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Easter Come, Easter Go.
Monday, April 8th, 2013 12:42 pmHere I am back in the office after a week at home at the Gin Palace for Easter.
It is always good to have a week off, but overall, this past week could have been better. The weather wasn’t all that great for most of it and the new PC I ordered before the holidays was and is a saga all of its own.
Easter weekend itself went well. Good Friday and Saturday were reasonably quiet – to the point that I can’t actually remember what we did those days, although I think a little light gardening was involved.
Easter Sunday was spent at the in-laws for a roast dinner and BEER. This was as always, a splendid way to spend the day, and though we are a bit deeper into the year than last time we visited, I learnt the lessons from last time and ensured that I had a warmer coat for the journey home in the evening. Last time was late February and a particularly sunny day – one of the few spring-like days in the prolonged winter. I made the rookie mistake of not allowing for the rapid drop in temperature after dark. I did not repeat the error, be assured.
On Tuesday, while Furtle was off visiting her Grandpa for his birthday, I stayed at home to take delivery of my shiny new PC, which turned up as promised.
That is when my troubles started.
I knew that there would be no OS on the machine (a copy of Windows 7 tantalisingly arrived on the Saturday, three days ahead of the computer itself!), so I was prepared to load that on myself. First of all, however, I find that the monitor wouldn’t work with the new machine. It turns out that things have moved on in the computer realm since last I did anything remotely technical. To cut a long story short, there are four ports on the back and three of them are disabled by the manufacturer. The port that doers work required an adaptor that I didn’t have.
So I went and bought one. The next section makes most sense if you bear in mind that I am not the most technically savvy person in the world, which is why I spent a little extra having someone build the machine rather than just sending me the components for a DIY job. I do not need to understand how a ham sandwich works, I just want to eat it and so it is with computers.
I then loaded Windows 7 only to find that there were no other drivers on the machine either. This meant that I was operating Windows 7 on a default display of 640x480 and 16 colours. It was like 1993 all over again, except that screen displays at that time were configured to that resolution. I, on the other hand was getting the top left corner or the display and the useful stuff, the stuff I needed to be able to see was being displayed somewhere in virtual space, probably a couple of feet below our neighbours’ living room floor, if the windows were extrapolated far enough…
After a great deal of what transpired to be self-inflicted fannying around, I managed to get the internet access etc up and running, having located the disc for the motherboard drivers. So far so good, if a little embarrassing and annoying.
The trouble is that there were no drivers loaded for the graphics card, either and I didn’t have a disc for that. I should have, but it was missing. (Hurrah). I managed to download some after a fair amount of trial and error involving tabbing on the keyboard and trying to guess how many buttons there might be in virtual space. Finally, I found and downloaded them and started to install.
At which point the hard drive, the brand new hard drive committed hara-kiri and that, as they say, was that. No way of booting without the Windows disk and no where to boot to once that had worked, so back off to the suppliers it’s gone. Of course, I still have internet access through my iPad and Nexus 7 tablets, but fun as these are, they aren’t great shakes for playing World of Warcaft or (occasionally) Diablo. I am now waiting to hear from the suppliers when (if), I shall be taking delivery of a replacement. This time, however, I shall download the drivers on another machine and copy to a flashdrive, so I can install from there instead.
Anyway, as you might imagine, this did very little for my temper on the Tuesday and Wednesday, though by the time Thursday rolled around and I sent the computer back, I was calmer. Resigned, is probably more accurate.
The upshot is that I have no currently working computer at home and therefore very little reason not to go and do things in the garden. Luckily, over the second weekend, the weather picked up and we managed a bit of garden maintenance and some planting. Spring is about a month late – certainly in our little micro climate, but it is beginning to show signs of arrival. If we get some decent sun over the next few days, plus the customary April showers, I am hopeful that we will get a little greenery sprouting and maybe even a few more late daffodils and tulips. The irises, which would have complemented them, will have been and gone by then, but what can you do in the face of intransigent weather?
