Jul 04, 2019
We had to call in the professionals
When I went to use our landline phone on July 1st, I only heard silence. It was dead. This seems to happen at least once per year. Often it is related to water covering the outside wires at the connection junction. I called Telus and I was surprised that they were able to send out a technician late afternoon the next day. In the past we have had to wait up to a week. We each have a cell phone and have had this landline since we moved here in 2003. We likely could get rid of the landline which only costs us around $22.00 per month but it also serves as our business line. One ring means “hello” as it is personal while two rings requires ” Colin Jewall Photo Studios, how may I help you”. Until we shut down the company we will continue to keep the landline going. Plus we have our first ever email address attached to it on which we get the occasional old client contacting us. That costs us only $7.00 per month. Being as they are both company write offs we will keep them for now.
Turns out that the source of the problem was this broken telephone wire, situated between the bed and a night table. No signs of mice, so whatever would cause the wire to become a problem. Normally if the telephone problem is inside the house you are charged a $100.00 service fee. Fortunately the tech said he was not going to charge us. Phew!
Either later in the day or the next day, I started getting strange things pop up on my computer screen. Something was definitely wrong so I shut down my desktop computer. We were almost ready to eat and this was the only way I could think to contain the situation. The next morning I called Apple Support. What a great group they are. You email for help and give the serial number of your computer and phone number and in less than two minutes you are speaking to someone. By then I had an inkling of what had caused the problem. I had been reading s news article when it came up that my Adobe Flash was out of date and needed to be updated to continue. So I stupidly clicked on it and updated. That is when I started noticing problems. First off my dock was changed and Google had been taken over by some weird site I have never heard of. Then I started getting messages from ‘creep world’ that said I needed to click ‘here’ as I had some virus issues.
Well I was stupid enough to click on the Adobe update but smart enough to not click on what looked to be a proper Mac page to remove the viruses. Looking closer I could actually see the words ‘creep world’. Thank goodness for Apple Support, all at no charge. The tech I spoke with said he could help and not to worry as he would for certain be able to fix it. So he ran through a few things here and there and we deleted a few things here and there and looked for where the malware might be hiding. No, it was not a virus. Apple computers do not get viruses ( they are built to be virus free ), however they do get malware and spyware.
The next thing he had me do was to download a free trial version of Malwarebytes. He later guided me as to how to install this at no charge on my computer and suggested that I run the program every two weeks.
In the end 18 issues were found and they were removed and placed in the trash and of course the trash was then emptied.
The tech told me that my computer was in great shape and that he has seen up to hundreds of malware issues in other computers. He also suggested that I should never ever ( and in the back of my mind I knew this ) click on an update link unless it is directly from Apple or in this case from the Adobe website itself. Lesson learned. He also mentioned that our desktops would last at least ten years each before we needed to update our machines. So fortunate that we were able to call in the professionals at no charge to us.
On the other hand, Charlie the coyote has let us down. We were watching TV and eating dinner when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. It was a quick jump up and run for the camera and take the shot without allowing time to focus. Charlie cost us $100.79 including tax and as a professional he was letting us down. In all fairness he was partly hidden by the patio furniture.
These kids were looking for a sweet snack before bedtime.
Both parents were keeping guard. I only got the one in this shot.
I opened the patio door and waived my arms and off they went. The very next day Charlie was moved to the middle of this photo on the patio, right next to that sweet patch of clover. Wherever did that clover come from? I guess we need to find some clover remover. Always something!
July 1 and July 3 were rain free and this is the week ahead.
Yes that is great for the fires and the smoke but we can’t work in either rain nor smoke. Very unusual weather for our area at this time of year. Nothing we can do about the weather. Just take it as it comes. Some of my flower pots are dying as they are getting too much water. I have turned off our drip irrigation for now.
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I do love the apple support so very helpful and free service, they ha had the Marlwareebytes
As as Was saying for this posted on me had that program installed years ago on my old mac Book Pro and still use it today canning every few weeks anti does seem to do the trick quite nicely. That rain will not be fun, but should help with the forest fires this year.
I’m going to save a link to this post for the next time someone argues about the superiority of Windows computers. People like you who would just click on random popups (said with the absolutely greatest affection for you. 😉 ) are a menace on a PC. As you learned, you can only do very minimal damage on a Mac but if you’d been on a PC, you would have likely invited in a Trojan or worse.
Ironically, the only times I’ve ever had malware on my Mac was when I was running Malwarebytes (I consider it malware itself because it was so hard to remove from my system) and, of course, Google products. Will never have Google products, like Chrome, on my Mac again because of the crap they come bundled with.
So glad Apple took care of you. You’d never get that level of support from Microsoft if you were having trouble with Windows.
Those types of wires are easy to damage. Something as easy as the table leg tight against a wall with the wire between. Not like the ones they mad years ago.
Your Professional can’t do his job if he’s not up front and center.
Be Safe and Enjoy the cooler weather.
It’s about time.
Mac now accounts for 9.57 percent of all PCs currently in use. Windows is of course still number one, with 88.77 percent of all usage. (Linux is in third, with 1.65 percent.)
So I guess it’s fair to say that the 88% of Microsoft world users are idiots (not directed to you). I’ve never had an issue with Microsoft. It’s cheap, convenient and easy to fix. Mac is an option and Mac users love Mac. My HP laptop cost $179 U.S. and it’s been dropped, thrown out of an overhead compartment, and practically dragged across the ground. I use it for accounting, PPT presentations and more. It also has a great 17″ screen that makes for great television. Never need to make a file conversion because it’s compatible with the other 88% of the world. Windows has never been a disappointment. In fact, I called Microsoft support when I first purchased the laptop and was doing the Office install. The guy was friendly and got me up and running in no time.
Some people who are Linux users feel the same about Mac as Mac does about Microsoft. It’s a choice.
The fact is that the studies have proven that Macs have a much lower learning curve and the only reason that Windows dominates the market is because they got out the gate faster when it mattered in terms of advertising and such. That’s it. Anyway, talking to a non-Mac user is like talking to a wall so I’ll delete the rest of what I was going to post — you can’t educate a someone who refuses to listen to the facts. But what’s really nice about being on this side of the wall is that most people were once on the other side and get it. And it’s not so crowded in this lovely happy apple orchard, so the developers can still care about their individual customers.
We finally got some proper rain today – so glad for it. Too bad Colin has to rely on clear skies weather. Perhaps the cheeky goslings hadn’t been taught yet to be afraid of the fake coyote – Mom was lying down on the job.