows power button. Knowing my wife as I do, she will do nothing but complain about it, so for peace and quiet, I will keep it where it is for now.

[MurphCID]

Apple FINALLY fixed my daughters iPhone, after a total of 10 hours on the phone with their tech support (over several days), they finally told her someone had gotten into and hacked her account, but was not completely successful so they were able to fix the issue, let her get a new password to secure the account, and she is now using her phone again with no worries. What a mess. I cannot do tech support on iPhones, and have no desire to do so. She had called us two days prior upset and scared, seems one of her sorority sisters had gone to a frat party and had tried to empty the bar. She was scared that the girl was going to die, and wanted me to help. I told her to take her to the hospital no matter how much the girl demanded to not go to a hospital (she did not want her parents to find out). They did, and her friend is ok. It really scared her, and I am glad she got to see this. But she did the right thing, and took care of her sorority sister.

Then my 84 year old dad called and told me that he had just been in a hit and run, a jacked up, blacked out pickup truck ran a stop sign and hit the back of his golf cart pushing it six feet off path. The truck never stopped just kept going. A lady pulled over to help him. He told me he is ok. Then he said that his Windows XP laptop we got him (Mint 20.2) was telling him that he needed to install updates( he passed the mouse over the updates button), so I told him to call my brother and he would install the updates.

He then asked about his Anti-Virus, so I told him it was taken care of, and not to worry... He told me he was a little sore from the accident so he was going to go home and play some card games on his laptop.

[deepakdeshp]

All is well that ends well. About the daughter, she handled the hospital case well and your father didn't face any major incident during the hit and miss. And he is running Mint 20 so on that front too it should be worry free.

[MurphCID]

All is well that ends well. About the daughter, she handled the hospital case well and your father didn't face any major incident during the hit and miss. And he is running Mint 20 so on that front too it should be worry free.

So far, so good. She called me last night and told me that she found out that she has a test on Friday, and the professor neglected to cover half the questions that are supposed to be on the test (she was in tutoring, and the tutor told them about it), when they asked the professor, he got very defensive and was upset that they would dare question his teaching methods. She told me that this guy comes across as always right, and do not dare question things he teaches. I am concerned. I am not sure what I am going to do about this, especially since we are paying so darn much money for her to learn things.

[AZgl1800]

All is well that ends well. About the daughter, she handled the hospital case well and your father didn't face any major incident during the hit and miss. And he is running Mint 20 so on that front too it should be worry free.

So far, so good. She called me last night and told me that she found out that she has a test on Friday, and the professor neglected to cover half the questions that are supposed to be on the test (she was in tutoring, and the tutor told them about it), when they asked the professor, he got very defensive and was upset that they would dare question his teaching methods. She told me that this guy comes across as always right, and do not dare question things he teaches. I am concerned. I am not sure what I am going to do about this, especially since we are paying so darn much money for her to learn things.

As a parent, i would be in the Dean's office personally, or by Skype immediately.
that kind of crap is not allowed in a premium university.... but it is always there, regardless of their "reputation"

your money is yours, you can take her to a different university if they don't can that professor, or remodel him immediately

[Lady Fitzgerald]

All is well that ends well. About the daughter, she handled the hospital case well and your father didn't face any major incident during the hit and miss. And he is running Mint 20 so on that front too it should be worry free.

So far, so good. She called me last night and told me that she found out that she has a test on Friday, and the professor neglected to cover half the questions that are supposed to be on the test (she was in tutoring, and the tutor told them about it), when they asked the professor, he got very defensive and was upset that they would dare question his teaching methods. She told me that this guy comes across as always right, and do not dare question things he teaches. I am concerned. I am not sure what I am going to do about this, especially since we are paying so darn much money for her to learn things.

As a parent, i would be in the Dean's office personally, or by Skype immediately.
that kind of crap is not allowed in a premium university.... but it is always there, regardless of their "reputation"

your money is yours, you can take her to a different university if they don't can that professor, or remodel him immediately

I had similar thoughts but also had a couple of concerns. One, the university could side with the professor, setting up your daughter up for revenge or just find some excuse to kick her out. It's like when you file a complaint against a supervisor. When doing so, you need to be prepared to find a new job because, even if the complaint was justified and the employer took appropriate action, you will be branded a troublemaker and other supervisors, if not the employer itself, will be looking for ways to punish you, if not just get rid of you. It doesn't matter how good an employee may be, supervision can build (or fake) a paper trail and a case against an employee so they can get rid of one they don't like.

Two, your daughter will eventually face this kind of crap in the workplace and needs to learn how to deal with it herself. She will not always have you to bail her out.

[MurphCID]

So far, so good. She called me last night and told me that she found out that she has a test on Friday, and the professor neglected to cover half the questions that are supposed to be on the test (she was in tutoring, and the tutor told them about it), when they asked the professor, he got very defensive and was upset that they would dare question his teaching methods. She told me that this guy comes across as always right, and do not dare question things he teaches. I am concerned. I am not sure what I am going to do about this, especially since we are paying so darn much money for her to learn things.

As a parent, i would be in the Dean's office personally, or by Skype immediately.
that kind of crap is not allowed in a premium university.... but it is always there, regardless of their "reputation"

your money is yours, you can take her to a different university if they don't can that professor, or remodel him immediately

I had similar thoughts but also had a couple of concerns. One, the university could side with the professor, setting up your daughter up for revenge or just find some excuse to kick her out. It's like when you file a complaint against a supervisor. When doing so, you need to be prepared to find a new job because, even if the complaint was justified and the employer took appropriate action, you will be branded a troublemaker and other supervisors, if not the employer itself, will be looking for ways to punish you, if not just get rid of you. It doesn't matter how good an employee may be, supervision can build (or fake) a paper trail and a case against an employee so they can get rid of one they don't like.

Two, your daughter will eventually face this kind of crap in the workplace and needs to learn how to deal with it herself. She will not always have you to bail her out.

My fear exactly, and I agree, she needs to face this squarely, and confront this issue so she learns to handle it later in life.

[MurphCID]

Off today, not back on call till 1700 hours. I am going to get a Windows 10 Pro license code for the Spouse Unit's new laptop since that at least will prevent some of Microsquishes BS if she accidentally updates it to Windows 11. I really had spending the money, but I don't see much of a choice at this point. If I put Linux on her computer her head will explode. DAS Geek put Linux on this identical machine on his channel. The only difference is I added 8 extra gb of ram so that she now has 16 gb. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7I_oD8U30s

I have never had an issue putting Linux on an HP laptop, just on some occasions getting WiFi to work. HP is wedded to those Realtek cards.

Update: I am thinking of updating the firmware on both laptops since Coreboot 4.15 has come out, but I am not having issues at this point. So I might defer it for some future date. Last time I did a firmware update on the old Darter Pro System 76 put out bad firmware and it bricked the laptop to the point I had to send it back to System 76 starting the drama of damaged laptop, dirty laptop, etc. On Second thought, I will not tempt the electronic gods by doing this. Things are working just fine.