Computer Issues: SOLVED!

Greetings,

I know it's been a long time since I've posted, but I have a good reason. My Internet has been down. Last night I decided that I was going to get the problem fixed, so I called Dell Tech Support. I made the phone call some time around 11:30 PM and I got off the phone at about 1:30 AM. I didn't get to bed until 2:00 AM. I was very tired. I know most of you are thinking, what's the big deal? 2:00's not late, but I would just like to point out that I woke up at 6:45 after only 6 1/2 hours of sleep the previous night. Also, we went to another family's house for supper and I wore myself out. Also, I can say from experience, that there are few things more boring than waiting for a computer to restart. During the 2 hour phone call, I restarted my system at least 10 times.

Evidently, my problem was that my "socket files" (I have no idea what they are) were corrupted, so I had to delete and reinstall them. I went through a bunch of troubleshooting steps with the guy and finally I mentioned that I'd been getting an error message that said, "ERROR: SOCK_RAW" (yeah, I probably should have mentioned that earlier). He found that bit of information helpful, and we were able to get it fixed. He told me later, that if I hadn't mentioned that error message, the next step was to completely reinstall my operating system.

Just one more thing I wanted to mention, while we were are the other family's house, I discovered that they have a computer that is running Windows Vista. For anyone who has talked with me on the subject of Vista, you probably would be able to correctly guess that I went berserk. It's SO COOL. Definitely a sweet operating system. I'd like to get it, but the combination of the price and the fact that it still has a few bugs to work out, are making me hold off.

Anyway, just wanted y'all to know that I'm back. So, I'll probably be on the IM more often and I have my e-mail access again.

I'm happy right now. :)

Cya