Stupid, stupid, idiot, I wish I could still get angry at my own stupidity.

I screwed up!  Yes, let me say it again louder, I screwed up!   What is worse I started this post late last night not having done all the crap I got early this morning and have been working all day with only a few minutes ago finding and fixing the problem that started this that had I had half the brain I had decades ago or even the eyesight I use to have I might have spotted it right away.  

Please indulge me this might get really long as it started yesterday at about 4 or 5 PM.  Also as Nan can loudly attest I am never short of words but use as many as possible to say what I want.  The saga started at with Ron being unable to sit and watch his TV shows including his apple box, Netflix, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, and a subscription to an oriental video channel he loves.  But he gets like that … often.  So he decided we had to get out the two new monitor arms we bought for when we moved me into the new room … hold on don’t get ahead of me I got a lot of stupids to go through first.  He wanted to set one up and that went to wanting to try them on a monitor.   

Well the instructions, which I had a real issue with Ron even bothering to look at as he is sure he understands these things, said first we had to put together the base and then to attach it to the desk, forward from there including putting a monitor on the arm which was what Ron really wanted to do.  Well I could see where this was going so … I started shutting things down and getting read to unhook everything.  

So Ron was all excited, and he thought it was a great time to clean off the desk and move it into the new office, even though he was not finished working in there.   So why fight the inevitable that will happen?  I agreed.

So after I unhooked everything Ron helped me remove everything from heavy from the desk and I removed the papers and other small stuff scattered all over the desk.  The Ron cleaned and washed the desk of all the dust, dirt, food, and cat food pieces that gather on a place where I let cats stay and so much daily work is done.  

One thing, I have said and will say many more times that “Ron cleaned …” . And that is because Ron doesn’t mind cleaning stuff, doing the detailed work of getting cat fur and other debris off stuff.  I hate it, and Ron understands this.  I will wash dishes now that we don’t have the dishwasher, I will clean toilets and showers, I will do the floors until my torn up dying shoulders give out.  But detailed cat hair / fur removal and other stuff like that I hate including cleaning, dusting, and wiping stuff down.   I have not done it so far in my 60 years except a few years in the military, and if I can keep my wonderful hubby happy I won’t have to.   

So I guess now I have to explain what my desk is.  In 1998 we bought another new home because Ron insisted for the many times again we move … I now understand why, but then we did not have a diagnosis of his anxiety issues.    That would come many decades and a lot of lost money later.   The prior owner was selling everything in the house including a wooden table with the ability to expand to about 84 inches and was 31 1/2 wide.   I loved it.  The owner wanted 100 dollars for it and we paid that.   There is a further story about the table, but everything worked out for us after my adoptive father tried to screw me, again. 

Long story short, after all the damage to the home and my office from hurricane Ian my desk in my office was destroyed and to get my computer system up online the guys took the eating table we had so they could quickly get me set up.  But after using it for a while and having very … large Odie sprawled on it, we realized it was so much better for that than my other desks.  It was decided not to buy another desk but I would keep this table as my desk.  Fast forward to last night … again.

Last night we cleaned off the desk, removed the middle top, took it into the room and expanded it and put the top back in.  Remember this was a sudden decision due to Ron not being able to settle down and wanting to see how the new monitor arms worked, Then we added the arms that we put together haltingly and without any missteps.   Added the monitors and adjusted the arms so I could move them.  Ron still needs to loosen then some more so it is easier for me to move, right now I have to get up and use a lot of effort to move them.  When I told him he was agreeable but said he was only trying to keep the monitors from falling, but remember the arms we bought are for monitors larger and heavy than mine as Ron thinks I might want / need bigger ones in the future.  My eyes are still getting worse.

Then after the monitors it was time to put the computers he wiped off and cleaned but that also became a small issue.  When I was in this room as my office originally I had each computer up off the floor which keeps them much cleaner and healthier.  In the old large front room office Ron was always going to build something to get them off the floor but never did find time to do it, and in that room and the living room my computers sat on the floor.  One on each side of the desk, on the side of their monitor.  This important as you will see later.  The important thing to know is the side of each monitor changed.  They are reversed.

With the Logitech program and devices I have I can switch computers with just moving the mouse to the edge of the computer screen and it switches to the other computers.  So blogging computer is always computer one and video computer is always computer two with any laptop or other thing I am working on being number three.  On the keyboard I use number three for my phone so I can text easier.  I never had an issue with changing my set-up before.   What I did not realize is they changed the program so simply resetting the flow settings did not change the computer arrangement to match the current set up.  That is important as you will see and how I totally became stupid and caused my self two days of extra work.  

