Windows Updates Failing To Install, Part 2

Well well well, what do you know? It's once again time to install more updates and once again some of the updates rated as "Important" just won't install. I guess it's too much to ask for Microsoft to create updates which actually work on their own products. So anyway, here they are:

• Security Update for Microsoft Office Excel 2003 (KB973475)
• Security Update for Microsoft Office Word 2003 (KB973443) and
• Update for Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Junk Email Filter (KB975958)

Just click the download button on each of the three pages, you can either run them from Internet Explorer or if you use a real browser save them to your computer then run them at your leisure. 

Windows Updates Failing To Install

Have you ever had Windows updates fail to install? It's happened to me a couple of times now, and after some three dozen failed attempts to install four updates rated by Microsoft as "Important" I was starting to get more than a little annoyed. They were released thirteen days ago (Oct. 13) and if they're so damned important I figure I should be able to install them even if Microsoft can't figure out a way to do it themselves in their own operating system.

So, I said "Hello!" to Google and started searching. Eventually I stumbled across the solution, one so simple that I'm fairly shocked that Microsoft themselves haven't found a working solution for the automatic download and install process. Ready? Install them manually. Yep, that's it! Close the Automatic Updates window and do it yourself.

The updates which wouldn't install were:

• Security Update for Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 (KB973705)
• Security Update for Microsoft Office 2003 (KB974554)
• Security Update for Microsoft Office 2003 (KB972580) and
• Update for Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Junk Email Filter (KB974771)

To install the updates just click them in the list above. You must use Internet Explorer for this or it probably will not work, Microsoft is funny like that. Click an update, it will open in a new window or new tab depending upon your settings. Then click the "Download" link on the Update page, click the typical multiple "OK"s and "Accept"s and "Allow"s and "Run"s until you eventually get the little alert window telling you the update was successfully installed. At that point, come back here and click on the next one and repeat the whole process until you've done all four.

You can then either check for new updates by clicking the icon and link near top right of the Update pages, or run Update from your Windows Control Panel and check for new updates that way. If all went well the problematic Updates should no longer appear on the list of updates you need to download and install. For me it didn't seem that rebooting my computer was necessary but you may want to do so anyway just to be safe.

If you try this with a browser other than Internet Explorer and it works for you, please let me know.

Yep, Still Blah

So it's two weeks into the new job. I was right, I don't really like it. I'm bored and I haven't worked for minimum wage in 30 years. There's really no motivation to get out of bed.

Everything else is still a mess. Go me.

Blah

That one little word says it all. Ok, maybe almost all, it could use a little help. *insert profanity here* blah. There, that about covers it and pretty well describes how I feel.

Ever have one of those days where you just plain can't be bothered to give a damn, about anything? That's what I'm having except it's been going on much longer than a day. I don't seem to care about much of anything these days. I've lost all interest in the projects I started after I lost my job. I've not worked on any of them for weeks, none of them are finished and I don't really care.

The only thing I've really paid any attention to at all is getting rid of the weeds in the lawn. It's a nice mindless job pulling out crabgrass and nut sedge. I can't even begin to guess at how many hours I've spent sitting in or crawing around on the lawn. A lot of it comes back because I never seem to really get all of the roots so I just pull it again next time around.

I start a new job in just a few hours yet I feel zero excitement about it, it will be just another day where I'll wake up, do something to occupy my time, eat dinner then be bored by television or internet until I fall asleep. My life has become boring beyond belief, I look forward to absolutely nothing and have no motivation to do anything. I just don't care.

I need out, but that would be a decision. All this free time has left me a lot of time for thinking and I've realized that every major decision I've ever made which has had any meaningful impact on my life has been the wrong one, so I'm not real keen on trying another. At least I'm consistent! Of course deciding not to make a decision would probably be a wrong decision too. It may even be a good thing that things have unfolded in the way they have, it has relieved me of the responsibility of making decisions so that's less chance of making yet another wrong one. There's that silver lining I was looking for. Woot!

