Computer Cure

Ever wonder if the cure feels more painful than the disease? Ever consider throwing your laptop out the window?

We have become so dependant on computers to communicate and conduct our daily business. We carry our laptop on trips with us and treat it as if it were an appendage to our body. But wait! It gets worse. We carry our i-phone or Blackberry clipped to our purse or belt. Every meeting opens with the announcement to please turn off all electronic noise makers as a courtesy to the speaker. It is automatically expected that the majority of the audience will be packing electronic hardware.

I even see people walk into church and the gym with their cell phone clipped to their waist. I understand “reach out and touch someone” but one hour? We have become hopelessly addicted. The next thing you know, we will see groups meeting in secret and calling themselves CAs – communication addicts or computer addicts.

Before you get paranoid or upset, let me confess; I’m guilty, too. This is spreading to epidemic proportions. My adorable 4 year old grandson already has a serious case of computer addiction. Kaden can’t wait to get his sticky fingers on my Blackberry and laptop. Don’t get me wrong, he actually knows exactly what to do with them as well. Of course he looks for the games first, but this little whiz kid knows how to find them and how to play them as well. We have created a generation of addicts. What is this world coming to?

Why does this topic occupy the forefront of my attention today? Slightly over a week ago, I wrote about my computer suffering from the terminal “blue screen of death.” The patient remained in the electronic ER and returned home with the new Windows 7 operating system. Good news and bad news. Good news that the data was recovered and reinstalled. Bad news that Windows XP died on the operating table. Windows 7 was transplanted and the patient lived. Major surgery and a thorough internal electronic enema added to the recovery period. Windows 7 is Microsoft’s newest “latest and greatest” operating system. Sounds exciting, right? Yes and no. Officially, Windows 7 will not be released to the public until about October 23.

Such an infant stage for an operating system logically follows that many programs and technicians are less than familiar with all of the complexities and adaptations. So far I have five one-half hours with Palm Pilot to discover than my Tungsten C refuses to play nice with Windows 7; I have a PDA with zero hot sync capability. Cyberspace help me if the PDA is lost or runs out of battery charge.

Today was four hours with my desktop check scanner reaching for the computer and touching fingers but failing to complete the electronic handshake. Thanks to wonderful patient techies at Treasury Gateway, we finally managed a stop gap work-a-round temporary solution.

Installing a new, almost released, operating system on a non-techie owned laptop computer requires patience, a pot of strong coffee and occasionally a bullet to bite on to suppress the thoughts and words which would sneak toward conscious expression.

Progress! Most programs are working. Currently I am able to work. Oh yes, I’m learning in ever so many ways. I’m also grateful for an inquiring mind and desire to learn.