So we set up monitors, computers on the desk moving their position to better salve my OCD about size and placements, we put the battery backups on the floor, ran the new power cables and plugged stuff in, and started to hook the other stuff up.  Then came the last part, the ethernet cables.  We had not moved the modem or router so the cat cables I was using before were too short.  I dug boxes out of my closet of older cables and stuff.  I found a few that are more than long enough and ran them along the walls and into the room to the computers.  But they are not cat 6 such as the ones I was using, so when everything gets put into the room I will take the measurements of the lengths I need and order them at that time.  

I should mention that somewhere at this point Friday night I still did not know what was keeping my mouse and keyboard from switching / working properly as I had written about so much of this much of this post.  I closed it down to go to bed at like 9:15 PM which is very late for me only to find that this morning I had lost the entire post.  I had not yet dumped either computer which I was planning to do and then reinstall all the programs hoping that cleaned up what every was keeping the issue.  Remember the point is to move the mouse to the edge of the monitor and the cursor jumps to the next monitor.   To be continued tomorrow morning.   

Writting this on Sunday morning!

So Saturday morning I got up early and wanted to dump the computers because I was still sure the problem was a registry issue.  So instead of just running the registry cleaners I thought to dump them, that way cleaning them up really well.  But I had a major problem.  I still had 61 open tabs saved for comments and websites I want to get to.  If I dumped both computers I would forever lose them.  So I was stuck doing them one at a time dragging the process out and maybe keeping the same issue with the mouse / keyboard program switching monitors / computers.  I decided to do the video computer first.  

I had done all the prep work yesterday so all I had to do Saturday morning was to run the recovery program telling the computer to clean all the drives and redownload and install the Windows 10 OS.  Then after about 20 minutes or less I started the tedious work of going through and adjusting all the settings, renaming the computers, setting things up to give me the max privacy and performance mix.  That takes far longer than doing the recovery.   Then I started with the programs reinstall.  I do Chrome first, then Nortons security and utilities, then NordVPN, and lastly I install Ashampoo Winoptimizer 26.  I set all of them to give the max security and max privacy.  Also Both NordVPN and Adblock Plus in Chrome stops any advertisements except those I allow.  Plus NordVPN and Nortons both work to prevent malware and scan for viruses.  Then I add in the sound programs, camera programs and other odds and ends programs I use.  That takes hours, but I can still use the computer while doing it.  

Next I used the history of devices on Chrome to open all 61 of the saved open tabs that my blogging computer had open.  I then did all the recovery steps on the blogging computer that I had just done on the video computer.  During this Ron got up so I started up his computer and used it to also load the 61 open tabs so I would be sure not to lose them.

During this time I was checking to see if the newly installed Logi Options+ to see if it seen the computers in the right order and would work by moving the mouse to the left edge of the right screen moving the mouse cursor to the left screen and to go back to the right screen I would move the mouse cursor to the right edge of the left monitor.  It wouldn’t switch, still not working.  But in frustration I moved the cursor all the way to the right edge of the right monitor and suddenly the cursor showed up on the left monitor.  Wait how did that happen.  I did a few more times, and it worked like it should.  Except to the program the monitors were in the possitions they were before the move.  I did not make sence to me.  I open the program on both computers and reset the flow part of the program.  Same thing.  I was getting so frustrated!  Then know I needed a break I left my mouse cursor on one of the monitors in the open flow part of the program and went to get a soda.  

When I returned I noticed a tip message I never seen or had appear before because I never left the cursor on one of the monitors on the program that names the monitor / computer for each ones connect with the program.  

The message said “Drag to rearrange”.   WTF 

By my dogs that love gravy could it really be that easy?  Could it be the solution was to simply move the monitors in the program.  Then I looked at the names on the monitors displayed in the program.  I had not bothered because I knew both of mine were there so why take the effort to really look closely at the names on the monitors displayed.   Son of a deer tick, on the screen the monitors were PlayBlogger on the left and PlayVideo on the right.  But I had switched the order in the move.  Now the monitor for the PlayBogger was on the right and Play Video on the left.  I dragged the displayed monitors in the program to show the current positions of the monitors.  Then I moved the cursor to the left edge of the right monitor and it jumped to the left monitor.  It worked!  Just the way it is supposed to.  All that work, and two days lost from blogging and read blogs / news.  All because I did not know that I could change the monitors on the screen and I DID NOT LOOK AT WHAT THE DISPLAY SAID THE MONITOR ORDER WAS.   

But by the time I figured it out it was far too late in the day and I was very tired.  I decided to get a shower and go to bed.  Ron had acid reflux again in the early part of the night and was up most of the night.  I couldn’t sleep either so we got up about 3:30 AM and while having coffee I am finishing writing this post.  Before the morning news shows I have to move my rolling TV entertainment stand into the new office so I can watch the Sunday news shows that are on broadcast.   And I have to now go open and save all the last few days of comments and blogs I missed.  Hugs