A Wee Holiday

I don't dare to look at the date on the last published post on this blog: I gave myself a wee holiday from the Internet, and forgot to come back. So, here I am, in the cyber flesh, somewhat overworked as the change-over in work continues to baffle me with builders and deliveries and my transfiguration from man to newspaper ink as we put the little pieces of the Sunday Times together.

Evidently, I don't holiday well. Holidaying should imply rest, or at least doing something that isn't work, for a period of time. Instead, I was just away from my laptop, barely tweeting, not telling Facebook the ins-and-outs of my life, not blogging or vlogging or Google Plussing. I haven't done much by way of social media interaction since sometime in August, and I suppose I should apologise for that. Except apologies are over-rated when they don't have an explanation behind them, so here's how things happened.

The week following my last blog post - if I'm remembering when that was, exactly - was all a massive setting-up process for a weekend of Shenanigans and Buffoonery at my house. We had a Family Thing. That's about as much detail as you'll get on that. Needless to say, though, that the prep-work and everything else involved and the fact that I had all of this going on and a complete lack of willingness to talk about it online pretty much left me with nothing to blog about without pulling a random topic out of my...notebook. Let's say notebook. It's more family friendly.

Following the Weekend of Madness, which included some time off work, I ended up with a lot of hours in the bookshop as we went through with a major aspect of our change-over. I was also walking to and from work every day, which meant that from around eight until seven I was out of the house or getting in/out of my uniform. Somehow, I managed to maintain a weak semblance of a social life while doing all of this, going to the cinema a couple of times and having dinner out (the joys of KFC...which I can't see myself wanting to eat for a long, long time now) and actually talking to people.

At one point, I had some fun putting together a list of things I'm actually good at. I have a little portfolio in my room, now, which I want to keep adding to. It felt good to put it together, to make things seem a little bit less crap and a little bit more...possible? I suppose that's how it feels. Like things are possible. The big bad scary world of post-college life is a little less terrifying with a good idea of what I'm actually capable of now sitting in my bedroom.

During my time away from the Internet, I also managed to get myself back reading. I've even made the executive decision to make videos about the books I'm reading, since I don't make videos often enough.

And, of course, I've picked up The Sims 3 again. Something about living vicariously through digital minions is oddly fulfilling. At the moment, I'm playing using a married couple of a fairy and a wizard, just for the fun of it. It does mean that they share different beds (she sleeps in a fairy house outside...) but they're also capable of running a house rather efficiently. She can use her fairy magic to repair broken objects without fear of death, and he can magically upgrade objects without...well, fear of death, again. I lost a Sim in an earlier game to an electric shock. Thankfully, it's just a game...

While I've been contemplating many ideas for stories in my time away from the Internet, I've been keeping the writing to a minimum. It hasn't exactly been fun, not writing, but from this blog post on I'm getting things going again. I'm back from my wee little holiday, and it's time to get to business.

Internet Connection is Back!

I don't know if I should feel guilty about not posting reviews or not over the past couple of weeks, but I am here to tell you that this little problem I had is now over! I have two shiny reviews to post, probably on Tuesday and Wednesday next week (and I'll probably write a third review to fill in Thursday as well).

The reason I was gone from the reviewing world is that our Internet provider here at home - i.e. the only place I have Internet access that isn't in work (where I definitely should not be posting reviews to books) - failed to let us do anything. Over the past couple of weeks our connection has been done almost every hour. We've had little bursts of activity every now and then, but never on Wednesdays when I was going to post reviews. It was very annoying. I was up until midnight last night hoping the signal would come back. It did not.

We have since received a new modem - it arrived this morning - and I have done some fiddling about, so we have now have Internet access. I just had to sacrifice the house phone. We don't have another cable available to plug the modem into the wall. Also, our desktop no longer has Internet access. I know how to fix this problem (fairly sure of it, anyway) so I'll use all those skills in computers they teach us in coll... no hang on, not in my college. God can fix anything but the incompetence of technicians, and DSL cables.

