Fickle as F...

 If anyone is actually reading or following my blog, which I doubt, you know that I can change my mind on the drop of a hat. Go ahead, drop your hat and see what happens. Regardless, I decided after a really nightmare session screwing around with Lutris (google it) and trying to get The Sims 4 to work with Manjaro, I changed OS to Windows 10 again because at least I can get the games I want to work without spending all my time trying to get it to work.

Oh, I can get the Sims game to work but that's as far as I could get, a reboot resulted in Lutris going for a s**t and having to download all the game files again. I said it before and I'm saying it again, if you want to play games designed for Windows, then just use Windows, and the same goes for games designed for Linux, if you like to play games designed for Linux, then use Linux.

TO me, its pretty obvious what the F up is, with lutris, you have your Origin folder and then you have your users, and inside there is your c: drive. WTF, no wonder origin says you don't have the game installed. Anyways, its all good, if you want to waste some time screwing about, go for it but I don't really care, it was an exercise in futility and I am over it now, it's not like I don't have legal copies of Windows, so goodbye Manjaro and Linux in general and back to Windows. This is why I have an old F around with cause it don't matter computer in the first place. Ok, enough for now, lets go play!

Manjaro To The Rescue

I've been using Manjaro for a while now, Firstly on an almost dead chrome book which is most decidedly dead now and now it's on a Dell Optiplex 390 which is starting to show its age, but still a fairly fast machine considering the parts. Its certainly not state-of-the-art but I can surf the web, play some games on it, try to write my book, yeah, not at too fast a pace, but not the computer's fault.

Manjaro is not the OS I would recommend to anyone wanting to use a Linux OS but it was the only one that recognized my old chrome book's sound chip and as it is fairly light weight, running mostly the XFCE desktop manager with some Gnome thrown in for good measure. My setup is pretty sleek, using my MSI Monitor with built in USB ports, I can use one keyboard, mouse, printer and sound system for both computers, all I have to do is plug the main USB plug into which ever computer I want to use and this gives me access to all my peripherals. I do have the Dell on HDMI and my Win computer on DP but it works well and keeps the clutter on my desk to a minimum.

In any case, I want to use Manjaro on a more permanent basis as I find Linux more robust than Windows, in spite of what people believe, its just as prone to being hacked as Windows but I use it to try and be a bit more versatile. Besides there is nothing wrong with learning a new skill regardless of age. On that note, I have a fairly simple Canon printer that still defies my attempts at getting it to work with my spouse's Chrome book, but today, it took all of five minutes to get it working on my Manjaro computer.

I used to use Linux almost exclusively when I was still working online but now I need my Games on Windows fix to keep me sane, so I probably won't switch completely over to Linux but the idea is tempting. OK, kiddies, enough for now, later!

Microsoft, Please Stop!

 For the third time in a row this month, Microsoft has tried forcing 365 down my throat. Its software I don't need or want so please stop trying to trick me into trying it out with your "optimize windows for your device" crap. I was using a spread sheet a month ago but the need is gone and now the only software I am using for writing is Jarte. I was using Libre Office but it has the same issue that Office has. Constantly reminding me as soon as I make a spelling mistake to correct it. Stop The F**k Right Now!

I hate it when I get on a roll and the creative juices are flowing and I just want to get crap down before I lose it. Oh no, you made a spelling mistake oops there's another one, wait you need to correct that. O.M.G. Just stop already, I'll check it later, those mistakes aren't going any where and when I do finally run a check, I am sure I'll find them.

Well, Microsoft, you've pushed me to where I removed Windows 10 Pro off my "Too old for Windows 11" computer and installed Manjaro. The benefits were immediate. Firstly, my computer now boots in seconds instead of minutes. And all the Microsoft nags for Edge and 365 are gone. Same with linking my phone to my PC. My cell phone isn't for day to day use and I have no desire to link it. It's for EMERGENCIES, not for hiding crap from other people or playing games or whatever. It's for if my landline goes down due to a power failure or a network failure and that's it. Why the hell would I want to link it to a device that will probably be down when I use my cell phone?

Anyways, anything I used to do in Windows 10, I can now do in Manjaro, and much faster so thank you MS for pointing me in the right direction.

Hurray For YouTube!

 For the third day in a row, cable TV on Rogers sucks. Tonight I have my mom and my wife freaking out because none of the channels are working on TV. Great. I still have internet so I thought, hey what about YouTube? My mom doesn't care much about movies, "Too much drama!" she claims, but she likes documentaries about animals and weird places, so I figured, YouTube. I found a documentary about Australia and she is happy, hurray! Later, I will go to Netflix and find a movie there but for now I have my games to keep me happy, and my wife has a bunch of online games she enjoys playing. Yeah, this is probably going to open a can of worms, no doubt I will get requests for more and more documentaries but hey, whatever floats her boat.

Rogers Ignite in Canada

 No doubt you have heard about the Canadian Internet going down on Friday, June 8th, 2022. If you live in Canada, you were undoubtedly affected by this either by the fact you had no internet, land line or cable TV, or all your shopping had to be done by paying cash. God forbid if someone in your family suffered a medical emergency and discovered that 911 services were down. No doubt you heard the CEO bragging to the media that almost 100 percent of services have been restored. Well let me tell you this. If that A.H. thinks the internet has been fixed, he's on better drugs than what I could afford.

