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After the Storm
...and I don't mean the snowstorm.
I do mean the computer storm; the storm I went through for a week or more because my computer gave up its ghost one fine day and left me high and dry.
I have to admit that it could have been worse. I had options. My tablet served as a means to surf the web and read and send emails, so as much as I berate my poor lowly tablet, I am grateful that I have it because it was my only link to the outside world.
My very old and antiquated desktop computer was almost useless. It's a Windows XP and doesn't even have Microsoft back-up any longer. I keep it going upstairs just to send off good-morning emails to my best-bud in Iowa. But for doing much else, it's useless.
When my laptop died, and it's really too complicated to talk about here, a little part of me died with it. I was in shock. I know, this sounds silly, but it's what happened. I asked Paul to run across the street and get Bob to come over and see if it could be saved.
He was here all that day and most of the following day, and even though he is very conversant in computer-ese, it was hopeless. Windows would not load in. It would come on and would seem ready to load in, with the icon on the blue screen, etc., but then would go to the black screen with the prompt for F2 and round and round we went with those two things. Ad nauseum!
I made the decision quickly to buy a new "machine" as I call this laptop. (There is something about the word laptop that I don't like.)
I got my new machine on Wednesday of this week, and today, Saturday, I have it humming along. I set it up by myself, which I'd never done before, and even got the various adjunct appliances to work with it, like the printer and my camera, and the wifi connection. I had a little trouble once I got it going trying to figure out how to get my email to work, but then I remembered about using Thunderbird and went online and got it... it's been a trip, to say the least. Lots and lots of tweaking going on here.
I lost stuff, though, and Bob is going to help me see if we can retrieve some of it from my old dead machine. That is ongoing.
Trying to remember all the stuff I had saved has been difficult, but slowly it's coming together. I've got my little piece of black electrical tape over that Skype hole at the top! I almost forgot about that, and I had read that people can hack thru into your computer and actually see you while you don't even know it... so I've always covered that little hole up. I don't use Skype for anything anyway.
Today, my main project was to relax and get back some of my sanity which I'd lost most of over the past week.
And my other goal today was to give my machine a name.
After much soul-searching and going back and forth - is it a male or a female machine? - I've finally found the name that spoke back to me - it's a name that is both male and/or female... my machine is called
Esme
It can be pronounced "Ez-may," "Ess-may," "Ez-mee" or "Ess-mee." It is derived from the name Esmeralda, which I hadn't known when I named her. Yes, my machine is a female but with male tendencies when needed!
We had a Great Pyrenees dog named Esmeralda, too, so that little bit of news pleased me when I read it.
But it will be just "Esme" - pronounced by me: "Ez-mee."
She is an HP Notebook. Black (Esmeralda the dog was all white). She's a little smaller than my old machine which, alas, never had a name, poor soul. Maybe that's why it died? It felt unloved and unappreciated.
Esme will be loved and appreciated. Believe-you-me. I am too old to be going through all this stuff again in the near future!
Cheers,
Bex & Esme (she says "hi")
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I do mean the computer storm; the storm I went through for a week or more because my computer gave up its ghost one fine day and left me high and dry.
I have to admit that it could have been worse. I had options. My tablet served as a means to surf the web and read and send emails, so as much as I berate my poor lowly tablet, I am grateful that I have it because it was my only link to the outside world.
My very old and antiquated desktop computer was almost useless. It's a Windows XP and doesn't even have Microsoft back-up any longer. I keep it going upstairs just to send off good-morning emails to my best-bud in Iowa. But for doing much else, it's useless.
When my laptop died, and it's really too complicated to talk about here, a little part of me died with it. I was in shock. I know, this sounds silly, but it's what happened. I asked Paul to run across the street and get Bob to come over and see if it could be saved.
He was here all that day and most of the following day, and even though he is very conversant in computer-ese, it was hopeless. Windows would not load in. It would come on and would seem ready to load in, with the icon on the blue screen, etc., but then would go to the black screen with the prompt for F2 and round and round we went with those two things. Ad nauseum!
I made the decision quickly to buy a new "machine" as I call this laptop. (There is something about the word laptop that I don't like.)
I got my new machine on Wednesday of this week, and today, Saturday, I have it humming along. I set it up by myself, which I'd never done before, and even got the various adjunct appliances to work with it, like the printer and my camera, and the wifi connection. I had a little trouble once I got it going trying to figure out how to get my email to work, but then I remembered about using Thunderbird and went online and got it... it's been a trip, to say the least. Lots and lots of tweaking going on here.
I lost stuff, though, and Bob is going to help me see if we can retrieve some of it from my old dead machine. That is ongoing.
Trying to remember all the stuff I had saved has been difficult, but slowly it's coming together. I've got my little piece of black electrical tape over that Skype hole at the top! I almost forgot about that, and I had read that people can hack thru into your computer and actually see you while you don't even know it... so I've always covered that little hole up. I don't use Skype for anything anyway.
Today, my main project was to relax and get back some of my sanity which I'd lost most of over the past week.
And my other goal today was to give my machine a name.
After much soul-searching and going back and forth - is it a male or a female machine? - I've finally found the name that spoke back to me - it's a name that is both male and/or female... my machine is called
It can be pronounced "Ez-may," "Ess-may," "Ez-mee" or "Ess-mee." It is derived from the name Esmeralda, which I hadn't known when I named her. Yes, my machine is a female but with male tendencies when needed!
We had a Great Pyrenees dog named Esmeralda, too, so that little bit of news pleased me when I read it.
But it will be just "Esme" - pronounced by me: "Ez-mee."
She is an HP Notebook. Black (Esmeralda the dog was all white). She's a little smaller than my old machine which, alas, never had a name, poor soul. Maybe that's why it died? It felt unloved and unappreciated.
Esme will be loved and appreciated. Believe-you-me. I am too old to be going through all this stuff again in the near future!
Cheers,
Bex & Esme (she says "hi")
I think I could turn and live awhile with the animals...
They are so placid and self-contained,
I stand and look at them sometimes half the day long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied... not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.
~ [Walt Whitman, from "Leaves of Grass, No. 32"] ~
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