buzzsawmonkey 8/5/2022 5:20:14 AM

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Well, it certainly has been hell.  Tried to get a replacement battery for the old laptop to get the trackpad back to working, and they are NOT easily come by. 

Meantime, the cursor is still acting skittish.  Most annoying of all, that damn "Dictionary" function, which features sudden pop-up windows for no reason, and which I never even knew existed, much less ever used, has suddenly appeared and I cannot seem to figure out how to disable/get rid of it.

I'd just run out and get a new computer, expense be damned, except that Apple has reconfigured its more-recent machines so that they don't even take USB connections, and also don't play CDs.  In addition, my copies of Word and Acrobat came on discs---they go back to the days before these things were only available as rentals from the cloud.   I'm not a big fan of "the cloud," which I consider one-stop shopping for hackers.  

The battery issue should be resolved early next week, which may buy a little time in which to find a good replacement machine, but this stuff is wearing---particularly if, like me, you're not deeply immersed in computer lore.

buzzsawmonkey 8/5/2022 5:59:49 AM

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Question for the computer-knowledgeable:  Is it possible to simply delete the "Dictionary" application from my Applications folder?  I've never used it, and find it to be a royal pain in the ass since it suddenly started appearing yesterday.  

Can I just drag it from the App folder to the trash and delete it, and should I be worried about that affecting something else?

buzzsawmonkey 8/5/2022 6:19:17 AM

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lucius septimius 8/5/2022 6:28:13 AM

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buzzsawmonkey 8/5/2022 6:48:53 AM

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Tried "zipping" "Dictionary."  And a new one popped up.  Tried "zipping" that one---and again, like "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," a new one popped up.

How the hell can I kill this thing?

Occasional Reader 8/5/2022 6:53:47 AM

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Good morning.  So, last night I was picking a restaurant for a future date, using "OpenTable".  I noticed this option in the search-screening feature, which I'd never seen before.  It's such a healthy, good thing, basing one's restaurant choices on the chromosomal arrangements and/or sexual orientation of the owners, right?   And, of course, certain choices are not available, because those ones - and those ones only - are BAD.

We live in sick times.

Minority owned/operated

Occasional Reader 8/5/2022 6:55:29 AM

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In #1 buzzsawmonkey said: that they don't even take USB connections, and also don't play CDs.

Both things can be added on as external features... but of course, you have to buy them.

doppelganglander 8/5/2022 7:12:52 AM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 6:

How fucking stupid is that? The left is so racist, they have to know the color of the person who cooked their meal. 

Occasional Reader 8/5/2022 7:23:13 AM

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In #8 doppelganglander said: How fucking stupid is that? The left is so racist, they have to know the color of the person who cooked their meal. 

It's quite incredible.

In the same vein; I think I mentioned here before, I was listening to my local NPR affiliate (WAMU) back in early December, on a Friday.  One of the hosts asked another what he was planning to do for the weekend.  The other replied, "I'm going to be checking out some black-owned holiday markets". 

How f**ked in the head do you have to be, to base your holiday shopping choices on the skin color of the market owners? 

vxbush 8/5/2022 7:26:39 AM

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In #5 buzzsawmonkey said: How the hell can I kill this thing?

I'll be honest--I'm not sure why you are worried about this. You don't have to use it and if it is showing up in search results, you can disable it in System Preferences > Spotlight (unless you have a much older version of the OS, and then I'd have to go search to find out where that's hidden). 

buzzsawmonkey 8/5/2022 8:15:05 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 10:
It's not showing up in search results; it appears as an unwanted popup window at random in the middle of scrolling through something or writing something, and stops everything dead until I clear it.  

It's maddening.

Occasional Reader 8/5/2022 8:20:29 AM

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In #11 buzzsawmonkey said: and stops everything dead until I clear it.   It's maddening.

I'd say go all Elvis Presley and shoot your PC screen, but you don't have a gun. 

vxbush 8/5/2022 8:29:15 AM

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In #11 buzzsawmonkey said: It's not showing up in search results; it appears as an unwanted popup window at random in the middle of scrolling through something or writing something, and stops everything dead until I clear it.  

