On April 10, I wrote about being on techie overload. Well, it seems to be continuing!
On Friday, all of a sudden I began having trouble accessing the regular web sites that I use - like my sites, HER’s web site and the Board’s MLS system. I would get the “can’t find web site” message.
The only thing that had changed from the night before was an automatic Intrusion Prevention update from Norton Symantec, the program I use for internet security. Friday was a busy day, so in the evening I signed on for a chat session with Symantec. I allowed the chat person to enter into my computer to try to fix things. Nothing he tried worked. After 90 minutes he decided it would be good to uninstall the Internet Security program and reinstall. Immediately after it unistalled we lost the connection.
So now I’ve got a computer with no internet security program, and because there’s no record that I’m a Symantec customer, they won’t let me back into the chat session so the program can be reinstalled. I had downloaded the program, therefore I couldn’t reload it because I had no CD. By now, it was around 2:00 AM so rather than cry I decided to go to bed and work on it in the morning.
Saturday was to be another busy day, so I decided to just stop by Staples and buy the Internet Security program (so I would have a CD). I loaded it while I was holding a listing open - it took about 90 minutes for it to do all the checks, restarts, rechecks etc. It finished just as I had to leave the open house to show a home to a client.
In the evening, I tried to do my regular work but again was having some difficulty accessing certain sites. Sometimes I can get to the site - sometimes I can’t. Last night I was able to access my web site and the MLS system. This morning I can’t … I’m getting the “can’t find site” message again. I keep getting the little yellow triangle that says “Done, but with errors on page” which means I can’t see some of the images or drop down boxes that I need to use. I’ve assigned the sites that I need to use for real estate data as Trusted Sites. I’ve checked and rechecked the IE 7.0 options and don’t see anything that would be preventing this access - especially since I didn’t make any changes to it on Friday.
If any geeks out there have any suggestions as to why I started having this problem or have any solutions to correct it, I’d love to hear it.
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Elaine Reese
614-825-8860Real Living HER
6 responses so far ↓
Brian Williams // April 27, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Hi Elaine,
Great blog, it’s fun to see Real Estate professionals utilizing technology.
The problem is you’re not using a trusted IT advisor to help you make your technology decisions as well as assisting you with installing the solution and maintaining the solution.
Compare it to me selling my own home. You’d advise that why it may appear that I’d save money selling it on my own I wouldn’t be able to properly price, place and market my home which I’d have to agree with you.
So you may have saved money buying Norton and installing yourself, you’re savings are now gone as you’ve spent at least an hour trying to self resolve the problem and the problem is still unresolved. To make matters worse you can no longer do what you do best, utilize your computer to find and sell homes which allows you to make a living.
I’d visit Microosft’s website, they have a tool to help you find a local Microsoft Small Business Specialist by your zip code. http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/hub.mspx
Tell your prospective technician that you’re looking for a professional solution that will keep you up and running. We recommend a new system every 3 years along with monthly or quarterly maintenance. Estimated cost over three years $4,500 - $6,000 which includes a new PC every 3 years, the maintenance and software. Not bad for a tool that allows you to make a living.
Thank you Elaine,
Brian Williams
Charles // April 27, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Wow. Too weird. The same thing is happening to my neighbor, but they have Norton 360 installed. You can see if its just IE or if you have absolutely no internet connection at all. In XP, click start, then RUN. You’ll get a small black box. Type in ipconfig. You should get a listing of your IP, Submask net and default gateway. If you have a router installed, the ip will probably start with 192.168 So if its not filled with 0’s, then type ping yahoo.com and see if your pc finds the site. If it does, then it’s IE getting blocked by another program. You can try downloading FireFox on another PC and installing it on that one to see if you can then access the internet. You can also try using a restore point. If you are lucky enough to have one that is close to the day before IE stopped working, simply restore the machine to the settings and information listed that day. Hope this has helped.
elainereese // April 27, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Brian … touche on the FSBO!
My broker has an IT department for all the offices across the country - but located here. The computer I’m having difficulty with is my laptop. And since the problem occurred over a weekend - when realtors work and “regular” people don’t - I had no choice but to try to resolve it myself.
elainereese // April 27, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Charles, I’m convinced Norton is the problem since everything was OK until Norton did their update on Friday. I think they’ve tightened up their security so much that they’ve rendered surfing next to impossible.
I found a forum where numerous people were talking about having the same problem. The date on all those posts was April 25 which is the date Norton did their latest Intrusion Prevention update.
At my open house today, one of the guests said she had so much problem with Norton and its tight security, that she switched to McAfee.
I’m having to go in to override and lower the security levels just to be able to SEE the web site. I’ve had to make other changes to the Explorer Internet Options to further allow all the images or info to show. Even putting some sites as Trusted doesn’t always help. I didn’t have to have any of the sites in the Trusted category before.
Norton made their program so secure that I feel that now my computer is less secure because of all the overrides I’ve had to do. It’s been very frustrating and time consuming to say the least.
elainereese // April 27, 2008 at 9:51 pm
BTW, Charles, one of the first things I did was to do a Restore for XP from 2 days prior. But it didn’t restore the Norton program since the Norton guy had uninstalled it.
Don’t have a router - just a Sony Vaio laptop.
Vancouver realtor // April 28, 2008 at 5:48 am
Nice blog! But you know what’s the true - today, everybody has to be a computer geek if he wants to be successful! Old times for realtors are gone, even when you are working in small areas. I was so often fighting nervously with PC and web and viruses and I don’t know what, but now I take it as a game, just as a challenge - it’s me or computer. And I know all other realtors have the same problem…