Computer Craziness
March 29th, 2010. Filed under: Monday's Musings.
It all started several months ago when one of the techs at work offered to sell me one of his computers. Techie Boy has lots of electronic toys and didn’t need all his computers. My computer was from the dark ages, so I said, “Let’s do it.”
I’d been clinging to my ancient machine, because I didn’t want to buy a new one and get stuck with Vista. Yes, I know a lot of you all are perfectly happy with Vista, but I don’t know anyone personally who is.
Anyway, this computer had Windows XP, plus Techie Boy had cleaned it up and had some good programs in place for me. And he said he would bring over his external hard drive, transfer my files and get it all set up ready to go for me. Now, is that a good deal or what?
Finally, I went out and bought an external hard drive of my own. I knew I needed it. I should have been backing up all my work and files anyway. So, now I had that handy little gadget and then I waited some more.
Now Techie Boy means well, but it’s hard to pin him down. He’s like the rest of us – lots of stuff going on in his life. Besides, he lives way over on the mainland and it’s a very long drive for him.
I finally reached the “I can’t take it anymore” point. It’s a bunch of nonsense having two computers setting here side by side, pretending they are twins. If I want my computer to have a sibling, I’ll buy a laptop.
So, I called a computer lady who lives on the island just a few blocks away. Why on earth didn’t I do this sooner? Arlene is a wonderful person. She kept right on smiling and being pleasant every single time my pc acted up like the brat it was becoming.
It didn’t want to give up any of it’s secrets. It took hours to slurp everything out of it. Then when Arlene transferred it all over, the little brat wouldn’t give up the right e-mail info.
It traveled back in time. The most current e-mails on there were from September, 2008. What happened to 1 1/2 years worth of info saved in my e-mail folders? For that matte4r, what happened to all the stuff in my inbox? It seems to have morphed into unread mail from prior years.
This computer business is getting more irritating by the hour. I certainly don’t need this added stress in my life. Thank you, God, for Arlene. She got it set up and running without charging me an arm and a leg. (She actually preferred money – a very reasonable amount.)
I gave her my old, bratty computer. She sometimes cleans up old computers and gives them to people who can’t afford to go out and buy one. Arlene even saved my files for awhile until she was sure there wasn’t anything else I might need. Since I did need some of the stuff in my e-mail folders, I went over last Tuesday, moved the info all into one folder and then downloaded it to a disk.
Feeling good with this disk in my hot little hand, I just knew I was set for a nice long time. NOT!!! Wednesday while working at the computer it flashed a blue screen at me, telling me that if it was the first time I’d seen that screen to turn off the computer and restart in safe mode.
I did, I couldn’t and it didn’t. When I turned it back on, it started beeping at me and the screen just stayed black. There was no starting it up again. Forget about safe mode. More like no mode.
Well, crap! shucky durn! Okay, time to call Arlene. She said it sounded like the motherboard or hard drive. (You mean that evil thing has a mother? I’m thinking it’s the spawn of Satan!)
Sweetheart that she is, Arlene even researched computers for me. We even talked about her building one for me to my specs. I decided to call my son, the computer nerd who has the audacity to live about a thousand miles away, before making a decision.
After I finished unloading my computer woes on him, he told me that if I saw the dreaded blue screen to just consider that to be the kiss of death. He told me to just give it up and go out and buy a new computer. Sweet young thing even told me which one I needed.
Thursday, I went down the street to the handy, dandy computer selling store. I now have a brand new computer with Windows 7. After bringing it home, I ignored it. I just wasn’t mentally prepared to deal with setting it up yet. I reached the “sick to death of it all” point.
Instead, I sat down with pen and paper and wrote four posts. If you’re reading this now, it means I went to bed for eight hours before getting up the energy to go through another computer set up.
I’m thankful that the computer craziness is behind me. I’m also thankful for Arlene. If you’re ever in the area and need computer help, service or info, call this lady. She has class in addition to knowledge and ability.She also has the cutest little dog. I’d like to dognap her, but I won’t. Maybe I’ll get to babysit her some day. Or, should that be dog sit her?
*I have received no monetary compensation for singing Arlene’s praises. I’m just a very happy customer. If you’re ever in the Tampa/St Pete area, get in touch with Arlene if you need assistance with your computer.
arleneb @ tampabay dot rr dot com
H (727) 577-2727
C (272) 804-8022