Saturday, September 6, 2008

Norton Internet Security, round 2

I just thought I'd update everyone on our Norton Internet Security experience (see post from Sept.1). It's been a bit frustrating. Greg was on the computer with them until about midnight Monday night. That makes nearly 12 hours. They couldn't figure out what was wrong, so they downloaded a bunch of error logs, gave Greg a "calling card" (a one time "direct link" back to the help line), and said to contact them in 48 hours. Well, neither of us wanted to be contacting anyone at midnight on Wednesday night. So, Greg used the "calling card" on Thursday evening at 10:05 p.m. -thinking that it would be a very short/quick/brief conversation resulting in a solution.

When you activiate the "calling card" a little window opens on the computer that says you've logged in and someone will be with you shortly. "Shortly" being in comparison to the creation of the universe, not as in "just-a-minute". Greg or I sat within visual range of the computer until 12:30 am (ok, Greg was within sight at 12:30, but looking at the inside of his eyelids!) when we gave up and went to bed. Since the "calling card" is a one-time shot, we left the computer on and connected to Norton. All day Friday I would check on it. Greg emailed the director who did not reply. They have both our phone number and email address. Greg was in AZ last night. I went to bed about 11:30 and still we were being asked to wait and someone would be with us "shortly".

I got up this morning to find that Guru Prasad (not sure if Guru is a name or a title!) had joined our "conversation" at 1:31 am (27 hours and 25 minutes AFTER we had started said "conversation"). Amazingly, no one was there to converse. He tried to access some files, but Windows firewalls kicked in and wouldn't give him access. Since the humans on our end of the "conversation" had foolishly gone to bed, Guru exited the "conversation" at 1:37 am without trying an email or phone contact. At 8:35 am the "calling card" expired and we had already left for soccer by then. Ahhh! I do not like online chats!!! They are not helpful. Now, we get to start all over again. It's a good thing these people are not within driving distance, because I would be very tempted to have a face-to-face "conversation".

Ok. I've vented. I keep trying to find a silver lining in all of this. Hasn't happened, yet. Maybe one will present itself later. We'll keep you posted.

3 comments:

trublubyu said...

wow. technology.

that is frustrating. continued good luck!

Unknown said...

I'm sorry, but these posts have made me chuckle. I know it's not funny to you, but the way you relate them is quite humorous. I think you should be a newspaper columnist...

Laura

Doreen said...

Wow. That does not sound fun. Though certainly funny to read. :p Maybe you should give up on Norton. We have Kaspersky, it's been working great so far.