Re: Pro bono laptop repair, Monsieur Hire, and jam

Oh, groan. I get it. Bono, not bono. (Text doesn't do that joke justice.)

Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |*
*


On Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 4:22 PM, Mike Findlay <[email protected]>wrote:

> Do you do the same work for folks who like the Edge?  ; - )
>
> Mike F.
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Johne Cook <[email protected]>
> Sent: Mon, July 25, 2011 2:27:33 PM
> Subject: [DADL-OT] Pro bono laptop repair, Monsieur Hire, and jam
>
> Some people mark the changing of time by the seasons, others, by the
> beginning and ending of sports calenders. I mark the passage of time by how
> often I am 'volunteered' to fix Alicia's laptop.
>
> Alicia is sort of related. She is the younger sister of Mike Badtke, the
> husband of my daughter, Ashlei. Alicia recently graduated from High School,
> which means she still hangs onto the self delusion that she knows
> everything. The fact that her mother, Cindy, approaches me on a semi-annual
> basis to fix the laptop simply side-steps the issue, I think. Alicia
> doesn't
> have to confess her ignorance or her (fairly common) internet
> indiscretions,
> and I don't have to rub her nose in it. Cindy loves her daughter, and I
> don't mind playing the geeky hero on occasion.
>
> I was approached on Saturday to help Alicia get her new iPod Touch to work
> with the laptop on Saturday. The presenting problem was simple: the iPod
> could not be connected to iTunes, because iTunes wasn't connecting to the
> iTunes store. I noticed that she had three different antivirus apps, all
> expired. As I expected, none of them connected to the internet to receive
> updates. While digging into the issue, I noticed that the weather app in
> the
> sidebar also wasn't updating because it apparently couldn't connect to the
> internet, either. However, her browsers connected to the internet just
> fine.
> And then I noticed the Frostwire icon on the desktop. I looked at the
> amount
> of battery she had left and closed the lid.
>
> I said there were more things going on than I would have laptop battery
> power available to fix that day, and asked for the family to take the
> laptop
> back home and send it to church the following day with my daughter, Ashlei
> (who lives near them and attends my church). I asked for them to send along
> the new iPod and a power cord for the laptop.
>
> The problem was simple - the laptop was infected by virii likely acquired
> during the downloading of songs on Frostwire. (The Frostwire service itself
> is just another P2P app, however, songs people download are frequently
> infected and young downloaders don't always know how to protect
> themselves.)
> I settled down for an afternoon of clearing out non-functioning programs,
> disinfecting the laptop, and then installing new programs to keep her
> laptop
> secure.
>
> I spent much of the afternoon waiting for various lengthy processes to run;
> I installed and loaded and ran and updated and immunized Spybot Search &
> Destroy. I ran Malware Bytes. I unloaded all the non-functioning and
> out-of-date antivirus apps and got one current one loaded. There were any
> number of complete hard drive scans, both quick and full. There was a lot
> of
> time to kill while her laptop was performing various and sundry tasks, and
> I
> spent that time watching stuff. I got caught up with Suits (USA Network). I
> went looking for a good noir mystery thriller to keep my mind engaged.
>
> And that's how I found Monsieur Hire, the obscure French-subtitled film. It
> cropped up in one of my Netflix searches, and was described as just weird
> enough to sample. I have a thing for good noir, and sometimes even
> less-good
> noir. I fired it up and watched the first five minutes, then five more,
> then
> five more. What saved it was how it suggested suggestive scenes (if that
> makes sense) without ever being explicit. This is not an overt film. I was
> just curious to give it some time to develop.
>
> I'm glad I did. Roger Ebert gave it four stars. I wish I'd thought to
> research it first, because I could have perhaps committed fully to it
> earlier, but as it was, it was on an every five minute bubble, forever at
> risk being turned off in favor of something else (my back-up plan was to
> finally watch Nic Cage in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, which I still haven't
> gotten around to seeing). There are times for mindless flicks, and times
> for
> something with foreign subtitles.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsieur_Hire
>
> http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19900615/REVIEWS/6150303
>
>
> Something socially aberrant happens, but it is so matter-of-fact that I
> kept
> watching. The movie wasn't about a fetish, although a lesser film would
> have
> been obsessed with one in its place. I thought I knew where the film was
> going to go, and it kept subverting my expectations. The 'hero' wasn't
> heroic, but was both completely sure of himself and completely vulnerable.
> The girl wasn't a victim and yet willingly threw her at two completely
> different men. The young man wasn't completely stupid nor predictable. The
> inspector was a good man (or was he?) who had an interesting way of
> conducting a murder investigation.
>
> About halfway through, I realized with a start that I was hooked. Because
> of
> the subject matter, I never would have sought out such a film, and yet, and
> yet, and yet.
>
> After watching my fair share of mindless CGI-laden summer blockbusters,
> perhaps I was ready for such a different kind of film. I was most impressed
> by what the film left out. It was an elegant little exercise, and I have to
> say that after getting to the end, it really left me impressed, and (in a
> way) entertained. It really was about what is, and isn't, love. With
> subtitles.
>
> Back to the laptop - strangely, McAfee turned out to be very effective
> finding and removing viruses, but was too devoted to locking her system
> down
> so tight that it wouldn't connect to the internet, the original problem I
> was there to fix. I finally wiped McAfee back off her system and replaced
> it
> with the free AVG, and all was good with the world. The afternoon turned
> into twilight and I finally got the laptop back to the place where I was
> able to connect iTunes to the internet to get her iPod Touch to work. By
> the
> time I was done with everything else, that was almost an afterthought. It
> was by far the easiest thing I did all day.
>
> I arranged to meet Cindy at an Arby's restaurant to drop off the laptop.
> When she pulled up, she asked how much I wanted. I demurred, as I always
> do,
> invoking the 'family discount.' She smiled produced a small, heavy paper
> bag
> containing two jars of home-made jam. The 'payment' didn't match the effort
> or my time, but I was strangely touched. (As it happens, it's really great
> jam, as only real home-made stuff can be. The love poured in helps in some
> undefinable way.)
>
> I went through the drive-through and splurged on some dinner for us and
> went
> home to sit with Linda and catch up with Big Brother 13, a shared guilty
> pleasure. I'm sure I'll hear from Cindy again about fixing Alicia's laptop,
> likely in 2012. Who knows what new obscure treasure I'll dig up then.
>
> Honestly, I'm kind of looking forward to it.
>
> Johne Cook
> | http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |
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