Rocket Scientist Needed!

It all began this evening when I was looking at a website from Sweden where one could purchase lovely needlecraft kits.

You all know how much I do love to embroider and also, that I happen to be 50 percent Swedish in my ancestry and I love things that are Swedish. Don't 'cha remember that? Gosh, I hope so seeing as I talk about the needlework I love, post pictures from time to time of items I have completed and also, how much I do (usually) enjoy doing research too from time to time about my Swedish ancestry.

Right? Certainly!

Well, my darling little granddaughter it seems had managed to find -all on her own, at the tender age of 8 years and having just completed second grade, how to get to a Google site where you can get things translated from one language into English. Now that's just what I needed since the website is totally in Swedish and about the only things I understand in Swedish is "How are you?" "Thank you" and "You're Welcome!" So I had to get Maya to show me how to get to the Google Translate site, which she did. And I was having a fine time copying text from the Swedish Website, pasting it into the Google Translate and then reading what the description about the items I liked said.

The trouble began early on though with the Google Translate when I happened to discover there was a place that I could actually surf when the text was written in one language and I could read it translated automatically (no copy/paste stuff needed, you know) simply by downloading a different browser.

That browser being Chrome.

Well, Chrome's been around a good while, that I know and a couple good blogger and Facebook friends have said some good things about it and it's supposed to (according to those friends) be much better, much faster and all those neat things we all want, than Firefox.

So off I went to try to download Chrome!

And what a mess, what a can of worms that opened up for me!

After having to change my password several times in the process of the download, mainly because I wasn't sure which e-mail address I have is really my e-mail address for my Google Account -which apparently has several different aspects to it and some use one e-mail address while others use my other address and be damned if I know now which does which!

Finally, I was so disgusted with getting the message about entering my e-mail address and password, after which I immediately would get a phone call with a number of about 10 zeros on my caller id, and a phone id number I had to immediately key in and then hit enter to verify I am who is really supposed to be using this account and so forth, inevitably it would ask for my password and I would enter the most recent one I thought I was to be using, only to get yet another phone call and on and on it went!

Finally, disgusted to the max, I uninstalled the freaking darned Chrome browser! Simplicity -thy name certainly is not anything to do with any kind of Google accounts!

After that, I saw I had some new e-mail and went to clear my inbox and handle those mails that needed attention and trash the rest of 'em there.

One that needed attention came to me from a lady from our church who has been working on a particular committee (and driving me slightly -or semi -bonkers with the list she's been typing up.

This e-mail when I opened and saw there was an attachment involved, and when I saw the extension on the attachment, I just knew this was going to make the problems earlier pale.

Why? Well because she had typed this list up using Microsoft Works and my computer isn't set up to recognize and accept WPS extension stuff! Nope. Because I use Word.

But then I thought oh shucks, this shouldn't be a problem because earlier this year, one of the ladies I am working with for our class reunion had sent me a file she had done  up on her Mac (and we all know how well, how nicely Mac files and PC files play together, don't we? Yeah, right! They don't! So at that time, a friend had told me how to download another file or application or program -whatever the Hell it is called -which would convert any files that were sent to me using an extension that isn't part of the normal repertoire on my computer!

So, when I went to do the conversion of this new-to-me WPS file, I was given the option of downloading either Open.org or Open Freely. Like the non-rocket scientist I happen to be I thought the Open Freely sounded intriguing and so I chose that one.

Of course, that meant going through all the rigamaro of downloading yet another program and then, trying to get it to work -which I couldn't seem to get it to that state of affairs -and finally ending up getting totally ticked off -again -and uninstalling then the Open Freely thing-a-ma-jig!

That's when I discovered that in downloading the Open Freely that also apparently was an Openly Free invitation to several other applications or programs or some such to come in and camp out on my computer! I was not pleased at all when I realized beside the Open Freely there were a total of five other items showing as having been downloaded via the Open Freely one to my computer! Actually there were six, but the sixth one, doesn't show up on my Control Panel where it shows me all the programs loaded to my computer.

But those that showed up there were these: K-Lite Codec Pack, Genieo, ASPCA Reminder, Qinstaller, and Default Tab. The one that doesn't show up anyplace on my control panel -Yahoo Toolbar!

I did manage to uninstall those five programs listed above -after a whole lot of time that could have been put to much better use, ya know, if it only took a click and zip, zip, zip, presto magic, the unwanted piece would be gone. But of course, you know I'm sure that's the last thing in the world that would happen when we inadvertently get these other programs slapped on our computers without our ever even having asked for any of them to be there.

I already have about two toolbars to many on my computer and the last damned thing I really need is one more and especially one from Yahoo too! But now it appears I am stuck with the Yahoo Toolbar along with the Toolbar from AVG -my anti-virus program -also one that doesn't show up on my control panel with a way to disconnect from that toolbar either!

So, if anyone of you, my blogger buddies, knows how to remove the AVG toolbar and also, the Yahoo Toolbar too, without having to add a couple extra programs I neither want nor need, please drop me a note with full instructions.

Just make sure the instructions are all written in plain and very, very simple English though as that is the only language I do pretty much understand -unless of course you communicate in the English version of Computerese -which is a language guaranteed to confuse me, probably more, than if you wrote instructions in Swedish and I ran them through the Google Translate thingy!