Windows XP SP2 and Cisco’s VPN client

I have a computer at home that runs Windows XP (SP2), and I have a need to connect to a VPN for work that requires the Cisco VPN client. These two entities just do not seem to play well together. Periodically the VPN client will begin causing the system to hang up after I’ve connected to the VPN. This is a recoverable hang, it generally just causes some invisible entity to consume all of my resources for 10 to 15 minutes, rendering the computer unresponsive. If I wait I get control of my box back, but it’s really a royal pain in the butt. To remedy the problem, I have to uninstall the VPN client, uninstall SP2, reinstall SP2 and reinstall the VPN client. This is a process that takes FOREVER and I really get tired of it. I wasn’t surprised about this at all, initially, because Windows XP SP2 was so new, I expected there to be problems. But it’s been out so long at this point, I really expected the problems to have been resolved either by Microsoft or by Cisco by now… but NO neither of these entities cares about users that much. Grrr.

And while I’m on the topic of complaining. I have a WinTV PVR 350 card, produced by Hauppauge. I’m also Hard of Hearing. I would really love the card, except the drivers don’t support Closed Captioning, and I kind of need it. When I bought the card I contacted Hauppauge’s technical support to ask about CC, and was told that it wasn’t currently supported, but was planned for an upcoming release. It’s been 3 years… and there have been multiple driver revisions over that time, but still no closed captioning support. It’s customer service like this that just makes me want to scream. They don’t seem to care about their users/customers at all. Closed Captioning is a pretty big deal… especially as it is… oh, I don’t know, required by law for every TV sold in the US to be capable of displaying closed captions… Why can’t the blasted driver engineers fix this problem in their drivers?

*sigh* well, SP2 just finished reinstalling, so I’m going to go deal with that for a bit, and then go to bed.

Published in: on 19 November 2005 at 10:43 pm Comments (0)

Sniffle, Sniffle, Foghorn…

Okay, so, let’s talk about allergies, shall we? I have a healthy set of seasonal allergies. This I’ve known all my life. This spring I got tired of the diphenhydramine (ie, Benadryl(tm)) bill, and decided to see about some nice prescription drugs. The only real reason for this was that the prescription drugs I only have to take once a day, and with my prescription benefits, it’s cheaper. Benadryl doesn’t make me tired you see. These drugs (Allegra) worked wondefully for me all spring and early summer. My allergies tend to tone down in the mid-summer. Well, fall came around and I found I was having allergies worse than anything I’d ever experienced to day, as far as seasonal allergies go. So out came the Allegra and the Flonase (flonase helps me not develop Sinusitis from the first bouts of the season). First off, I’m not used to having to use this stuff in the late-summer/early-fall part of the year, so I was surprised, but I figured, “Hey, when you itch (and sniffle, and run), you’ve gotta scratch (and blow, and wipe), right?” So I start taking the stuff and it does absolutely NO good. As a matter of fact, it seems that not only are my nasal symptoms not better, but my eyes begin itching so bad that I have to wrap ice cubes in a rag and put them on my eyes at night just to stop the itching and burning enough to go to sleep. I don’t have to do that as much any more, as I’ve disciplined myself not to rub them again, but…. What the heck? stupid allergies. I go through about a box of tissue a week right now, blowing my nose all the time, and my eyes ITCH. It makes me want to specialize in immunology and find a way to just turn off the allergic response entirely. To any medi-geeks out there who may read this, I know that would be a bad idea, and that the allergic response exists for a reason, but boy-o do I get tired of dealing with it. I imagine that Zyrtec might take care of my allergies right now, but my insurance must be having a war with whatever pharmeceutical company produces it, because they won’t pay for Zyrtec… so I’m back on the benadryl. Like I said, not a big deal, except that I have to remember to take it every 8 hours, which means I have to remember to bring it to skwork (school/work) with me. So anyhow, if you hear a foghorn somewhere off in the direction of Utah, you’re not crazy, you’re just hearing me empty my snot locker out.

Oh yeah, and it seems that dried fruit, as much as I love it, is a bad idea for me in large quantities. I ate a bunch yesterday while visiting my parents (dried apricots… mmmmm…) and I’m still farting so much I could probably drive a sailboat with it. So, I have to amend my earlier statement: If you hear a foghorn somewhere off in the direction of Utah, you’re not crazy, you’re just hearing me empty either my snot locker, or the gas from my bowels.

/tmi

I’m back again, after class. I work in a computer lab at the University I attend, and you know, sometimes I want to slap the students who use the lab. We’ve got signs up all over the place detailing the more requested information so students don’t need to find us before being able to do things like print, or recycle paper, or open the front door… Yet they completely ignore these signs, staring blankly at the wall where the sign is posted, and then come ask us for help doing the exactly thing that’s discussed by the sign they just ignored. How do these people get to college? How do they get out of 5th grade? It’s one of the most irritating things I encounter on a daily basis. Classic example that happens every day:
Student walks in through front door, right past our sign that tells them what our hours are for the entire semester, straight to the help desk.

Student: “What are your hours today”?
Consultant: “We opened at XX:XX and will close at XX:XX.”
Student: “When are you open on Friday?”
Consultant: “Well, as the sign over there on the door shows, we open at XX:XX and close at XX:XX.”
Student: “Oh, okay…” *student turns around and looks at sign blankly “Are you open on Sunday?”
Consultant: *stabs self in eye with a dirty spoon.*
READ THE SIGNS PEOPLE, THEY AREN’T THERE FOR DECORATION

Published in: on 19 September 2005 at 8:04 pm Comments (0)