Brian Guy

Web Developer, Writer, Dad, Aspiring Adventurer

Windows 10 Update Breaks PC

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If I’m being fair, it’s been years since I had any trouble with a Microsoft automatic Windows update. But, when it happens, boy it sucks.

In this case, I just got back from a 12 day vacation in Florida (Disney World, Universal Studios, and a few days at a beach house.) I turned on my computer, and it was bogged down and unusable. This is par for the course when Microsoft decides my PC needs an update. It hogs the bandwidth, and it hogs the hard drive downloading, and it makes my PC all but useless. I suppose I could configure something to fix it, but I haven’t gotten around to it.

This time, however, it jacked up my computer in a way I can’t seem to unjack.

Windows 10 Update Breaks DNS

The good news is that I’m a computer professional. Yes, my mortgage paying job right now is freelance writer, but I used to be a high-level systems administrator, and I still do a lot of IT stuff in the form of programming and web development. That means that USUALLY I can fix whatever goes wrong with my PC, even if it takes a half-hour of Google searches to find the answer.

But, not this time.

This time, my main work PC — and only my main work PC — are showing connection to the WiFi, but no internet connection.

system restore error

This isn’t entirely true, because I can ping internet addresses like 8.8.8.8 and others. That means that I have internet connectivity, but the DNS is not resolving names, which basically means that the internet is connected, but useless.

Now, the weird part is that I have several laptops and dozens of Amazon Fires, Galaxy Tablets, phones, iPods, Echo and Echo Dot, and the like, and they ALL still work completely fine. It’s just my WORK computer that is messed up.

So, now I’m spending all morning running ipconfig commands and netsh commands and trying new adapters, reinstalling drivers, and changing DHCP, and DNS, and static IP addresses, and everything else, but NOTHING is working.

I’ve tried resetting the Network Settings. I’ve turned off the Windows Firewall. I’ve uninstalled MalwareBytes, and so on and so forth. Nothing is changing. My WiFi icon show connectivity but with an exclaimation point that means no internet access for me.

Now, trying to do a restore to pervious system restore points is generating errors as well. I’m pretty upset, as you can imagine.

Back to it. If you want to make me feel better, go check out my Acorns review on Finance Gourmet. Maybe I can earn a little extra dough.

Rockies 5K NOW!

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I just found out about the Rockies 5K, a 5K race that ends with you getting to run a lap on the warning track at Coors Field.

This is about all kinds of awesome, except there is just one problem. I’m not a runner. I’m not in shape, and the thing is in like 12 days. I just found out about it, so there at least this isn’t my usual problem of procrastinating. This my other problem of randomly deciding I want to do cool stuff, without having a good way to do said cool stuff.

This whole thing is happening so fast that I’ve already been working on it for 3 days, but this is the first post, and I have like daily posts in my head, so I’ll have to backdate them.  In the meantime I have to improvise my own 13 Day Couch to 5K program. I’m behind because I did have my usual procrastination problem with my taxes which I just finished a few hours ago.

I guess I could have had an extra day because of a glitch at the IRS, but I found out about that too late. It’s just as well, I need to run tomorrow… probably twice.

Realistically, I should just wait until next year, and I might. We’ll see how these next 10 days go.

The good news is that I’m not some sort of “check with your doctor before starting an exercise program” out of shape. I mean, I’m 45 and haven’t run, worked out, or seen the inside of a gym (unless you count belaying my kids at the climbing gym) in months, but I stand most of the day at my job, I’m not THAT overweight, and I am a an absolute master at carbo-loading.

So, let’s do this thing. I’ll try and catch up here, and I’ve set the alarm for 6:00 am tomorrow. Yikes!

Downloaded Runkeeper so I can see how far I can already run.

And besides, how cool would this be?

rockies 5k run on the field

Actually, for next year, I’ll try and get fast, then it wouldn’t be so crowded.

Wish me luck.

HEIC Files and Stupid Computers

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So, I have a TON of photos from our recent Japan trip on my camera. I need to get off my lazy butt, go upstairs, and get said camera so that I can offload the photos to my computer where they will be usable for me. Until then, I took a few photos with my iPhone 7 Plus, and I have that in my pocket, so I was going to use one of them on my previous post. However, it seems that Apple decided to start using a file format for pictures that nobody else uses, not even Photoshop.

— Check out my pros and cons of Acorns review.

Make HEIC into JPEG

Usually, there is some sort of right-click, or import feature, or something that lets me quickly and easily deal with strange file formats. Unfortunately, in the case of HEIC photo files on Windows 10, there is no built-in support for Apple HEIC file formats.

heic file format himeji castle
This photo was originally an HEIC file when I got it off my iPhone. I had to jump through some hoops to turn it into a JPEG file for the internet.

I figured maybe FastStone, my favorite image viewer / editor for easy tasks, might work with HEIC files, but nope. This is a bit strange considering HEIC file format is apparently open source, so it shouldn’t be rocket science to incorporate support for it.

Turns out, it’s the MPEG people, and they are such a pain in the ass about licensing, which is why this is all such a kludge.

Interested in a review of Zelle?

A bit of research finds an online converter that I can use for a few photos here and there before Microsoft support for HEIC rolls out in an update sooner or later. (Apparently, it is already there in the March build for beta preview folks.)

I suppose the support in Windows 10 will open up the ability to support the format on Windows 10 applications and we can get back to work instead of messing with picture file formats.

I guess it’s better than the old days, where tech adversaries deliberately did not support other platform files and formats, as a way of trying to force you to use their product instead.

Japan Trip

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We just got back from a Spring Break trip to Japan. It can be tricky traveling on long-haul trips like that with kiddos, but our kids love being on the airplane, and know how to entertain themselves when necessary. Add to that the fact that we’ve been traveling with them (San Diego, Florida, New York, Disneyland, the Outer Banks, etc…) since they were wee little ones, and they are used to it.

Japan marks the first time we dragged them around to cultural sights over and over again (although there were several of those in New York as well). They did remarkably well.  Of course, Japan helps with cool castles, big impressive temples, and trains and subways, which they like even better than airplanes!

Travel Japan with Kids

I’ll be firing up several in-depth articles about traveling in Japan with kids, as well as general kid travel advice over at my parenting website, so look for those in the coming days (weeks?).

My main advice though is to take plenty of fun stuff. Don’t use the trip as the time to train your kids not to use electronics too much. And, make sure that when you are planning your trip that you include some fun stuff for them, even though that might take a bit of time away from more “serious” sites.

Check out this look at Credit Karma.

Also, don’t hesitate to point out what you think is cool about things you are seeing. Don’t forget, your kids don’t have the historical, cultural, and artistic context that you do. For example, at the Tokyo National Museum they have several Rodin sculptures outside. My kids were excited to recognize The Thinker, but knew nothing of the Burghers of Calais or the Gates of Hell sculptures that were also there, and weren’t all that interested.

However, when we pointed out details like how realistic the hands look, the anguish on the Burghers faces (and why there were so upset), that sculpture grew more interesting. After talking about the Gates of Hell sculpture one kiddo spent several minutes analyzing whether those people were getting out of hell through the gate, or if the gate acted more like a window that people could see into as a warning.

The other kiddo was very interested in the process of bronze sculpting and the fact that because of the way that kind of sculpture works, that the Rodin works we saw in New York were just as “real” as the ones they had in Tokyo.

Art doesn’t care how you look at it, as long as you look.