The truly annoying thing is that we had someone out in the house to look at it all, who then recommended a new modem. If my guess is right, we didn't even need a new modem. It was the wires hooking it up to the wall that are the problem. Our set-up - the one that doesn't work, but not the one I'm using right now - sends the wire from the computer upstairs, through the landing, into my room, into a little box. This box then has another cable that goes through my floor, down into the hallway by the door and into the phone box.

That didn't work.

One of the two wires or that little box on my floor doesn't work. One of those three things (at least one...) has stopped working. That is a plain and simple fact. The connection should work from the computer like it used to, but it doesn't. So I have to be right. I may be socially awkward and a little bit weird (and I sometimes under-estimate how weird I am...), but I know logic when it comes zipping through my brain. The current set-up works. The old one used to. The only difference is the wires used.

I win at Internet.

(That was an example of me being weird, wasn't it? It's for things like that that I wonder why I have any readers... or friends. I think it's so people can feeler cooler by comparison. That must be it. It makes perfect sense, because it's entirely true. Everyone is cooler by comparison to me. Enjoy being cool. By the way, I don't believe in cool, unless we're talking about a scientific measurement of heat. Why am I studying Religion?)

Anywho, long story short, I fixed our Internet connection, I will be posting reviews next week, and I am better at fixing the problems in this house than the people who will most certainly charge us for not fixing anything. And me? I'll have to clean up after dinner by way of payment.

Ze Powah of ze Interneht

So there I was browsing the Internet (as you do) and suddenly something pops up on my screen and tells me I have a trojan horse... or seven. I thought, "That's annoying and untrue." I was right on both accounts. I saw that a file was on my computer - well, it was a programme. It was called My Security Shield. I hadn't downloaded it, but I knew it was trouble. So I did what I always do when I'm distressed about something: I did some research.

My Security Shield is one of the latest in a line of viruses that pretend to show you other viruses to get you to download (once you've paid money) this particular software to help kill these malicious viruses that have gotten onto your computer. In my case, they attacked my laptop. In every case with My Security Shield, they are Red Herrings. What this means is that the files are actually fake. They are harmless and only detectable as viruses by - you guessed it - My Security Shield. I'll call it MSS from now on.

So, MSS planted these files on my laptop after worming its way into the system. It changes the host settings to stop it getting deleted and in some cases can even delete attacking software that tried to remove it. I found a handy guide that explained all this in full. I used its recommended software to kill MSS. It took a lot of time.

So, I did what I always do when my laptop is on the fritz: I went to the desktop. I tweeted about my problem, found my answers, and looked at a lot of videos online. They were all the lovely work of John and Hank Green, because they are awesome. Watching one of their videos also answered a question that is vague and wonderful in equal proportions: penguin, elephant or tiger? The answer is elephant. More on this in the future.

Through the power of the Internet (yeah, that's what the title is suggesting...) I managed to kill MSS and entertain myself. The power of the Internet also allowed myself and another writer on Twitter come up with the idea of having a sofa in a kitchen. This has the advantage of having a comfortable place from which a writer need not get up from to get tea, while having the disadvantage that the sofa needs to be easy to clean, and one would need to get someone like Ferris with his ability to drive several types of vehicle, including something to knock down a wall and something to carry away the debris. The cost of this goes up a bit very quickly. Even if Ferris were to knock down a wall in my house for free, I'd have a problem getting him to put one back up for free.

So, I think we all have a few lessons to learn from this. 1. The Internet is capable of both creating World Suck and 2. destroying it. Also 3. don't knock down your kitchen walls. Or 4. any other wall in your house, unless you have money to put it back up and 5. a trained professional to do the job for you.

My Generation

Before we begin, I'd like you to go to this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqfFrCUrEbY It's The Zimmers singing My Generation, originally by The Who. Are you playing it? Good, let's begin.

In a conversation with my mother, it came up that the word "blog" is completely alien to her, despite the fact that I've explained it to her before. In an earlier conversation with her, she said that my grandad thought our local cinema had four screens. This has gotten me thinking - my generation in this family is obsessed with technology, mainly because there's so much of it available.

