Time again for another tale of true tech terror: The Tower of Tech Terror.

The Tower

I was called to investigate mysterious goings on at a client’s office high in a west end tower. She uses her laptop daily, a member of the large Vancouver film community. Her laptop seems possessed, she said. WiFi wafted in and out and the laptop starting making grinding noises. Definitely called for an experienced tech.

When I arrived the tower was shrouded in fog from English Bay.

Upon arrival I asked my client where the internet equipment was located. Frequently people hide or bury their modem. “Oh, it’s in the pantry” she said.

I opened the door to the dark and crowded pantry. My client pointed to a distant shelf. Using my iPhone as flashlight I slowly stepped closer to the dark area. At my phone flash reached the shelf there a was a scared meow and a black cat leapt down and slinked off.

After brushing off a light layer of fur, I ascertained the network equipment was in order. Time to tackle the laptop terror.

The Wafting WiFi

Once seated at the laptop, I could see WiFi signal trembling, stuttering and stumbling as if shaken by a mysterious unseen force. Quickly checking the system manifest, I found it was a common tech terror, out of warranty network card with no new driver support.

My temporary fix was to snake a long and black network cable from her pantry to laptop’s ethernet port. All of a sudden, we could a grinding noise start up on the laptop.

Grinding

Grind. Stutter. Grind. I quickly opened task manager to determine which program was punishing the hard drive.

There were not one, not two but three different programs trying to synchronize huge files to the cloud. I stopped all the synching. The grinding stopped but the laptop was still slow.

The laptop was out of disk space. Time to face the terror of purchasing a new one.

Terror of the Internet Purchase

In recent months the Internet seems possessed by chatbots masquerading as support and searches are full of the anguish of AI slop.

I helped my client through the labyrinth of AI danger to find the right laptop with tons of disk space for her film making.

Soon the new laptop arrived and I transferred her files and programs.

She is now happily working on the new laptop making horror movies in the Tower of Tech Terror.

Postscript

Sort of based on a true story but just for fun. Many thanks to my longtime client for the inspiration.

Happy Halloween!