Two of my blog-colleagues are struck down with computer-related grief.
Natalie Solent, who has been unable to blog since last Saturday, has asked Samizdata.net to pass on to as many of her regular readers as we can reach that she has not abandoned them on purpose, but has been wrenched away from them, by an attempt to upgrade from Windows Complicated to Windows Even More Complicated which has proved to be very complicated indeed. But she will be back, just as soon as it’s all sorted.
And if you’re wondering why it’s techno-moron me telling you this rather than Perry de Havilland, well as you may have guessed already from his recent blog-silence, he too is having computer-related troubles, this time involving a hardware failure. It isn’t going to be too expensive (it’s one of the small connecting boxes rather than the big box itself which has collapsed), but the problem is proving to be time consuming, while Perry queues with other afflicted souls for the services of his computer-guru. He too is doing all he can to get back on line.
Stop the presses! I’m back. See, if you bang your head against a brick wall for long enough it falls down.
However one of the ways I made it work was by deleting half my records – including where I go to post to Samizdata. Hence this comment rather than a separate post. Don’t worry, I’m working on it.
You were right on the phone, btw. Upgrading your computer is like going into labour. You can’t remember what life was like before the pain started. You can’t remember what the object of this suffering actually is or why you ever desired it. Then you get there – suddenly the world is suffused with a warm glow thanks to your new baby and you start planning the next one.
Well, a couple of weeks ago, having tried and failed to get a “computer repairer” to fix my laptop, I found myself on the floor wielding a soldering iron, with my computer disassembled in front of me. Amazingly, I managed to fix the problem and put the computer back together (although I still have one piece of plastic that came out of it and didn’t go back into it sitting next to it on my desk). I had reached the level of frustration where I was wondering if I would have to save the hard disc and throw the rest of the stupid thing away. In two weeks without my laptop, I discovered just how much I depend on it: much of my life seems to be stored on its hard disc.
Switch?
Blog-colleagues? Should that word be blogleagues?
I like your style