Thursday, February 8, 2007
MUNI did not work for me this morning, ended up walking 10 blocks out of frustration. Helped faculty member JI set up wireless. People in my office have been reporting a problem in which when they arrive in the morning their computer is frozen with a completely blue screen. This is not a blue screen of death (BSOD), just a blue screen. Keyboard and mouse are unresponsive. I estimate that the problems first began around mid-December 2006. I see the problem on my computer occasionally except that instead of a blue screen I see a black screen with the Windows logo. For a while Scott seemed to think it would happen every Monday for him, but last Monday he didn't get the problem. The problem is inconsistent on an individual basis as well as on an office basis. Some days my computer and Scott's are affected, other days only Lucia's or only Alyssa's. There is no known pattern yet. Since people only experience the problem upon arrival in the morning, I suspect overnight updates of some kind. Microsoft Updates, Sophos, and Spy Sweeper are my primary suspects. Looking at the Microsoft Updates history, no update attempts were made on or near a day I encountered the problem on my computer, so I have less reason to suspect Microsoft Update but I cannot completely eliminate it because perhaps the freeze problem occurs before it can record anything in the logfile about the update attempt. I compiled a spreadsheet of all the problem reports, dug through event logs of all the problematic computers (found nothing). I uninstalled Spy Sweeper Enterprise and Sophos Enterprise. Restarted. Installed Microsoft Defender. Restarted. Installed Norton Anti-Virus 2005, did a quick scan and a LiveUpdate. Restarted. Did a LiveUpdate. Restarted. Did a LiveUpdate. Restarted. All of this took the better part of an hour. Answered a question for Carol about ethernet cables. Did research for key storage. Did research for laptop safes. Lunch with Julie, John K, Sadie, and Julia at Nan King Road Bistro—the web developers steering committee informal lunch. Julie asked for recommendations about whether to install Vista on her new MacBook Pro (John and I both said no). John talked about OpenOffice and how can we get more units using that and other open-source software? We all talked about IM and how we might use it in the office. Julie asked who was using Google Sitemaps. (I think no one.) I floated my idea for a wiki-based dictionary for jargon at UCSF and my idea for a web service which provides a single resource for an individual's directory and biographical data. (Everyone seemed to like the ideas.) Julia and I talked about asset management systems. Computer support coordinator meeting. Online training. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftovers. Watched Heroes episode 14 on the web with Patrick while eating popcorn and Jelly Belly jelly beans that Ted and Emery gave us for Christmas. Weight training: plank.