Small Boy Update and Computer Issue Resolved

[muck_a_luck]

Small Boy Update
Yay! Small Boy is going to the after school martial arts program we wanted! So totally psyched! We visited this afternoon and he thinks it's going to be cool! I love it. I have visited twice at about 5pm now, the end of the day for their summer camp, and the kids are happy and energized, and the teachers look happy and relaxed and this was the end of a long day full of swarming children. They stress homework first, then fun, with the class included in the fun. I think it is going to be great!



My Most Embarrassing Computer Moment EVER

Let me begin by saying that my boss and I are the two most technologically savvy people in the office. He is a fearless early adopter, and I am a fearless try-it-and-make-it-work person. I am the unofficial in-house resource for psople who have software issues.

That said...

Yesterday my computer began exhibiting the most bizzare behavior EVER. I would go to my calendar program, and it would still be running, but the calendar window, the guts of the program, would be closed. I'd reopen it, and a few minutes later, if that long, it would spontaneously shut.

Then, in Word, I would start going to the menus - like to fix the paragraph formatting - and when I would click on the menu it woudl sort of flicker and disappear. And this began to happen with every program. I would right click my AIM button in the system tray, and the menu would refuse to pop up. I couldn't get the freakin' START menu to come up to shut the computer down, and I finally had to ctrl/alt/del to get to a place to shut the stupid thing down.

I ran the virus software. Nothing.

I shut down and rebooted, guessing that somewhere something had hung itself and was hogging all the computer's brain. That seemed to help temporarily. But then the symptoms came back.

Well, when I booted up this morning, the computer made a hideous screechigng noise, and then told me there was a keyboard failure. Oh, no! I jiggled the connections, finally got it to boot, and the problem was back 100 times worse than yesterday.

So I freaked. I called my computer guy. I described the symptoms and he was mellow. He said, oh, sounds like a problem with the mouse. He's seen many times failing hardware giving software weird feedback and causing odd problems that are instantly fixed when you put in working hardware.

I said, Hey! The thing gave me this weird keyboard warning this morning. Could that be it? He siad, sure, we all know that F4 causes most programs to shut open windows. If your keyboard is faiing and sending signals that you are constantly pressing F4, that could be your whole problem right there.

I was in panic mode at that moment. All I could think was Yay! I have the old keyboard right here! I can switch keyboards and everything will be fixed!

And Voila! It was fixed! I was so happy I nearly wet myself!

And yes, I did a full backup of my computer today, thank you very much alpha_strike.

Then I got to thinking...

My desk is a disaster. Of monumental proportions. And... Um... I had a big stack of loose billing pages sitting next to my computer, kinda drifting onto the corner of the keyboard that started to build up yesterday. And... Um... It was sorta perched near on the ESC key. Um... *facepalm*

I did a little test, after I thought of that. Yup. If you have the calendar program open, and press escape, it closes the open calendar, leaving the software running. I experimented with this in Word and something else. Eudora probably. Um. Same result.

*dies of embarrassment*

My messy desk must have started pressing the ESC key harder and harder til it was fully depressed all the time and therefore shutting every window and menu instantaneously after I clicked with the mouse.

This is my working theory. Before I boot up tomorrow, I'm switching the keyboards back. I fully expect to find absolutely nothing is wrong with the new keyboard and I am just a complete fool.

Jeez! Can you imagine how humiliated I would have been if I had actually called someone to come out and look at the problem!!!!

I am 100% sure I had other things to say, but I can't think of them at the moment, so grrrrr.

Comments

[snarkyducky.livejournal.com]

My messy desk must have started pressing the ESC key harder and harder til it was fully depressed all the time

this sentence looks so funny when taken out of context (though there's nothing funny about your situation :P i would've freaked out definitely) especially the depression part.. hee!

good to hear it was nothing to worry about! :D

[muck-a-luck.livejournal.com]

I am happy to report that the old keyboard is plugged back in, the desk is (slightly) cleared off, and everything seems to be working great! *dies of embarrassment again* I don't have an icon to express this level of humiliation! :)