Posted: 16 June 2009 at 23:20 | IP Logged

Ok, another update. I loaded IE8 and the new browser has found a way to deal with this. IE8 will allow you to run the latest flash updates and still have a functioning quackers room.

The new IE8 has a lot of cool new features, even a few for developers. Testing has also revealed it has some trouble displaying some sites. I sometimes get a blank page but a refresh seems to solve the trouble. I'd say give it a shot ad see what you think....

Posted: 24 June 2009 at 21:21 | IP Logged

I avoid updating as long as possible--we've disagreed about this before!--and I once again am just weeweeed off to the maximus!

IE8 boogered me totally, it took me an hour to get my 'puter to even function after updating, and then only by reverting to a restore point.  Which in my untrusting best interest I actually created on purpose, although I usually have that function turned off.

However...I update Adobe whenever the nerds tell me to, and I've had no problems.  And my chatbox works fine, too.  Their was a brief period when it did not a couple years ago--somewhere around Flash version 8, I think.

Posted: 25 June 2009 at 12:30 | IP Logged

Crashing on start-up.  Blue screen of death, total screen freeze, no communication w/mouse or keyboard..  Alternately, some start-up attempts ended with a spontaneous restart after Windows error message.

I finally gave up and booted manually and rolled back to pre-IE8.  Working just fine again.  (And Adobe too)

It's been a little while since I updated from Microsoft, so I will probably attempt to load each update individually, to see if I can find a culprit.  If all the stupid security updates and useless system-slowing crap install without crashing anything, I may try IE8 again too, as an individual update.  When I have time to be annoyed and screw with it.  And AFTER I've JUST done a COMPLETE backup of the entire box. 

Posted: 25 June 2009 at 20:36 | IP Logged

You may not like them but those updates are important. I would recommend installing all the critical updates as many of them go directly to speeding things up. There are also malicious code removers built into the Microsoft stuff that will help you rid your machine of some pretty nasty bugs.

Make sure your anti-virus is up to date.

The machine slowing down after updates are installed come directly from Microsofts love of storing their code on your machine. Once you have it updated and all is working well, I will turn you on to a little program that will help releive your machine of all that extra saved (and useless) code.

By removing all the updates that were being stored on the server, I gained nearly 2 gigs of space on my HD. IE8 really is faster and safer than it's predecessors. I would never lead you down the wrong path....

As far as backups go, I no longer recommend doing them locally. This is the hot prospect for backup right here. It does it all in the background for you and the cost is negligible ...

http://www.carbonite.com/

Posted: 25 June 2009 at 23:45 | IP Logged

yeah, about that...

It looks very cool...

But why pay anything for what I can do for free, in just a few clicks?

And as far as "faster and safer," I confess that I am already sufficiently annoyed with the products designed to protect me from my own stupidity; I have little interest in improving their efficiency at this endeavor, especially when the premise upon which these products are based ultimately degrades my computer time and experience.

And if that makes no sense at all, consider this:  EVERY SINGLE "improvement" and upgrade to the "user interface" for all the major search engines has irritated the HELL out of me. 

In EVERY case, they were just FINE the way they were, IMO.  Because I READ, and I LIKED the idea of viewing every possible association with my search term, and then choosing for MYSELF which link(s) I wanted to continue to explore. 

NOW, I have choices made for me, I am protected from "potentially dangerous" links that I may want to explore, and "less relevant" returns are not revealed...it drives me CRAZY!

Faster search results are not better if they are filtered...and little drop-down suggestions rarely have anything at all to do with what I want...I despise auto-complete functions...and more than ANYTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD, I cannot STAND little icons and pictures replacing written text!! 

I don't comprehend visual aids, never have, never will.  My pea brain doesn't work that way.  I need words, Dag Nabbit!!it.  Letters, text, phrases--THOSE are descriptive. 

I'm thrilled that the rest of the world can communicate more effectively via tiny moronic pics (what the hell is the point of a favicon, anyway? and who came up with that moronic idea?) but I can't, and every single IE version incorporates more use of them. 

Whew!  sorry.  climbing off my screaming stump. I know nobody here works at Microsoft. 

But the term "upgrade" is not necessarily synonymous with "improvement," although we have been conditioned to believe otherwise.  When an upgrade fills my hard drive with "useless code," AND makes me unhappy, "improvement" and "enhancement" are not the terms that come to mind, no matter WHO endorses the upgrade as a good idea.

Posted: 05 August 2009 at 20:01 | IP Logged

Update...and un-update!

For the record, IE8 sucks donkey hiney, in my very opinionated opinion!

After painstakingly updating my machine one lonesome update at a time, and finding no single update that irritated the tender feelings inside that blinking box, I once again downloaded IE8.

With some measure of success.  No blue screens of death--that was an improvement.

However, the "improvement" stopped there. 

IE8 is an incredible resource hog, which consistently slowed my computer to a complete crawl ...or else it caused utter browser hang, leaving me staring at a blank page of nothingness...hello? hello? close? Close Tab? Exit? Escape? Back? Anything? Anything at all?  DO SOMETHING, DANGIT!

I'm not a patient person.  CTRL+ALT+DEL  RESTART!!!!

And what's the deal with resetting their crappy BING thing as my default search engine?  If it wasn't my default choice BEFORE I "upgraded" why would it be now? Nuke that for starters, reset home page, reset search engines....

Further,  the "cool" little accelerators and slicey things are the most annoying features I've ever seen.  Little ghosty popups all over the dam place...somebody should kill them.  Nobody but frenetic Type A, overachieving multitaskers need color coded tab 'families' and wiki poppers and page slices...or whatever the hell the people at MS named them.

After configuring all that garbage to go away and leave me alone, IE8's infinite wisdom decides I must therefore need a tutorial...which pops up randomly in my browser when I'm working...and the wretched thing can be closed, or you can suffer through the tutorial, or you can request the obnoxious little box to go away and come back later.

But unless you agree to turn ON the poppers and flyaways and transparencies and let them interfere with your browsing experience, you can't permanently get rid of the invitation. ( At least, not without painstaking effort to ferret it out and then nuking it from the application.)

After two weeks, I'm done.  IE8 added a dozen or so piggy processes everytime I opened the browser, slowed my system, and left me hanging over and over. 

I uninstalled the darn thing.  I'll stick to IE7, where everything that I can think of doing works just fine, and my computer operates at a satisfying speed.  When nothing works in it anymore, then I'll switch to Mozilla or something. 

Posted: 06 August 2009 at 08:57 | IP Logged

yeah I hate all the popups that happen now when I use IE...

And a lot of people thought it was bad with AOL, but IE has made AOL look great.