Do I look different? I feel like I do. A few days ago my six year old laptop turned up its toes and died. It wasn't a happy day. All I got was a blank screen. Even with all the clever tricks I know, I couldn't resuscitate it.
So I looked online (on my smartphone) for help. That place that rhymes with "zest guy" quoted $250 for diagnostic and data recovery. Ouch. I turned to Yelp. One guy was really highly rated, and ironically, has a shop just behind zest guy. First thing Monday morning I packed up my dead laptop and headed out.
Now I can insert a long story here about this guy who drove up on his awesome motorcycle just as I pulled up. His old curiosity shop with a murky aquarium and high tech clutter mixed with vintage weirdness. I could tell you about cables that didn't fit my external hard drive, a trip to yet another quirky computer guy who had my daughter's hard drive and cable - that guy had a shop full of birds of all kinds, one of which wouldn't stop wolf-whistling at me. I could have stopped in there for hours just to talk about the exotic lutes he had on display. What is it with colorful computer repairmen? Anyway, it's a typical story of the bizarre world hidden behind the shop fronts I drive by every day.
In the end, with a cable that worked, he was able to take all my data off my laptop. Between all these trips around town, I stopped into zest guy and bought a generic, somewhat cheap laptop. It does about 10x what my old expensive laptop was able to do.
And now I am completely lost.
Windows 8. Do you have it? You can't get a computer without it these days. It's a bit bizarre. I'm trying to be patient while I learn but one wrong swipe of the mouse or keystroke and I am suddenly three screens away from where I was.
Also, this keyboard is about a millimeter different from my old one. I seriously have to retrain my fingers to type. It's taken a lot of effort just to get the periods to show up on this page.
I had some pictures to go with this post. I haven't gotten my camera software to load yet though.
Perhaps most frustrating of all, this laptop doesn't know me. I suddenly find I have to remember a million passwords, some of which I haven't entered in years.
So - happy to have new technology at my fingertips, but not really enjoying the process of getting up to speed with it.
I miss my old dinosaur laptop. I've turned into one of those people.
Another “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” Day
1 hour ago
3 people stopped folding laundry to write:
Windows 8. I do not like it. Even more so since my mom has it now and none of us do, so it's now much harder to troubleshoot her computer issues (and she has many since she is a bit of a technophobe).
Good luck with your new computer. I know how difficult it is to adapt to new computers.
Oh I feel your pain! We have had Windows 8 since December and it has taken some getting use to. It took me forever to figure out how to shut down the first time! You will get use to it but I don't like it either.
Glad you got your stuff recovered too. We had to go through the recovery process and it was not cheap! Hope you have a better week!
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