Ganeida's Knots

Computers are like air conditioners. They work fine until you start opening windows. ~ Anon


One of the things Dearest promised me if his little business ever made any money was a new computer. Well, it has ~ & he did. If it was up to me I would not have splurged on a computer.  Seriously.  Think of all the books I could have bought with that sort of money! However it wasn't up to me.  Not really.

See in this house there has been this on~going conversation which starts: When Liddy goes... uh~huh.  I do not know about other familes.  I do not know about other mother's & daughters but in this house the female brigade is a tight, tight unit. Firstly we are vastly outnumbered.  Even the cats are male. Secondly, for safety reasons we have usually travelled as a pack.  Thirdly, all that togetherness means we know each other pretty well ~ & we're pretty tolerant of each other's differences.  When things stuff up, it is each other we rely on.  A major ocean & 2 continents is not going to change that according to Dearest & he has been most insistant that we have something in place to address the issue ~ like skype. 

My old computer does not have skype.  My old computer is not only geriatric, it has geriatric issues: incontinence, memory lapses, it forgets what it is & what it is meant to do & lately it has been threatening to die at any tick of the clock.  So when the sales came up Dearest went into action.  This is always scary.  Dearest dearly loves to bargain ~ which I just find incredibly, deeply embarrassing.  If you saw him in action you'd know why but he is incredibly effective so I leave him too it.  The problem is he negotiates for what I don't want. Uh~hmmm...

So we all got dragged to the mainland last Friday; Liddy for technical support, Star for aesthetic import, me to say um, that's not what I want ~ which I did.  I know.  I should just have been grateful, right?  But I know me well enough to know that new computer would have sat there untouched while I grappled with old faithful if I disliked the new.  I am fussy about things like graphics.

So there we were, my poor bewildered Dearest who doesn't have a computer bone in his body trying to figure out what was wrong with the beautifully cheap computer he'd picked out just for me, & the girls silently begging me not to be a woos & go for the computer we all knew was the better deal, if considerably more expensive.  Dearest has lived with us a long time.  He twigged something was wrong & I gave him 2 to consider: my first choice & a second.  As it turned out he liked my first. He renegotiated ~ rather sucessfully!

I never read the instructions first.  No~one in this house does.  We fiddle ~ & when it stuffs up we consult with each other ~ or in the case of computers, Liddy.  And now I have skype, with inbuilt camera, & when I happened to mention this to the QLD OM rep, they were delighted. It is, it seems, a smart way to keep in contact ~ & they are big on their people getting as much home support as possible.  One of the pluses for Liddy has always been the amount of home support she has.

I rather did Liddy's head in by decorating my computer with fairies & planets; Star, naturally, was charmed. But seriously, computers are a whole 'nother world, aren't they!
Back up my hard drive?  How do I put it in reverse?