Finally! My office is painted and I’m mostly moved back in. It’s lookin’ good–a nice, mellow green with creamy white trim (and new crown molding!), all clean and organized. Which means I can get back to blogging regularly. For about a week, my laptop couldn’t find my WIFI (although it could occasionally connect via a neighbor’s unsecured network; warning, you WIFI-er’s out there: make sure your network is secured. Not everyone is as harmless as I.), and my big computer, which is hard-wired, was under several layers of plastic. And the big computer won’t turn on. But my laptop is connected again, although still through the neighbor’s network.

We’ve become so dependent upon our computers–at least I have. All my financial records that I need for filing taxes are on the big desktop (nicknamed “Big Boy.”) The templates for the labels I want to put on boxes and files are on Big Boy. My favorite games are on Big Boy (and that’s the biggest issue.) I’m hoping that it’s just the clock battery on the motherboard. I’m going to have to crack the case and try replacing it.

There was a time when doing something to the inside of my computer would have scared the bejeezus out of me. It was filled with mystical electrons of various colors (the green electrons are the best), and circuits and wires and boards and all kinds of arcane paraphenalia. But as my computer has aged (it’s 8 years old, and is running Windows 2000), I’ve learned a few–very few–patches and tricks to keep it running. Because I’d rather deal with this old, creaky, slow model than have to deal with Vista. And it’s either that, or get a Mac. Which has it’s own issues, since everyone else I work with has a PC. And the Mac won’t run a couple of the programs I use every day.

So this afternoon, I’m going to perform surgery, once again, on Big Boy. All I need to do is get him up and running just long enough to retrieve the tax information, and then I can relax. It would be nice if I could keep him going a bit longer, but I’m not terribly hopeful.  At least having an unreliable computer is teaching me to back up, back up, back up — on a daily basis.

Or at least I will, once I get him up and running again.

Oh, does anyone have any ideas or suggestions about a new computer? Thanks!

This entry was posted on Monday, February 11th, 2008 at 10:36 am and is filed under Life Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.