Month: June 2004

So I took the HP back to CircuitCity and picked up the Toshiba … They even matched CompUSA’s price on it and I got money back! I also avoided the 15% re-stocking fee … I have always praised shopping online, but in this instance, I am so glad I didn’t … I would have gone through a nightmare returning the Pavilion through an online company I’m sure … The Toshiba is bigger and runs hotter although it’s lighter … I spent last night loading it up and checking things out … I will know more in a couple days whether it is a decent machine … It would suck if it wasn’t … It’s a very large investment into my computing career … The HP was a fine unit … too bad there are so many reported problems with it and it’s not a stereo device … Maybe they will make better models in the future?

Looks like I have finally been dissatisfied enough to take this laptop back … I am now installing the XP Home that came with the machine and all of its drivers, etc … If the Toshiba’s Line-In isn’t in stereo, oh well, but the headphone port is certainly identified as stereo in every description I’ve read about it … The other determining factor is that I have searched the Internet, and it appears that HP laptops are shutting off unexpectedly the world over in all sorts of scenarios … It seems I bought into a bad line of laptop so I am getting out while the getting is good (within the 14 day return policy) … The Toshiba has done me fine the last 3 years, so I expect the same reliability fom a new one … I have decided to go with the one linked below since it has a line in as well as a 17″ screen … oh, and that stereo thing … How can HP release (sell) a laptop that doesn’t have a stereo headphone jack? Isn’t that just wrong? … and how much money could that possibly save in the production? Oh well …

I am so torn between whether to return the laptop or hang onto it. The reasons to hang on to it are the laptop and features itself including the full size keyboard that allows me to put in ALT sequences easily and type IP addresses faster … The downside is that HP and Adobe don’t seem to get along for HT technology … The HP will just shut off like a breaker has been tripped while working in the image editor … The other thing that upsets me about it is that it is not stereo … The headphone port and the mic/line in port while they support stereo, everything is in mono … So, do I take it back? I have until the end of the month … Purchased on the 17th, I have 14 days to decide … I could buy an external sound card for $99, but do I want to do that? I read the reviews on it, and they’re mixed … Way I figure it, I don’t want to carry around another USB device cause the laptop didn’t come in stereo like it should have … I am still torn …. HELP!

So I got a new laptop yesterday … A HP Pavilion zd7160us … It comes with XP Home, and, well, who the heck wants to run that? So, I blow away the heavily overloaded full featured system and wouldn’t you know it … While installing the new system, I am hit by an exploit … Once I had the machine semi-configured where I would use it, I notice that it’s trying to contact all these other machines on port 445 … So, even after installing firewalls and all the Windows Update stuff, it’s still doing it, and on boot, it’s trying to access port 445 on a local machine on the network here that it has no business trying to connect to … At times the machine would hang, etc … So, I go to Symantec, and lo and behold, there it is; W32.Korgo.L is a variant of W32.Korgo.I. This worm attempts to propagate by exploiting the Microsoft Windows LSASS Buffer Overrun Vulnerability (described in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS04-011) on TCP port 445. It also listens on TCP ports 113, 3067, and other random ports (256-8191). Found YESTERDAY! I read the removal instructions, etc … and to me that’s a hassle … What if I miss something? What if it doesn’t completely remove stuff and since I updated with the thing active, maybe other symptoms will come of it … No! I want a clean system fully patched and ready to go to hit the ‘net … So I pop in the install disk and begin again, although this time I unplugged the network cable … I’ll get a firewall going before I connect the cable … This has never happened to me before … getting pounced on before I got a chance t put all the protection in place … It sure is frustrating, or … disheartening that this goes on …

With the help of the Microsoft Dude the bugcheck boots have been diagnosed! Finally, after all this time the cause of this has finally been determined and now I can take steps to fix it … It’s a pretty important piece of the puzzle over here, so I have to make it all play nice and still work … I am being vague because I have to …