Starting Again
I'm little better than a novice when it comes to really understanding my computer for total comfort. When we bought our IBM computer back in January 2000, we thought we'd found a good, reliable computer, one we could use with confidence for years to come. It was the gold standard, we thought, made by IBM. Well, it was also the most basic computer that IBM sold, with, little did we know at the time, vastly insufficient RAM to really do the donkey work, so it didn't take long before the poor old thing got bogged down in its own insufficiency. Which meant that when one of our grown children visited they would point out things like start-up items which were quite unnecessary, downloaded programmes I didn't really need and seldom used, and took too much power, and they'd do a bit of fiddling here and there and almost restore efficiency to the computer. Ah, but the last year has been a true trial and tribulation. We thought about getting additional RAM but my friend and neighbour whose son is a computer whiz cautioned it wouldn't give us that much of a boost, given the venerable (in computer terms) age of the computer, and why didn't we let her son select a good alternate? Hem, haw, and not yet, lots of life in this old CPU, and we'd see it gently to the end of its days.Ahah! she's one determined woman, our neighbour. Would we consider buying her old (2-years old, a computer built by same son) one for $150, and Ryan would set it up for us? Because, as it happens, Ryan has ordered a new Dell computer with all the latest bells and whistles for his beloved Mom, as he now happens to work for Dell. Well, said I doubtfully, I dunno. Thinking as I was of how much of a pain in the arse it would be to worry about losing files, especially all of our precious photographs, so I dithered, and finally, reluctantly, after speaking with Ryan who promised I'd lose nothing, but gain efficiency and speed in the transfer, agreed.
So Walter, Wendy's husband, brought over all the components, and then Ryan came over and began the process, me watching avidly while he took the hard disk out of my poor old CPU, installed it in the new (old) computer, blessed with tonnes of room and speed. Ryan divided the hard disk into two drives; one, he explained for the operating system, the other for "my stuff", which he also named this new drive, destined to receive what else? my stuff. Ryan removed all the ephemera that Wendy and Walter had loaded the drive with, cleaned it up, and brought me up to speed.
Ryan is one sweet kid, can hardly believe we watched him grow from a big solid thirteen-year-old to his current manly 29 years-of-age with his own house and all the responsibilities that come with it. At 5 feet "tall", I kind of look up to Ryan - up - up - up. He stands about 6 ft. 8 ", heavy build, booming voice. He is patient beyond belief, and more than willing to share with me (or anyone else who is interested) anything he knows about computers. Much of which goes in one ear, waits politely for a bit, then wafts out the other ear. I watch his sleight-of-hand at the computer and turn a gentle shade of green. Wish I could...!
Then I'm set up, ask him all kinds of questions, which he responds fulsomely to, and by the time he leaves I'm imbued with confidence, for he has amply demonstrated the speed and efficiency of this new machine and I can hardly wait to go to it. He'll return, he says, in a week or so, to fine-tune things and see how I'm getting along. And he'll come back again, he tells me, after that, once I'm certain I've transferred all of the files I want to from my old hard disk to the current one, and return the old disk to the old CPU so it can be used again, should I wish to. Or give it to a little kid who can use it to run games.
Then I'm amazed at the speed with which this computer responds to my commands. I become so efficient with this more-than-willing computer that, believe it or not, I begin to miss my crabby old tired computer. I'd become so accustomed to its creaks and groans and interminable waits, even getting kicked off the Internet because of time-outs, devised so many subterfuges to get it to operate, I felt as though I'd let a trusting and beloved, dying patient go quietly into the night without my comforting presence.
posted by Pieface @ Monday, May 22, 2006
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