I've been at the neighbor's, trying various things. I downloaded a new (free) antivirus and ran a scan, in case her existing program missed it. Nothing. And upgraded her existing program, then deleted the new one. Uninstalled software not needed, never used. Installed WinPatrol and looked at the startup programs and got rid of a couple more. Did a search on an error message to do with an Intel driver, and found a message at Intel saying the message can occur when the HDD (Hard disk drive) is about to die. And suggested what I had done above, plus running the check disk program (chkdsk - a DOS program). It is running now, and we'll see in the morning if it has identified and repaired or isolated bad sectors.

She feels a bit embarrassed when these things take a while, but if you're into computers then it is an interesting challenge to see if you can find the problem and fix it. And she made a nice dinner for us, so it's not like there was no payment. She makes a great baked tilapia. And I'll do a little research about laptops (she figures that is all she needs) to replace this one. She doesn't need all of the bells and whistles, but there are still some decisions to be made when shopping around. I think she might enjoy one of those HP all-in-one computers, so a trip to the local electronic discount store that has both types is in order, if the old Dell passes on.

I stirred things up with the facebook thread, but it was unintentional. It looked like Emma B (I think that's her Mudcat name?) had lost control of her facebook account (a couple of different entries, in French, with gay pornographic photos in the link), so I named the account by her facebook name and said it looked like her account had been hijacked. There is no point in writing to a hijacked account, you need to get their attention so they can close it down and clear it with facebook with a new password. Somehow it went throught a lala land filter and I got a nasty note from Sorcha. Geez. Once something that was done with good intentions goes awry, if someone else steps in and gets all nasty, then the dynamic changes. And we use our names on facebook, ferchristsakes, the whole world can see who we are there. Even if you block everything, people can still tell you're out there. Reality check time, I think.

Okay, I've done my good deeds for the day. Only got my head bitten off once. Another glass of wine, and I have a movie to watch.

SRS