Norton Induced Computer Melt Down

Do not buy the next version of Norton antivirus internet protection. Don't even think about it, you will regret it as sure as I'm writing this.

My virus protection was set to expire some time around the first of March, and I was irritated by the fact that my own computer, through its own antivirus program, kept trying to get me to renew early. I figured out what a scam this is. In order to get the message to stop appearing, I'll bet millions of people renew as soon as they start getting the message. The problem is that the company, Norton's parent Symantec, doesn't start the new coverage when the old coverage was set to expire, they start it right then. If you were foolish enough to always renew as soon as it started warning you, you would consistantly get 11 months of coverage for the price of 12. In MBA-speak, that's a 8.3% untapped profit stream. Hell, why not just start reminding people a couple of days after they buy a year's worth of protection? Maybe you'd get some people to buy again right away, over and over.

So I was already not favorably inclined toward Norton, and I let the subscription expire. For around 3 weeks afterwards, I got messages about how the subscription was expired and I wasn't protected against new viruses! I kept ignoring it, and eventually my wife asked me when I was going to do it and offered to do it for me if time and hassle were the only issues. Principle was the only issue, I was tired of dealing with them.

I was still mad at Norton for "upgrading" their product from 2006 to 2007 and taking their anti-spam feature out of their software. The was for my computer at work, and since that time, I've been spending about 15 to 30 minutes a day wading through spam manually and picking out the stuff I can delete.

On a hunch or nasty suspicion, I took that time to finally get a new external hard drive and back up my computer.

Finally, one Sunday morning when my wife was at work, I decided to upgrade my Norton anti-virus program. The new program was called Norton 360, and I already noticed that it was difficult to get the Norton Systems Works as a separate item. I uploaded the program in about an hour and decided to copy some files from another computer to work on. I could not get the files on my pin drive to copy. I tried Windows Explorer and an old program like it called Power Desk, and neither worked. I could open a DOS window and copy the files manually, so it wasn't that the disk was so badly messed up that I couldn't copy anything, it was just that my file utility programs were suddenly not working. Then Internet Explorer started getting sluggish.

I tried to uninstall the Norton program using the uninstall tool, but it wanted to delete my ACT! Database, which I wasn't willing to let it do.

I took it to work the next day and called their help line. They walked me through uninstalling the Norton through Windows and full file manipulation functionality returned. Then we reinstalled the program and the problem was back. That ate up an entire day. The next day, I got online through their online advisor chat system again to start fresh with another young clueless person from Bangledesh. They were using this utility where you give them remote control of your computer and you sit back and watch them make changes, like some kind of magician's trick. I saw what he was doing, and I couldn't imagine it would help. He told it to uninstall, and the computer got hung up for about 30 minutes. So I started moving the mouse around and he came back on and shut the window.

"Is it working now?" I checked, "no, still not working." Norton is uninstalled, and it is still not working, therefore it is not the fault of Norton. I was not convinced that Norton was not installed, so I checked and it was still there. His "uninstall" did not work. I went back to the Internet Explorer window where his chat window was and he was no longer there. Shortly after that, Internet Explorer stopped working. I could not uninstall the Norton manually, it hung up when you got to the point where it was supposed to be removing it.

I found on the internet tons of hits for people that were devastated by trying to install Norton 360.

I had to pay a Computer IT guy $150 to completely reformat my hard drive and reload the computer from scratch. Norton still charged me for the product, even though I emailed them to remove the charges. The IT guy loaded AVG on my computer for free to protect me from viruses. How Norton is going to stay in business after this fiasco is beyond me. I used to think that Norton made the viruses in order to force people to buy their product (conspiracy theory style thinking). Now I wonder if their product isn't the virus. The way they demonstrated their inability to help me and the immediate and dire consequences of their program has led me to believe that they are not smart enough to make a virus.

Now my wife's computer is prompting her to renew her subscription to Norton.

4th of Disaster

Some days you should just stay in bed.

