Listening to the Voices in my Head

4th verse, same as the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd

I have been trying to watch Curiosity Stream for the past week.  I keep getting either the dreaded 403 error, or "Sorry, there was trouble with the playback"   Then 2nd message is a "Well, no shit, Sherlock" message, but I took it on board, and submitted yet another cry for help from Curiosity Stream tech support.

For the 4th time, I gave them my system stats, whether hardwired or WiFi, what app version (this one's funny, because they don't MAKE an app for Windows 10 or Windows 7 for that matter. You have to use webbrowser.) and a speed test.

The first three times I have done this, I didn't hear/read didn't squat back from them.

Maybe this time will be different, but I am not going to hold my breath. As I have said time and again, I look good in blue, I don't think I would look good hypoxia blue.

It's my computer, is it? Bull$hit!

After weeks of Corel support telling me it was my computer, or my other software that was preventing WinDVD12 to play disc folders, guess who just put out an updated that "Fixes known issues"

My computer, huh?  Yeah, only because Corel had massive bugs in it.

But yes, it's always easier for them to blame the users' hardware, or other software.

With Amazon support, you have a 50/50 chance

I found my old Windows 7 phone, and its spare battery, so decided to charge it up, and see what I can do with it over WiFi (no sim chip in it)

It charged up very quickly and I started putting it through its paces.  Sadly, there are some things that no longer work, because Zune, the desktop software you used to be able to use to update programs, no longer works. Microsoft shut off Zune's access to the servers sometime around June/July 2019. 

Be that as it may, other programs were working fine.  I fired up my Kindle app and at first, all seemed well. It started to sync, cancelled the sync, deregistered itself, and deleted the books I had on the device.  Ok, this intrepid device user went through the usual "register your device", and it failed. I tried again, and again, and again, meticulously making sure every letter/character in name and password was correct and it was.  But kept getting "Email and password not recognized".  BUT I could login via the phone's internet browser.  Time for TECH SUPPORT!  I start a chat, and I explain the situation. I was clear and succinct so I wouldn't be wasting any time.  Even though I told the person, designated by the letter P, that everything, even the Microsoft Store, said I had the app installed, it wouldn't work. My question was "Did Amazon discontinue support for the Windows Phone version of Kindle App?" 

P said no, and insisted I check MS store to see if it was there. It was. He insisted I try to login, over and over. The, P's bright idea was to switch my location, even though I told him NOT to.  Well, he did (that lead to a different bunch of trouble).  Even so, still same "email and password not recognized" message.  After P fiddling around with things, telling me to try things, and if I didn't get back to him in 60 seconds he would discontinue the chat (I reamed him about that, telling him it takes longer than 60 seconds for MS Store to launch, to search for something and get a result. He pseudo-apologized for that), for a solid 90 minutes, P finally tells me that Amazon no longer supports or has available for download the Kindle App for Windows*.  Ok, I will admit, I textually, without swearing, lit into him for not finding that out and telling me earlier. I also told him to put my Amazon setting BACK to the way they originally were. (Although I live in Australia, I am U.S. citizen. I opened my Amazon account in the US over 20 years ago. Yes, I know there's an Amazon Au, but their selection sucks. Can't get the ebooks I want on the Amazon AU site, so not ditching my Amazon US account) Ended chat, gave honest if low rating. Turns out the little $hit didn't put my settings back.  So, none of my echo dots/alexa settings worked anymore.

I admit, it was late, and I was in no mood to go searching for reason/solution, I started another Amazon help chat regarding Alexa devices, with support person, Amir. I explained I was living in Australia, but had opened amazon account when I was in the US and wanted to keep it that way.  He fixed the issue in under 30 seconds. I profusely thanked him for his friendly, quick service, ended chat, gave 5 star ratings across the board.

Next thing, I'm checking to see if I can use it as a portable audio book device. Wish me luck!

EaseUS.. you suck

I had a HDD go RAW due to a power flicker. I started running EaseUS Partition Master to recover it.  Wanting to make sure I was doing the right thing, I started a support chat with EaseUS tech support.

The agent, Warren, told me that none of my programs would work. EaseUS Partition Master, nor M3 RAW Drive recovery.  He told me to cancel the Partition recovery I was doing.

He then put some program on my computer called WinHex, and did something for about 90 minutes, saying he recovered this but it would cost me a couple hundred dollars for a full recovery service.  He kept pressuring me, and using scare tactics saying the files would deteriorate if they weren't recovered right away.

I paid, and started running the program he set up... then it crashed.  I emailed support about it, got nothing but an autoreply, so I went back to using M3 RAW drive recovery, which recovered EVERYTHING.

Yes, Warren, you LIED to me.  I will be contacting my bank to have the charge reversed.

So, if you need to recover a RAW Drive, do NOT use EaseUS products. Use M3 RAW Drive Recovery.  It not only fixed the partition, I was able to shift the files from that drive to another after, clearing it off, as I had planned to do this weekend.

Windows 10.... yup

Now I know why some animals gnaw their own feet off to escape.  I have done EVERYTHING short wiping the hdd (or throwing it out the frigging door) to fix whatever the MS Tech support did to 'help', and nothing is working. Cumulative updates will NOT install.  Bluetooth that worked perfectly, and is a signed drive, will NOT INSTALL! Microsoft says it's an Asus problem, Asus says it's a Microsoft problem. Both companies are quick to fix the blame than fix the f*cking problem!  I managed to fix the Taskmanager not working all by my lonesome. Seeing as my surface pro had the same build of Windows 10 as my desktop did, I copied the exe file from it, to my desktop, copied it to the proper directory, and TADA!

Please, don't offer advice, I don't need it. 

Kind of expected this

After a session with a Microsoft Tech regarding not being able to see camera raw files from specific cameras (Olympus OMD EM1mkII and EM5mkII, and Canon 5DmkIV) I was told it was a Canon issue and to contact Canon for 'the fix'.

Three guesses what I got in response... and the first two guesses won't count.

It's a WINDOWS issue.

Meanwhile, some versions of Windows will let you view CR2 files natively (for example, in a folder view). In previous versions of Windows, you needed to download the Microsoft Camera Codec Pack, which provides support for viewing RAW image file format thumbnails and image information in Windows Explorer.  In Windows 10, the default app for opening RAW image files is Windows Photo Viewer. However in some cases, Windows 10 operating system cannot open the RAW files in "preview mode" for images taken using new EOS camera models.

Now the cameras I mentioned aren't 'new'. They are a few years old now.

This was my reply:

Not being snarky here, but I had a feeling this was the answer I was going to get. Microsoft said it was a Canon issue, and Canon saying it was a Microsoft issue. How about you two get together and fixing the problem, rather than fixing the blame.

I don't use DPP, although I do have it installed because I wanted to see if that would install a camera codec in Windows 10 and it didn't. I use On1Photo Raw, which sees the CR2 files just fine. Also, Photoshop CC & bridge with latest camera raw update sees the CR2 images just fine. The problem is OTHER software (Aurora HDR, Luminar, Affinity) rely on Windows 10 native Windows Explorer in program to select and process images.

I will pass this along to Microsoft, and I am going to wager they will once again tell me it's NOT a Windows 10 issue, but a Canon issue.