Anyway, I am back at work and I ought to go and do some of it. More later, I hope.
It is always good to have a week off, but overall, this past week could have been better. The weather wasn’t all that great for most of it and the new PC I ordered before the holidays was and is a saga all of its own.
Easter weekend itself went well. Good Friday and Saturday were reasonably quiet – to the point that I can’t actually remember what we did those days, although I think a little light gardening was involved.
Easter Sunday was spent at the in-laws for a roast dinner and BEER. This was as always, a splendid way to spend the day, and though we are a bit deeper into the year than last time we visited, I learnt the lessons from last time and ensured that I had a warmer coat for the journey home in the evening. Last time was late February and a particularly sunny day – one of the few spring-like days in the prolonged winter. I made the rookie mistake of not allowing for the rapid drop in temperature after dark. I did not repeat the error, be assured.
On Tuesday, while Furtle was off visiting her Grandpa for his birthday, I stayed at home to take delivery of my shiny new PC, which turned up as promised.
That is when my troubles started.
I knew that there would be no OS on the machine (a copy of Windows 7 tantalisingly arrived on the Saturday, three days ahead of the computer itself!), so I was prepared to load that on myself. First of all, however, I find that the monitor wouldn’t work with the new machine. It turns out that things have moved on in the computer realm since last I did anything remotely technical. To cut a long story short, there are four ports on the back and three of them are disabled by the manufacturer. The port that doers work required an adaptor that I didn’t have.
So I went and bought one. The next section makes most sense if you bear in mind that I am not the most technically savvy person in the world, which is why I spent a little extra having someone build the machine rather than just sending me the components for a DIY job. I do not need to understand how a ham sandwich works, I just want to eat it and so it is with computers.
I then loaded Windows 7 only to find that there were no other drivers on the machine either. This meant that I was operating Windows 7 on a default display of 640x480 and 16 colours. It was like 1993 all over again, except that screen displays at that time were configured to that resolution. I, on the other hand was getting the top left corner or the display and the useful stuff, the stuff I needed to be able to see was being displayed somewhere in virtual space, probably a couple of feet below our neighbours’ living room floor, if the windows were extrapolated far enough…
After a great deal of what transpired to be self-inflicted fannying around, I managed to get the internet access etc up and running, having located the disc for the motherboard drivers. So far so good, if a little embarrassing and annoying.
The trouble is that there were no drivers loaded for the graphics card, either and I didn’t have a disc for that. I should have, but it was missing. (Hurrah). I managed to download some after a fair amount of trial and error involving tabbing on the keyboard and trying to guess how many buttons there might be in virtual space. Finally, I found and downloaded them and started to install.
At which point the hard drive, the brand new hard drive committed hara-kiri and that, as they say, was that. No way of booting without the Windows disk and no where to boot to once that had worked, so back off to the suppliers it’s gone. Of course, I still have internet access through my iPad and Nexus 7 tablets, but fun as these are, they aren’t great shakes for playing World of Warcaft or (occasionally) Diablo. I am now waiting to hear from the suppliers when (if), I shall be taking delivery of a replacement. This time, however, I shall download the drivers on another machine and copy to a flashdrive, so I can install from there instead.
Anyway, as you might imagine, this did very little for my temper on the Tuesday and Wednesday, though by the time Thursday rolled around and I sent the computer back, I was calmer. Resigned, is probably more accurate.
The upshot is that I have no currently working computer at home and therefore very little reason not to go and do things in the garden. Luckily, over the second weekend, the weather picked up and we managed a bit of garden maintenance and some planting. Spring is about a month late – certainly in our little micro climate, but it is beginning to show signs of arrival. If we get some decent sun over the next few days, plus the customary April showers, I am hopeful that we will get a little greenery sprouting and maybe even a few more late daffodils and tulips. The irises, which would have complemented them, will have been and gone by then, but what can you do in the face of intransigent weather?
Anyway, I am back at work and I ought to go and do some of it. More later, I hope.