Despite my relative inactivity, I still find it difficult to make time for contacting friends and acquaintances online, no matter how strong the intention. If I relied solely on handwritten letters, despatched via snail mail, I'd be even more guilty of neglect.
For the past few weeks I’ve renewed my quest for a faster computer, with a decent graphics card and a couple of gigabytes of RAM. The original quest began back in the summer months but I kept putting it on hold, somehow, the recent ‘down’ phase of my existence added impetus to the quest. I realize that may sound quite absurd but, the truth is, as my already meagre powers of concentration seemed to be in under-drive I rediscovered my facility of absorbing technical specs of computer kit. Many short sharp visits to back issues of PC magazines, and PC related websites, proved a delightful distraction from my familiar catalogue of aches and pains.
Severe back pains sustained their attempt to divert me from my quest for the computer grail but I boldly fought against the odds! After Tuesday afternoon’s acupuncture session, I felt sufficiently energised to venture down, the following morning, to the local PC emporium and drooled over the machine that I’d more or less decided would meet my requirements. The fact that it was also equipped with both analog and digital TV cards seemed to sway my beloved, the idea of having digital TV upstairs as well as in the living room appealed to her. We decided on a 19” widescreen monitor to complement the base unit and a set of JBL 2.1 speakers added the final touch.
The setting up process started on Wednesday afternoon, not without its moments of frustration, continuing on into Thursday afternoon (not a sustained effort you understand). As I’m still hanging onto the laptop and my old PC, I’m not in too much of a rush to install some graphics and DTP programmes as, its maybe time to upgrade from my current programmes. Of course, the primary reason for the new machine is to facilitate my graphics work but, I’m not going to rush things.
It seems quite strange that it wasn’t many years ago that I reluctantly succumbed to using my beloved’s old PC, that she’d used for lesson preparation in her teaching days and, agreed to go ‘online’. My only previous experience of computers had been when the whole stock and accounts procedures, where I was employed as Office Manager/Accounts Manager, was transferred to a computerised system in days before PCs were an option. In this situation, working as a VDU operator, didn’t have half the appeal that the job had previously held. [It’s strange that I should have lamented the loss of my hand-written double entry book-keeping etc., especially as someone who always hated figure work but, that’s another story!]
Within a few weeks I’d put up my first website but, it took quite a while to discover the delights of the ‘blogosphere’. Helen’s old machine had a mere 1GB HDD and upgraded to the RAM to its maximum of 96MB. It wasn’t too long before Beth’s partner made me a new machine. As I succumbed to ME/CFS, and much of my real world socializing was drastically curtailed, the internet provided me with a whole new world to explore. I shall be forever grateful to ma belle for pushing me in this direction. Meantime, when Helen had to retire from teaching for health reasons, part of her recovery programme got her involved in learning computing skills and, I found myself being called upon for troubleshooting purposes.
Forgive the rambling – the keyboard just took on a life of its own but, a degree of weariness compels me to slump down in front of the telly. Stamina levels, you will be grateful to know, have temporarily curtailed today’s rambling.
