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Thursday 7 August 2008

My new toy...er...useful item.

I've been in the market for a new laptop for ages. My old, secondhand IBM was okay, but it kept doing strange things like turning off its own screen light or suddenly deciding that I really wanted to remove its battery and popping a message up to that effect every five seconds. I was reluctant to look at a new one though, because I really didn't want Vista. I've heard too many tales about how hard it is to use. But our local computer store swore that it was impossible to get a decent sized laptop these days without Vista.

During the school holidays I took Sausage to a birthday party in the next town, 40km away. I knew they had a computer store there too, so I thought I'd give it a try while I was waiting to pick her up (I didn't fancy two hours with twenty 5-6 year-old girls). The shop front didn't look promising - sort of 1950's, plain and rather delapidated. But I went in and explained to the very friendly lady what I wanted - screen size, capability, price. I hadn't got to 'and no Vista' before she guided me to a laptop. Right price, right size, right Gbs and 'it has Windows XP'. Sold! As it turned out, it was the last one in the store...so I felt it was meant to be.

The following morning I turned on the main family computer to check the email (I've never had Internet on my laptop - too distracting). It turned on, but then everything went pear-shaped. Pretty hieroglyphics all over the screen. Apparently the games card had suffered a coronary. So P ordered a new computer from our local store (whilst Eldest went through a bout of acute angst at the lack of computer). While we waited for it to arrive, he hooked my laptop to the Internet. Terrible mistake. I rather liked being able to log in while I was working and innocently remarked that a wireless router would be really good.

I have to say, my husband does listen to me. The new computer (with XP) is here (for the second time - it had to go back for a 'real' graphics card, not the 'useless' thing they'd put in - more angst for Eldest) and alongside it is a wireless router. My little laptop can zoom off onto the Internet wherever I am in the house. It's wonderful and terrible. Will I ever work again?

Now, to people overseas, who probably had all this technology years ago, I'm probably making a fuss about nothing. But this is country Australia. We only managed to get Broadband, without satellite, six months ago. So this is a big thing for me. Hmmm...what shall I look at now? No! Work! I must do some work!

4 comments:

Angela Ackerman said...

Welcome to my world. Endless procrastination at my fingertips. Fie, wireless internet--FIE!

Angela said...

Enjoy. You can also disable wireless with the push of a button on the front of your laptop -when you really need to.

Kate said...

Ah, thanks! That's easy. The problem is, it's just as easy to turn it back on!

Angela said...

Yeah, but I know you want to write more than you want to surf, right?