I've lost all confidence in my ability to recognize what's best for me, or even good for me, which makes me wonder if I'm anywhere near as smart as I thought I was. I've missed clues to things which I should have seen coming a mile away yet didn't, though in hindsight some were so obvious that a blind man would have probably seen them.

Maybe I'm just having a mid-life crisis. I'm 45 and accomplished just about nothing, maybe that's messing with my mind. There's got to be more to life than this.

Is It Really Music?

If you've never heard of Nora the cat you can check out this Wikipedia article about her. I'd seen a YouTube video and just figured she pawed at a couple keys once in a while but apparently there is more to it than that, even scientists are interested and her behavior is unusual.

I know people can beat, blow or stomp on just about anything and call it music so I really shouldn't really be surprised that some consider this cat's playing deserving of that term. Hell, maybe on some level I don't understand she's actually a musical genius and her compositions are technical masterpieces. I've never studied music theory, what do I know?

Is her playing good enough to warrant being featured in her own concerto (or catcerto)? It seems the answer is....... Yes!! The first minute or so is fairly boring, mostly all orchestra and no cat but it gets better. Take it away Mindaugas and Nora!

Supersized Blueberries

I have once again won my annual battle with the catbirds, go me! Every year it's a struggle to keep those feathered pests away from my blueberries, they are determined little buggers and usually manage to find a way through, under or around the netting I use to cover the plants. I only caught a couple intruders this time, so more berries for me.

For my efforts I was rewarded with enough blueberries to completely fill a half gallon pitcher, with a mound of berries on top. That was just the first harvest, I'll be picking more over the next few weeks as the rest continue to ripen. One plant in particular had huge fruit, some of the biggest blueberries I'd ever seen. They taste even better than they look, so I'm off to eat more.

The coin in the pictures is a US quarter for comparison.

The Demise Of Free Internet Radio

It looks like the days of free internet radio are numbered, the major players are already starting to charge and it probably won't be long before more of them jump on the bandwagon. Some are charging pretty reasonable rates, others not so much.

last.fm is still free in the US, UK and Germany but if you're anywhere else in the world you'll have to pay €3.00 per month to continue listening. They are owned by CBS radio anyway, the same group who recently ruined Yahoo's LAUNCHcast radio when they took over that service.

XM have completely lost their minds, they expect you to pay $12.95 a month for an online radio subscription. That's $155 a year to listen to the radio! No thanks.

Even Pandora is starting to charge fees now. Users are allotted 40 hours per month, if that limit is exceeded there are three choices. 

• Do nothing and wait until the following month to resume listening.
• Pay $ .99 for unlimited listening for the remainder of that one month, you will still have limited skips and you will still hear advertisements.
• Buy a premium Pandora One membership for $36 per year. That's unlimited play, unlimited skips and no ads.

I suppose Yahoo's LAUNCHcast is still an option, but since CBS took over you no longer have your own customized station, all the time and effort spent on ratings and preferences to customize your own personal listening experience were wasted.

The royalty rates which internet radio are forced to pay per play per user was just cut roughly in half, so there's still hope that the industry itself won't disappear completely. There's going to be some stiff competition from new tech gadgets so it's still not going to be easy for internet radio to survive. Devices like the Aluratek USB Internet Radio Jukebox sell for less than $40. This particular device looks like a USB thumb drive, you simply plug it into your computer USB port and it's own launcher and micro-browser take over to give you access to 13,000 radio stations in 300 countries. You can search the radio stations by genre, state, or country, and you can even create favorites lists.

I think the idea of charging radio stations to play music is an asinine thing to do and I'm sure it's motivated purely by greed. FM radio doesn't have to pay royalties to play music, and satellite radio pays much lower rates than internet radio although that gap has been all but reduced by the new arrangement. I listen to far more radio online than I do on an FM receiver, and very rarely listen to any satellite. Almost all of my exposure to new music comes from internet radio which influences almost all of my decisions to purchase a CD yet artists and record companies demand payment for that exposure. Personally I think it should be the other way around.

So what do you think, will free internet radio survive or do you think it will go away completely? Do you use a free service not mentioned above, and if so which one?