percussive maintenance – if all else fails…use a hammer

I don’t know about you, but I love the stats page, and the map in particular. It really does it for me to see the map fill up as more and more people around the world stumble across if all else fails…use a hammer. (Most of them run off again as fast as their legs can carry them, but that’s to be expected, what with hammers flying all over the place. They probably forgot their hard hats.)

After a year and a bit of consistent blogging I’ve had visitors from most of the world. Just look:

KokkieH Stats World Map

Africa and the Middle-East is under-represented (which is understandable) but on all the other continents this blog seems to have had pretty good exposure. Someone has even been able to reach this blog from beyond the Great Firewall of China. (If you know anyone in Mongolia, though, please share the blog with them. That big white blob in the middle of Asia bugs me.)

You will notice, however, that the map is significantly darker in English speaking territories. Again, understandable as I only write in English. So, in order to make the blog more accessible to non-English visitors I’ve decided I need to make it multi-lingual.

Are you as curious as I am? Click here

So, my day was fun. As mentioned yesterday, both my pc and my laptop decided they didn’t want to work anymore. I’ve had computer problems in the past (who hasn’t?) but always just one computer at a time. This is the first time that more than one ganged up on me at the same time.

After running virus scans, malware scans, registry cleaners, disk checks, a system file check and scrolling through a few hundred entries in the system log I finally found the problem. Turns out it wasn’t Microsoft taking revenge after all, but the latest update of the program I got from my bank’s internet banking site supposed to protect me against malware and phishing attacks. Unfortunately part of the ill effects of this update was that it made the computer freeze every time I tried to uninstall it and system restore wouldn’t work either (and in case you didn’t know, you can’t uninstall programs in “safe mode” as the installer doesn’t run there).

I was weighing my options between doing a clean re-install (which would have meant wiping my hard drive and starting from scratch), taking the pc in to the shop for a repair install (which I can’t do as I don’t have a retail-disc of Windows but only the one that came pre-loaded when I bought the pc), or performing a bit of percussive maintenance by invoking the title of my blog, when I came across The Windows Club. They had the answer in the form of an application that could activate the installer from within safe mode and I was finally able to uninstall the offending program.

I am very glad to report that since 12 this afternoon neither my pc or laptop has crashed once and I haven’t had to test whether or not a laptop and desktop pc fall at the same speed when dropped from a fourth storey window.

I still think we should be careful what we say online about Microsoft, though. I honestly believe they’re way more powerful than the world’s governments and a much bigger threat to privacy than PRISM.

Speaking of PRISM, click here for something funny. I promise your IP address will be recorded and immediately forwarded to the US Department of Homeland Security along with a photo of you taken by your webcam.