Freakin Computer Problems....again!

These computer issues day after day are driving me nuts anymore!!! My network has been experiencing connection issues lately (including today at about 8:30 pm when I finally have a chance to get on the internet). Luckily just unplugging the router and plugging it back in a couple of seconds later has worked. But now I had other issues. Oye!

The first of latest issues is this. My internet is taking over 10 minutes (literally 10 minutes) to start up sometimes.  (I have both Internet Explorer 8 or 9 [whichever one was the last released] and Mozilla Firefox 3.6.8 [the latest update] but I mostly use Firefox because IE was always just a hassle for me and constantly crashed plus now that I have my own laptop I can download anything I want and I don't have to answer to anyone but myself. So on to what I thought maybe I could do to help speed up the entry into the internet. I thought to myself "This is just ridiculous. There is no good reason why the internet should take this long to load... even to just start up. Maybe I could see what add-ons I don't use very often."   DIng. I had 23 add-ons well added on to customize FF the way I want it to and to make browsing easier. So I removed just 2 of them- DownThemAll Download Manager and SearchPreview which inserts preview images (thumbnails) of web sites and popularity ranks into Google, Yahoo and Bing search engines. I restarted firefox and magically it started up and all the pages I previously had open loaded within 5 minutes. I was soooo happy cos I fixed my issue and still got to keep the add-ons I love most (I'll be kind and put those in a separate entry)!

My next issue came about when I checked if any of my plugins needed updating. Of course they do, why wouldn't they?! Anything to keep me from my blogs longer. It's already been over an hour! My issue came about when I tried to install the Flash Player update. I hit download but FF says I need to install a missing plugin in order to dl Flash updates. So I install the plugin but when I try to open the file (an xpi file) it won't open...my issue! "WTH" I think to myself. Here I am goin crazy trying to figure out what to do. I need that flash update. After about another half hour I was about to give up then I decided to let Windows try and find a program to open the file. No luck there. "What do I do? hmmmmm...Eh try a google search." I typed in XPI and suggestions popped up- XPI, XPI file, XPI file opener.  I selected XPI file opener and I see "How install .xpi file into firefox?" "This is too perfect" I click the link and start reading. schrodinger's cat says "File, Open, find the file and install it that way. Or, open Firefox, open the folder where you put the xpi, and just drag the xpi onto the Firefox window. It will install itself." "OMG is it that simple?!" I open the dl folder and drag the file into firefox address bar and click enter.. bing.. it works! I can install it as an add-on! I install and restart and then go back and install the Flash update and it works!!!

Please computer gods.... no more issues!
I'm being driven bonkers!!!