Tuesday 30 October 2007

Nasty Norton Nincompoops

I have steam coming out of the ears as we have spent all morning trying to renew our subscription to Norton for our anti-virus, security thingy. 'Click here to renew' it said beguilingly and, trusting little souls, we did. I won't bore you with the details, suffice to say that they have taken our money (that part was easy) but the renewal code they gave us keeps being rejected. Then they said turn Norton off. You've guessed it - it wouldn't turn on again. Eventually sorted that out and now we wait for the email from the helpline (please allow 2 days for us to respond). Anyone know a better way? I bet the Mac fans are smirking!

Barbara - not much in Bournemouth itself but there is a Hobbycraft at Longham (near Ferndown, north of Bournemouth) which is quite good for paper and beads. In Bournemouth you'll find Fabricland which is a good source of cheap felt, velvet, organza etc.

Aussie Jo - I like the trainee shopper. Clive would be with your husband on the clothes front - Claire used to say to me, on shopping trips, 'Shall we buy him a jumper and ruin his day'.

Daniela - good to hear from you. You do such lovely work - I especially like your monoprints on your blog.

Chrissythreads - you must get into walnut inks. Just buy the basic crystals and then add food colouring to get a few different colours going. Experiment; red gives a good terracotta and blue goes green.

The shopping was good on Sunday and the best thing to do on such a wet day. I bought a copy of Belle Armoire, as someone told me they had a good review of Stitch, Dissolve, Distort. It was good, but described Val as 'the author of several craft books' and me as the embroidery expert. She would not have been amused.

In Starbucks they were giving away lovely, crumpled, printed tissue paper. Oh what a dilemma - how much can you decently take? Would anyone else appreciate it as much as me?
Here is a piece of it, bonded to Vilene and waiting for the ink and bleach to hit it. What a good freebie.



I'm glad you all liked the Shopping piece. I'm working myself up to a new big piece but need to work through a lot of design stuff. I usually work on several themes at the same time (recent ones have been Icons and Fruit) but feel the need of a new direction. Clive gave me a super book for my birthday - Return to Chauvet Cave. All about cave painting in southern France and very inspirational. Looks good for the inky stuff - watch this space.

16 comments:

Vicki W said...

You should take as much of the tissue paper as you can get - I'm sure you are the only one really using it in such a great way!

arlee said...

From the title of the entry, i thought perhaps you were venturing into writing children's books a la Dr Seuss:}
I GRAB freebies---i just get loud and rather more eccentric explaining "i'm an artist and i need it"--everyone else backs away :}

Gina said...

... I feel a visit to Starbucks coming on!

Carol said...

Hi Maggie
I have been popping in on your blog since Sept - nice to keep up with what you are doing. Re: Belle Armoire, can you tell me if they have reviewed Fibredancing in that issue too? I can't get it round here, I have to wait for Dave to go to Leeds.

Carol

verobirdie said...

I'm with Norton too; Wonder why when I have to renew the subscription. The worst is when you have suscribed two items at different times...

Your pieces are beautiful though, so you manage to save some good energy :-)

Guzzisue said...

I used Norton for six years but eventually went elsewhere as it was causing too many problems- never had any problems updating it though but as I was on 98 until recently I was probably only using part of the package.

Moira Anne Dickson said...

Just popped by and found that I'd missed heaps since my last visit. You really know how to blog!
While I'm here just like to say how much I like your shopping piece.
Moira.

Downunderdale said...

We use Norman (the Viking - remember my Swedish granmother?) - you can phone up and talk to a real person and it is much better than Norton - wonder if Starbucks here have likewise paper? - Dale

Aussie Jo said...

It's good to be in the right place at the right time, bargains are always wonderful, freebies even better.
I love my macs, we have not had a virus in 6 years, and no security measures!!
I don't like to brag too much though, or some hacker may decide it's time to mess up all the macs.

Susan D said...

I use AVG FREE anti-virus at http://free.grisoft.com/ it was recommended on the computeractive readers forum.

Jones Family said...

Hello Maggie

I work with Symantec public relations and I apologize that you're having such a difficult time renewing your subscription! I understand that you don't want to wait for the helpline, so I would be happy to put somebody in touch with you directly to help resolve the issue. If you are interested, please send me an email at amandaj@connectpr.com and I will have someone from tech support contact you directly.

Thanks and again, I apologize for the trouble you're having.

Best
Amanda Jones
Connect PR (for Symantec)

Unknown said...

I love the tip on the food colouring in the walnut inks, guess what's going on my shopping list

H.D. Campbell said...

i also use AVG its free and it works without complaining..had it now for a few years maggie..just google AVG and it will come up
its easy to install and run

Barbara said...

Thanks very much for the informations! I'll tell my daughter the news . I like playing with fabric from other countries!
Greetings Barbara

Susan D said...

Thanks for the tip about using food colours in with the walnut inks. Now I know how to use up some past use by date colours.

Digitalgran said...

I must go and see if they have this paper in Starbucks in Chester. I love their Granola Bars!
I hated Norton and had trouble with McAfee(sp)I have used free AVG for years and I'm very satisfied. My son uses the Business AVG and he is very happy too.