Random ramblings

So, ZoneAlarm is really starting to piss me off. I recently purchased ZoneAlarm with AntiVirus. I had always run AV, of course, but in preparation for my trip to Colorado, I decided I needed to install some Firewall software, since I would be connected to a lot of public wifi networks, etc. I thought it might be nice to have one piece of software installed to do both functions.

During the evaluation period it worked flawlessly. Right after I bought a license it continued functioning just great. Then I got one of these popup dialogs "An update is available, would you like to install it?". Foolishly, I said yes. It updated, then promptly gave me a Windows error dialog stating that the TrueVector internet monitor had crashed. Ooops. Now no network activity. Same thing. Reboot. Ooops. Crashes with the same error. Finally I ended up having to disable it, reboot, uninstall it, and then reinstall it. Success!!! But wait ... there's more! After running fine for several days, the automatic updates of antivirus signatures started failing. Doh!

It kept popping up a dialog at random times saying it was downloading updated AV signatures, then almost immediately errored out complaining that the AV signatures were corrupted. No matter how many times I retried/rebooted/etc. it still failed. To top it off, you can't even schedule when it tries to download the updates, so invariably it pops up the stupid error dialog in the heat of battle in Battlefield Vietnam or Half-Life 2. ANNOYING. I've googled, searched the ZoneAlarm forums, etc. and have't found a solution. I paid for it dammit, so I want it to work. Oh, well. Add ZoneAlarm to the list.

I finally gave in today. I completely uninstalled ZoneAlarm, rebooted, re-installed ZoneAlarm, rebooted again (I LOVE WINDOWS!), updated the AV signatures and everything appears to be working OK. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. We'll see what happens the next time it decides to update the AV signature.

Speaking of ranting, why do good things always have to get screwed up my some pointy-haired corporate type? One of my favorite geek shows on TV is The Screen Savers. The original show that I grew to love had Kate and Leo. They made a great on-air team. I watched it for a long time.

Then, for various reasons, for awhile we didn't get the channel they were on anymore. (They were on ZDTV which became TechTV and is now the hideous G4TechTv. Probably a couple of years ago I started getting TechTV again, and was really happy because now I could watch The Screensavers again! It still had Leo but Kate had been replaced by Patrick Norton. I really missed Kate but Patrick was pretty good and all was well with the world.

Then, earlier this year Leo left and Kevin Rose joined Pat. Kevin had done "dark tip" segments on the show before and he was pretty cool, so if Leo had to go at least they'd picked a good replacement.

Then G4 bought out TechTV, and moved the studio to LA. Patrick decided to leave the show, and they hired another new guy, Alex Albrecht. He took a few days to grow on me but I started to really like him. He and Kevin were really funny and played well off each other. It was like hanging out with a couple of geek friends. Well, except for they did all the talking and didn't seem to be listening to anything I was saying.

Then G4TechTV decided to uncerimoniously dump a bunch of people, including Alex. They canceled some other shows (which I didn't really care about, honestly) and announced that they were "revamping" the Screensavers. So, the new version premiered this past Monday. Kevin is no longer hosting, but he's still on the show doing the occasional segment. The new hosts don't impress me, much. I'm sure there nice people but it just isn't the same show. I will say the new Kevin at least has a sense of humor. Maybe they'll begin to grow on my like Alex did. I don't know.

Then again, maybe I'm spending way too much time obsessing about a stupid TV show and I need to talk to my doctor about upping my medication. Either way, change is bad.