7 Aug 2015

And Then A Data Flood....

While doing that laptop using stuff last night I was alerted to the arrival of new mail. I thought, who could this be from. Really? I thought that? Of course not; I just opened the thing. Guess wot? It was from my Internet provider to let me know I was over my monthly download allowance and will now be charged an arm and a portion of one leg, left or right was not specified, for each Gig, or part thereof, I now download.

Say what now? My billing runs from number two of a month to number two of the next month and It's only number six of this month.

Foggy, we have a problem. What problem I have I need to discover so I started in ol' Mr Windows Update. All looked quiet and all I'd updated was the Defender virus definitions. However, while I was there I clicked on the Update History. Well, there you go then. Sitting in there were many, and I really do mean many, failed attempts to download Windows 10; all totting up to lots of giggly-bytes.

A quick inter-web search indicated this is quite a common problem. The easy, lazy solution was from some guy who'd called his computer manufacturer and also Microsoft, who both assured this fellow that this was 'normal' and to just let it all run its course and wait for a notification that the final, complete download had completed.

To me, and many others, this seems a goofy way to run things. It also makes a mockery of the 'free' label but, on the upside, many IP outfits must be making mega excess bytes of money, from unwary customers.

What did I do? Changed my 'plan' to give me more gigs-thingies a month 'till Bill has stopped flinging a failed pair o' fives at me.

In other news it seems some folk, after downloading Windows 10 and running the setup, partway through the install are presented with a blue/ grey box stating installation has failed. The bit I like is that the boxes are preceded by the most helpful information yet seen in the land of the computer connected; 'Something happened'. Are they kidding? That's it? Something happened? I mean, how helpful is that then? I do believe Microsoft need a new blue/grey box text writer, right? 

If it's beyond their ability to offer folk meaningful guidance, the least they could do is lighten the load a little. How about, 'Whoa!! Something happened.' See? Simple. Or how about ending with, 'Now you're screwed.' So much more fun than the bland 'Something happened' is it not?

Makes you long for the uncomplicated days of the Gem desktop of Windows 95 and a floppy drive that kept it all alive. We've advanced{?} from mega to giga and now we have the aptly named, terror bytes.

Quote;  John Pfeiffer.

“Man is a slow, sloppy, and brilliant thinker; computers are fast, accurate, and stupid.”
 
            Dave Barry.
 
"A program is a spell cast over a computer, turning input into error messages."

3 comments:

Grandad said...

My favourite errors [as I remember them]-

From the days of DOS... "Keyboard not found. Press any continue"

And good old Windows... "Cannot connect to Internet. Do you wish to search online for a solution?"

Grandad said...

Damned compputers! That should read "Keyboard not found. Press any key to continue"

Mac said...

Grandad,
I remember Homer Simpson, when informed to press any key exclaiming, 'There isn't any Any key!'
I also love the 'new' one that you find in Windows after doing one of they troubleshooting thingies which climaxes with something along the lines of, 'If the peoblem persists, other things you could try;' and right at the top is, 'Phone a friend.'