I had the 4th off. It was going to be hot, and we were overdue for mowing. My wife had to work a 12 hour shift that day, so it was just going to be me and the yard.

It was going to get hot, 91°. I went for a run and couldn't finish it, I was just not feeling good. The next goal was to get out there before the heat really started, and I was looking good for that. I had just rebuilt the mower, putting new blades on it and reworking the drive system so it would run better. I was looking forward to having the lawn mowed before it got hot. If I still had some work left in me, I was going to trim everything and turn over the compost heaps. Then I could rest inside during the remainder of the day, maybe do some reading and things I wanted to do for leisure.

I had my podcasts loaded in my ipod, got a good breakfast, and was ready to go. I went out and started the mower and drove over to the yard. I started the mower and went half way around the yard, but the mower didn't sound right. I found out that one of the blades was loose, so I took the mower into the garage and looked at the mower deck closer. The whole hub and carrier of one of the blades was just about to fall apart.

I retreated into the air conditioning. I wasted some time giving one of my cats a haircut.

Damn. I was going to get something done. I looked up the part diagram in the manual and figured out that it was a huge part. I decided that I would tear into it. I took this huge hub assembly out and then wasted about an hour trying to take it apart, since the pulley was still good. After trying to use the broken the vice in the garage to keep the shaft still while I tried to loosen the nut on the end of the pully shaft, I had to retreat to the basement. Putting the shaft in the vice and gripping the shaft with two vice grips was not enough to remove the nut. I decided it was time to give up and buy a new pulley. The place I order the parts from was open and they were working on the fourth. So I got the parts ordered.

I thought about the way the mower deck worked and realized that I could remove one of the belts and run the mower with 2 of the 3 blades. I had to struggle with removing the primary belt to get to the secondary belt. After another 20 minutes, I had the secondary belt off and reinstalled the primary belt. Cranking it up and engaging the mower made me realize something was not right. I had put the primary belt back on around the outside of a guide and it was off and badly scuffed. I reinstalled it correctly and went to work.

This was going to take a while, I realized. I calculated that it would take 50% longer with the missing blade and struggled to make the mowing match up. I got around the yard 3 times and the mower died.

It was dead and downhill. I had to put all the muscle I could to get it up the hill, onto the gravel drive and then over to the barn. What the hell? Why did it die?

I discovered that it was low on oil. Hmmm. That was enough to kill it? After finding the oil in the barn almost empty and searching out another can of oil in the garage, I refilled the mower, but it wouldn't start. Maybe the spark plubs were fouled. They looked nasty, but after 45 minutes of tearing into that and cleaning the plugs, as well as clearing the chambers with carberator cleaner, the mower still wouldn't start. I checked the fuse by removing it and the mower acted the same. It was cranking, just not firing and starting. If the low oil had been fatal to the engine, it would be seized, wouldn't it? About half way through the spark plug process, it started to rain. Of course, this was at the point that I had the most parts and tools strewn about, so I had to carefully push the mower into the dark barn.

I gave up on the mower. I wasn't sure what was wrong with it, but it was raining, so even if I could start it, I couldn't mow now.

But I had to get something done. I could still do the trimming. Screw the rain. I started to trim and the trimmer had to be repaired, then the line had to be replaced. I did that and got back on track and kept going. I got to the overgrown courtyard, and the rain picked up. This was the worst part of the yard, and I became very determined to finish it. Then I noticed that the rain was getting into my ipod and shorting it out. I removed it and threw it inside (it didn't work well for 2 days, then recovered when it dried out). By the time I finished the courtyard, it was raining very hard. That was it.

I cleaned up and kept going. I was going to buy dinner for my wife, but it was the fouth, so the places I went were closed. So I found a Hyvee grocery store open and got some meat to grill for dinner.

I started to grill the meat and the gas ran out on the grill.

I finished the dinner in the oven and collapsed in front of the TV.

But it was the fourth. So we went out and watched the fireworks in the fog and smoke. So it ended up being a good day.