Are you by any chance double-clicking (by accident, I'm sure) a word? Because if I right-click on something I can see a contextual menu, which includes looking up the word in question. See image. 

If this is what you're seeing, you can't disable it. This is a part of Spotlight that I can turn off by unchecking Definition. 

vxbush 8/5/2022 8:29:58 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 13:

Of course, that's assuming you're running a fairly recent version of MacOS, and older laptops stop having upgrades after about 5-6 years. 

buzzsawmonkey 8/5/2022 9:01:38 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 14:Reply to vxbush in 13:

I don't even have something called "Spotlight" on my Mac---just "Dictionary," and when I tried to delete it I was told that it was a part of the Mac OS and that couldn't be done.

Understand that I never even saw this damned thing until two days ago, when the machine started going haywire---and now it's all over the place and I can't get rid of it.  It pops up when the cursor goes over a random word as I move the cursor around, without warning, and intermittently.  Left- or right-clicking are not an issue.

Other fun features of the current problems; while I can actually make the cursor do its job when using the mouse, sometimes the cursor gets Parkinson's and starts trembling or jumping around; sometimes, without warning, the windows vanish to the edge of the screen, leaving only a grey line that one must click on to get the windows to reappear; sometimes the screen "irises" on the window text without warning, and I can't make it iris out; and sometimes the cursor arrow suddenly, temporarily blows up to about five times normal size.  

All this over the last two days.

vxbush 8/5/2022 9:05:15 AM

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In #15 buzzsawmonkey said: Other fun features of the current problems; while I can actually make the cursor do its job when using the mouse, sometimes the cursor gets Parkinson's and starts trembling or jumping around; sometimes, without warning, the windows vanish to the edge of the screen, leaving only a grey line that one must click on to get the windows to reappear; sometimes the screen "irises" on the window text without warning, and I can't make it iris out; and sometimes the cursor arrow suddenly, temporarily blows up to about five times normal size.   All this over the last two days.

Spotlight isn't an application in the Applications folder; it is a control panel item in System Preferences (located in the Apple menu). And what you are describing kind of sounds like you have something in Accessibility turned on or you have a very bad mouse connected to the device--or your device is finally starting to develop a hardware failure. 

buzzsawmonkey 8/5/2022 9:14:25 AM

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In #16 vxbush said: or your device is finally starting to develop a hardware failure. 

I think the battery issues are largely at fault, but it is definitely time to get a new machine.  I really don't want to get another Mac, both on grounds of expense and the company's "wokeness," but if I'm shifting my entire computer contents over from Machine A to Machine B, I figure there are potentially fewer possible problems doing so if I stay within the same general OS family.

buzzsawmonkey 8/5/2022 9:16:18 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 16:

I'd also like to think that the solid-state drive that was installed to replace the moving-disk drive that went bad some years ago would be less likely to develop hardware failure, given the lack of moving parts.

buzzsawmonkey 8/5/2022 9:59:42 AM

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doppelganglander 8/5/2022 10:14:50 AM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 9:
There was a case a few years ago in Portland or Seattle (probably) where two white women were driven out of business (by white protesters) for having the temerity to operate a taco truck. I can't even with these people.

JCM 8/5/2022 10:33:49 AM

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Grammarly: Government Edition

Occasional Reader 8/5/2022 11:17:04 AM

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In #20 doppelganglander said: a taco truck

Well, Hispanics are like breakfast tacos, according to Dr. Jill, so it all makes sense.  I think? 

Kosh's Shadow 8/5/2022 4:17:40 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 1:

Check for malware, too.

But work considers the lifetime of a comuputer to be 4 years.

Kosh's Shadow 8/5/2022 4:19:49 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 1:

You should be able to get a Thunderbolt to USB hub for $20-30 and an external DVD drive about $40 (get an Asus - one lasted me 10 years, so I got 2 more for computers without DVD drives)