Many of my readers are actually in my mother's generation, or at least ten years older than me, because that seems to be the average age of Twitter users, who are directed to blog post here. All of my readers know what the word "blog" means, at least in some vague sense. Many of them are bloggers themselves.

Most people know that cinemas usually have more than 4 screens. At least in Dublin they do. My local has 11 screens. When my grandad was young, and when my parents were growing up, 4 screens might have been the norm.

See now what I mean by there being so much technology about? With a new iPod every year, and now the iPad, and a number of Sony and Microsoft equivilants, my generation are in heated discussion. The smaller percentage of my mum's generation are also discussing these latest changes, while my grandad's generation have a limited number of individuals who actually understand the concept of an iPod. Each generation is different in their regard to technology, and indeed literature, movies, society and sport. I don't have the time to talk about each of these areas all at the same time, so I'll focus only on the Internet section of Technology.

Split my generation into 11-15, 16-18 and 19+ and you see a pattern of social networking emerging. The 11-15 year olds love Bebo. It's the only site that lets 12 year olds onto it, so naturally 11 year olds break the rules a bit and sneak on. 16-18 year olds get a bit sick of them and move away from Bebo to either MySpace or Facebook. MySpace is now reserved largely for music fans and fans of authors who don't see that MySpace isn't the way to go. Facebook is the "in site", largely due to the addicting games that are played while the person is "studying."

Then there's my mum's generation. While Bebo was fresh, people of her age went onto it. Now they've all migrated to Facebook because it looks a lot more sophisticated, and children can't get onto their pages. New authors see the importance of Facebook as a place where they can say something and see all the responses from fans about that particular post.

My grandad's generation... I don't see many of them on these sites, period.

All three generations are found on Twitter, possibly because it's new and shiny. It's handy, though, because it's similar to Facebook, but easier to use, and there are no distracting games. It's also a handy way for authors to chat to each other, and to their fans. Largely people older than myself are members, but I have seen a few people who are 14/15 on it.

Moving away from social networking onto something a little simpler - email. My mum set up an email account last year. Actually, I set it up for her because she didn't know how. I've never actually met someone her age online who had an email address for personal use only. Normally they run some form of website, or are members of other sites that require email addresses.

All the emails I receive are usually broken up differenly, according to age and use. Business emails and newsletters are all very formal and usually long, though that's content dependant. Emails from people of the elderly persuasion are longer and more formal, while emails from people my age sometimes don't even have a way of addressing the person. The email starts in the body, and ends with more body.

Now, I'm not saying that my generation are great at technology. We're not. Well, some of us are, but others of us are frankly so bad I don't know how they managed to set up the Facebook account they waste their life in front of. I know people who, at the age of 16, didn't even have email addresses. Even 18 year olds didn't! They had to be taught how to do it by other members of the class. I had to teach people how to use Word!

My mum on the other hand needs help opening word. She is the typical example of the part of her generation that hasn't changed with the world around her, to accept the Internet and practice using it. Meanwhile, I'm one of the people in my generation who goes all out with the Net; I have a Bebo account, a MySpace account (I don't use either anymore...), a Facebook, a Twitter, three blogs (though I only update this one most days, another once every three weeks, and the third... well, not at all since the summer) and I run a forum/website. Not to mention having about 7 email addresses (personal, Literary Den, college, Poetry Against Cancer, Anonymous Writer Magazine, Survive the Net, and The New Book Club). Most people only have two - personal and college. Some only have one. And a lot of my generation, but not all of us, have at least a Facebook or Bebo. I'm also a vlogger, which you don't get very often. I know there are loads of vloggers out there, but there are a lot more people who only watch videos.

There are a whole bunch of things on the Internet I haven't even gone in to in detail, like gaming websites, YouTube, photo sharing sites, Deviant Art, forums, personal websites and other such things, but I suppose they'll have to wait for another time. Who knows, I might actually revive Survive The Net with all this stuff to talk about. Though it'll be a lot more orderly than this blog...