Me and my Computer

The photo shows my Toshiba Satellite Laptop - or Notebook as they are now called. I bought it in 2003, my first computer for I, me and myself. Up to then I was sharing with my hubby. Not such a good idea - something like learning how to drive a car with the partner - it does not work.

My computer has been my best friend over the last 4 years and almost never let me down. If anything happened it was of course, not the computer's fault, but the administrator. Computers do not make mistakes. However, like myself, the computer has started showing signs of old age. During the weekly Virus programme up date it decided to close down once or twice over the last couple of months - just like that. No signal, no picture just nothing. I did a restart and after a scan my computer was again ready to go. Otherwise my computer and I live more or less in Unison. Ok - he (it?) lost a couple of key covers over the year and its appearance isn't so shiny and bright as on the first day - but it's alive.

When I think of the past years what we have been through together. We got some new softwear, him and me. Apart from the usual Bill Gates collection of Microsoft, we decided to do web sites together so we got Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash softwear to make life easier. We really got creative. Making blinkies, altering photos and doing all good things that a computer does when he is told to.

Our e-mail life is also quite interesting. Thanks to our mail washer system we don't let any spam or unwanted annoying mails in. If we do get them then computer tells our system to block them (with the help of a few of computer's friends that he has built into the system). As far as Internet is concerned, computer had a lot of fun. Meeting new people, learning about the world and sometimes even reading an online book now and again. Computer also found doing a blog now and again is quite good as it keeps his insides in tune.

However, like the owner, computer starts feeling old. He is not as quick as his newly born brothers and sisters and he sometimes reaches his limits, especially in speed. However this did not bother his owner as she too found that you don't have to be the speediest to make the most of things. Computer and I didn't go in for music or video very much, we used the other computers at home for that.

However, sometime last week computer was having problem with the screen. His vision was getting a bit weak and he started flashing instead of having a constant bright picture. I felt a bit concerned but as computer cannot speak independently (you have to tell him what to say) I couldn't ask him what was wrong.

Eventually on 17th March, 2007 he closed his eyes for ever. His organs were still functioning but his sight had gone. His screen remained almost blank. Not quite there was a very faint outline to be seen.

In the afternoon I put him in his carrying bag and went for a car drive with him to the computer shop. There was a young man (son of Bill gates?) who took computer into his arms and examined the problem. He told me that with most probability (it is difficult to say definitely) the illumination in the lid serving the screen had given up. It would be easy to replace the light, but taking the screen apart and fitting it together again could be quite expensive. As I didn't have a sickness insurance for computer I had to think things over. Then a suggestion was made. Whether I had a screen at home which I didn't use (I didn't). He then connected computer to a screen in the workshop and behold - it was alive again. In this case it seemed that the internal organs of computer were still functioning.

I then made a quick call to home and hubby confirmed that we had no monitor at home, but said it would be worthwhile to purchase one. I had to think things over. I know that one day Toshiba Satellite will have to go to the happy computer hunting grounds, but I was not yet ready for this. XP has not yet died and Vista is not really alive. By the end of the year the scenery will probably be different. I also had to think over how I move two web sites from one computer to another. I wanted to think this over and would have more time. Something very easy for computer people, but I am a shear amateur in this connection. I quickly made the decision to purchase a monitor.

There were two choices. One monitor which looked like it was ready for the big wide screen and another with a normal sized frame. I decided on the wide screen - it was cheaper and I only need it for an interim time. I eventually arrived home. We quickly discovered that big wide screen was not exactly the ideal for my little Toshiba. After trying to fit a small screen into a wide screen we eventually turned the picture into four times the size of the normal wide screen and spend the next two hours trying to recover it again. Eventually hubby decided to do a reset. A good idea but every icon we managed to start (by this time we had recovered the start menu somewhere distant to the left of the screen) you had to find with the mouse. We had more luck than judgement and eventually the icon was found and a reset made, although I was not really convinced. In the meanwhile we had fitted big wide screen to one of the other computers and taken a normal screen size for Toshiba.

Eventually the reset was made to 08.30 in the morning (it was now 17.00 hours) and Toshiba was showing his sight again and all his configurations through a new screen.

At the moment Toshiba and I are very happy with our new monitor. I had to tell Toshiba that we cannot go outside on the porch any more in the Summer together as the monitor would be a bit inconvenient to shift around. I do not think this bothered Toshiba although his administrator was not so happy about this. There is nothing more relaxing than to sit outside, listen to the birds singing, watch the garden grow and work on the computer.

I hope the next instalment of this story follows when I can tell all about my new computer.