Computers are endless aggro!

I’ve just been dealing with another spot of aggro from a newish computer. The first problem was the extended warranty. The website registered the laptop okay but it refused to recognize the activation code that came with the printed document, and it got the base warranty dates wrong. The whole mess had to be sorted out via emails to Lenovo. The latest bit of aggro was that internet access suddenly vanished. It turned out that the ZoneAlarm “free” firewall and antivirus had decided that its subscription had run out, it wanted to renew it and the only way that was possible was by going on-line. But ZoneAlarm was blocking access to the internet! The only solution to the problem turned out to be to boot ZoneAlarm into touch completely and install alternatives for anti-virus and firewall. So that was more time wasted on messing about, which could have been used for something much better.