Cable TV is absolute crap, with drop outs, channels not being available, sound and video issues and other problems. The internet is no better, many sites are unreachable Those that are available take forever to load, reminding me of a time when dial up was state-of-the-art. About the only service that seems to be working is the phone but I haven't been on it long enough to say for sure.

MR. Rogers CEO, if you think all is good in Lala land, you better give your head a shake. I am sure that come Monday and maybe sooner if possible, many people will be dropping Rogers Ignite and switching to Bell, even if satellite is the only internet and TV option available. If this is your idea of being fixed 100% then you are the only one with that view. I tried logging onto the community website tonight and it's not working, no doubt due to the overload of people complaining.

Just posting here to say I am not pleased or impressed with the service, yeah you had some poor unfortunates slaving away into the wee wee hours as my services were unavailable at 3:00 am but up at 7:00 am. Whatever the cause of this outage, my spouse's chrome book no longer could get online even though she could connect to WiFi. Turns out that due to this outage, the machine reset the DNS server in an attempt to get online and I finally located the issue four and a half hours later. Well, you go on believing and telling everyone that the problem is one hundred percent fixed.

Necroposting

OMG,I cannot believe that this is actually something that some people freak out about. WTF! Get over it! If you post something on a site after ten or so years of no activity, I get it. The poster probably should have read when the post was first made and figured out that maybe the subject is no longer valid but freaking out after six months of inactivity?

Maybe it's because I began posting when I used to use Linux more than Windows and issues were common. Answers usually were not readily forthcoming because in a lot of cases there were no answers. It wasn't unusual for somebody to finally find a solution six months, a year and sometime even two years down the road. Posts that finally solved issues were welcome, no matter what the time frame.

I get it, people post something and then a week later, they move on and no longer care if they get an answer or not. But when it comes to solving issues that are still relevant then it makes sense to have one thread and not a hundred different ones regarding the same issue. I have a feeling that there may be more behind this necro posting than people will tell you.

Some sites thrive on the number of posts and if you only have one or a few posts regarding an issue, then the site appears to be mostly inactive. Sites like that are driven by social desires more than anything else and are usually useless for actual problem solving and finding solutions. What these misinformed individuals don't realize is that even though a post is too old for them to consider posting to, those posts all still come up during a search. There's nothing more frustrating than trying to solve an issue and a search reveals over a thousand results. If this is your policy for your site, well it's your sandbox but you can keep it.

There are sites like this I belong to but once I get wind of their overuse of the necropost accusations, I usually leave and if possible, terminate my membership. If you find something I posted ten or more years ago, you are welcome to reply and you may even receive acknowledgement but a necropost warning? Nah, not from me.

Some "Experts" Need To Stop Giving False Advice

 I watch a fair amount of youtubers, some I subscribe to and some I just happen to watch the odd recorded stream if their content happens to catch my eye. There was one person I used to watch on a regular basis because I found his advice helpful and I enjoyed his computer building videos. I had a regular subscription and waited eagerly for each new stream. Lately, however, his streams were becoming tedious as whenever somebody expressed an opinion that differed from his, he would go on an endless tirade stating how his opinion was the only one that mattered as he was the expert.

Fair enough, you are the expert, you have made your point many times in the past and going on for a half an hour or more about it, gets tedious after a while. Just ban the person and let's move on. Yeah, he will be back but you have a ton of moderators who will jump on his butt so ignore it. No, it seemed he relished the opportunity to complain about it some more and kept threatening to make his live videos only accessible to paying viewers. When I noticed he was handing out special membership to paying supporters I decided that unlike him, I would not carry on for over a half an hour about how I felt it was unfair that only paid subscribers could watch live feeds, so I cut him loose, I wanted to watch somebody build computers, not whine about the criticism.

As I said before, this isn't about his YouTube and streaming practices and his treatment of mostly unpaid subscribers, this is about something far more serious. Giving out advice that sometimes is not in the viewers' best interest.

Whenever this guy built a pc, regardless of the CPU, whether it be Alder Lake, Rocket Lake, Comet Lake or whatever, and maybe it doesn't make a difference but his opinion was that regardless of the processor, one should always get the latest Bios and install it.

Apparently, this is not always a good idea with AMD CPUs. Now, to be fair, this guy uses mostly intel CPUs but he has built some AMD computers in the past and his practice regarding the Bios is the same. A few months back, I replaced the motherboard on my computer because I was having heating issues with my computer due to the proprietary case and components and I saved what I could and replaced what I couldn't reuse.

I followed what I believed was standard practice and updated the Bios to the latest version. Every now and then, my computer crashes and according to the LEDs on the MB, it's due to a CPU issue. It's possible the CPU is bad but I was careful when handling it and as this wasn't my first build, I knew what I was doing. I've been searching for a solution and in my search I read that if I used a Bios built for a newer CPU, I could have problems. I checked the manufacturers page for CPU compatibility and read that for my CPU, I should be using their two year old BIOS and nothing newer. Hmmm.

So here is my point, it's great to be an "expert" but user beware. What is good advice for the streamer, may not always be good advice for the viewer. I downloaded and installed the older Bios and during a subsequent boot, I still had a CPU crash so I may be looking for a new CPU tomorrow. I will hold off for a bit as this might have been a crash due to something else but it's not looking too good for this CPU right now. At least I solved the BIOS mismatch and perhaps today was the last time my computer will crash but time will tell.