THE TECHNICALLY INCOMPETENT

Notice anything in what I ignorantly choose to call my "weblog"?

Well, I do. And it's called being technically incompetent.

I have never understood the mechanics of how these weblogs work
without having to take a Ph.D. in Computer Science. Not something
I have ever been the least interested in doing. I already own enough
vellum to wallpaper the National Library of Congress in Washington,
D.C. Or more appropriately, McGill University's library.

I don't know how to write code, I don't know how to do pretty things,
I don't know how to write proper "tags" anywhere, I don't know how to
link things to other things, but my worst sin of all is perhaps that
frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. Seriously, I don't.

I still write longhand, on yellow lined legal sized pads of paper,
and whatever else is at hand, and use my good old fashioned manual
Underwood typewriter, on which I can type 120WPM, no sweat.

On my very first personal computer, a cute little NEC notepad, circa
1987, Windows95, I had thrown in a copy of Microsoft's Office Suite
which came with, of course, a Word Processor. I still laugh about it.

The whole damned thing, in 1987, came to over four-thousand dollars.
Correct: 4,000$ ++. cash! Wonder what this in 2011 dollars?

I never got the hang of any of it, and the very first time I tried
using that Word Processor to write a poem, I soon realized how useless
the damned thing was for me. I didn't need Excel. I never excelled in
math. I still count on fingers and toes. Thank heaven for calculators,
or I'd need to grow more fingers and toes.

Ever try writing a poem in MS Word? It's a joke.

That was the end of my using any kind of word processor. Give me a
typewriter. I miss the sound that a typewriter keyboard makes. So
much so that I used to have a little app that added the sound of
a manual keyboard to my computer keyboard. It was neat and comforting.

I also find that computer keyboards are slower than typewriter keyboards
if you, like me, are a speed typist. Another thing that I have found
over the twenty years or so experience using computers is, that for me,
they cripple my ability to think creatively. There is something cold,
impersonal, and hard about a computer. Nothing but zeros and ones.
GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out.

Typewriters aren't like that. They adapt beautifully to their owners
over decades of use. My typewriter "talks" to me and smiles a lot with
every carriage return. My computers - four in all - never did any such
thing. Mostly they call me "stoopid". And they are right. I am when
it comes to computer software.

In order to anything really well, one has to have a passion for it,
and the patience that goes along with developing the skills required
to do it all well.

I have my passions and my skills in the those things that I am
passionate about. When I am good, I am a force to be reckoned with.
But when I am bad, for lack of interest, I am horrible. I balk, I
groan, I moan, I witch, I become obstructionist.

I have a Printer than can do everything but make my breakfast in
the morning. It sits right on a filing cabinet here in my office
right next to me. It isn't even connected. Oh, I used it a few times
only to discover that even in draft mode it ate up the National Budget
in ink. To heck with that! So it sits in glorious silence. I fondle
it and turn it once in a while just to see if it is still alive.

It is.

Carbon paper is so much cheaper. (laughing)

I have a new computer that would be a lot of people's dream machine.
It isn't mine. More like my worst nightmare. It came loaded with
Windows 7 Premium OEM - the damned think isn't backward
compatible with WinXP and goodbye Outlook Express, say hello
to Windows Live Mail. Get Win7 Pro, you'll be glad for my caveat.


That's where I end this, before I blow a gasket.

Oh Underwood...

SOME DAYS

Friday, July 02, 2004

Some days...

it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. The trouble is
that I can't get into bed, never mind out of it!

It all started with my neighbour Lesley. I say "hello" and
we stop to chat a bit. He informs me that his computer won't
boot up and that he thinks he's got a virus. Novel idea, eh?
Imagine. So I volunteer myself right into the box and offer
to have a look at his computer.

Big mistake!

"What exactly is not happening with your computer Lesley?"

"It boots into the system and then stops at the Windows
screen and then nothing."

"Sounds interesting to me Lesley. Let's have a look.
What are you running?"

"Windows '98."

"Got a virus checker Lesley?"

"I don't know."

"How's that again? How can you not know?"

"I just don't. I'm not good at this stuff."

"Have you got a recovery diskette?"

"No, I never made one."

"That might be a problem. I have a dozen of them for Windows 98.
Trouble is, I haven't worked with Windows '98 for several years
and that's going to be tricky. Veddy tricky."

I look a his set-up. He's got not one but two computers daisy
chained on a hub and two hard drives on the system that's not
working. I know nada about working with two hard drives installed.
It's about Masters and Slaves. It's about partitioned hard drives.
It's about -- I'm beginning to not want to know about his problem.
But I am a sucker for a challenge so I tell him to bring his computer
over to my place and I'll kick start it with one of my boot disks
and have a look at what's under the hood using my computer.

Right.

"Can't promise you'll get this back any time soon, Lesley. If I can
boot into your system and get into Safe Mode I'll be able to run a
few things and figure out what's what and who's who in the zoo."

Uh huh.

His problems started, he said, when he decided to go with broadband.
Seems he ran into trouble trying to configure the software that came
with his new high speed modem. But we are using the same service
provider and I had no problem installing anything, so I don't think
that is where the problem is.

So I've got his computer and it's a beaut alright! I take his CPU
apart and open his case.

Dust bunnies! Breeding like mice. Not any more. That baby is as
clean as the day he bought the system. Dust bunnies! I hate dust
bunnies. I think they breed at night when no one is looking and when
you get up in the morning, there they are!

I boot up his system which takes me right to where his problem was.
I shut it down and restart the whole thing and boot up with my
rescue disk. Gets me right onto his desktop.

Let the good times roll. My Logitech Internet Keyboard is on but
I can't type a thing with it. Nada. No problem, I have another keyboard.
Doesn't work either. Futhermore, he has password protected his computer
at log-on and I don't know the password! Forgot to ask him. There's more
than one way to skin a cat, so I set up a different user account.

My keyboard is typing some really weird stuff.
The qnick brown fbx jumps ovxr...won't go any further.

And that's where this ends...
have to go take care of some business.



There's always tomorrow.


Posted by Gwen Beauregard at 7/02/2004 11:01:00 AM

THE GO TO GIRL

THE GO TO GIRL

Had no idea I was going to leave you in the dark about
my neighbour's computer woes.

I had to inform Lesley that I needed some information,
and his keyboard, from him and that it would take a couple
of days for me to get around to fixing his problems. I did
have other matters to attend to and his computer was not
exactly on my high priority list of things to do. It took
him a couple of days to get back to me and, once I had what
I needed from him, I had his system up and running.

We didn't cross paths again for another week which didn't
seem all that urgent a matter at any rate as he never used
his computer himself, he had told me. It was basically used
for his very young son who liked to play games on it when
he came to visit his father.

He got his computer back and that was the end of that.

Almost.


Posted by Gwen Beauregard at 12/25/2009 08:26:00AM