"The Time of New Tech"
(with apologies to Mr. Kipling; warning! "Neep" alert)

My computer, frankly, was driving me crazy.

It had been upgraded from Win3.1 to Win95, then recently to Win98 (original version). It was getting so that certain things didn't want to work on the fool thing. My modem has never told me the actually speed it was connected at, only one of about four ISP numbers worked, and it got to the point where I had to wait a minute or two before downloading e-mail because it had a predilection for kicking me off immediately after connect. James bought me a USB card so I could sync to my PDA (my dying laptop now being useless for the service) and not only did the software not load, but every time I booted up Windows it detected new software and wanted to re-load it, ending up in putting markers on every IRQ port on the system (one of the things I suspected was bolluxing up the modem).

I had minimal hard drive storage (2.1G) in this era of fatware, but it was enough for my use, especially since we were planning to network the computers (another piece of software that wouldn't work on my recalcitrant system; when James installed it, the computer wouldn't even boot). The solution was to reformat the hard drive and reload everything.

James, on the other hand, wanted a larger drive for the games he plays and the aviation photos he downloads, so some months earlier he had bought a 20G hard drive but not yet installed it (when he did try installing it, he put Win2000 on it; that just bolluxed up his system as he only has a 375Mhz and a more computer-saavy friend told us Win2000 insists on at least 600MHz). Luckily he could go back to his old drive until he worked out the problems, and eventually that's what I did as well: I bought a 40G hard drive on sale.

And then I swapped drives with James.

Let's face it, I don't download huge .jpgs of airplanes on my system. I also don't play tech-y large footprint games like aircraft simulators and shooting games. Pac-Man and Jumpman are more my speed. Even with two different graphics programs, Paint Shop Pro 5 and PhotoImpact 6, Word Perfect, Paradox, and my entire kaboodle of website tools, I wouldn't make a dent in 20G, let alone 40.

He installed the 40 first, with the usual amount of cussing, with Win98SE as the OS this time. (I reminded him, however, not to get too angry when things go wrong: it upsets the dog! When he tried to install Win2000 and it wouldn't work, his reaction sent Willow clinging to my side with wide eyes. "Daddy's mad at the Not-a-Walk.* Maybe I'm next?") Eventually it worked fine, except for the fact that the software for his video card had somehow done a bunk. For some incredible reason, Win98 only has video support for only 16 colors! We tried downloading the software for his video card, but it apparently was the wrong type, as it didn't work. He eventually just picked up a new card on sale at Micro Center.

Luckily with my system all that was missing (or so we thought) was the sound card driver for my computer. Win98 picked it right up--but now my video card wouldn't work! We cursed and then realized upon researach that the software for the fool thing only worked with Win95; no Win98 software existed. So we hunted around on the web, found the correct software driver for his old 32M video card, and now I'm using it.

The hard drive gave us minimal trouble and I spent one of my after-the-hospital rest days loading software onto the beast. I was perplexed when I reloaded Eudora and tried to substitute the old mailboxes for the new ones, something I had done before successfully: Eudora told me it couldn't write to them! "Duh moment" here–it dawned on me a day later that I'd backed up the mailboxes on CD-R and the files were now all "read only"! Once this was changed, they worked fine (ditto with my backed-up web pages).

The most annoying quirk happened when I loaded the software for my Intellimouse. We'd put the old modem (a WinModem, which James hates) back in the computer and reloaded it successfully, but it was still unstable and still didn't show the connect speed. It also only connected on one ISP number.

After loading the Intellimouse software, even that phone number quit working. Sigh. Good ol' Microslop efficiency.

James had needed to buy a new modem for his unit anyway, as a fruitless search of software files had not turned up the old modem software (of course, we found software from two or three previous modems, but not that one). The computer show at the Cobb County Civic Center was that weekend, so he made sure he bought a hardware modem rather than a software modem (WinModem), which worked promptly and efficiently when he installed it. So I bought one the other day. Golly, I can finally see what speed I'm connected at, and it has a cool little Intel diagnostic tool to boot.

Now if only the fool USB card will work; I have lots of nice "new" e-Books I want to load on my PDA...

*I believe this designation is from an old Gary Larson cartoon, something to the effect of "What the dog thinks of your things." It had drawings of a computer, a television, sports equipment, etc., all labeled in the dog's mind "Not-a-Walk." When Wil looks mournful, we're apt to say to her, "Awww, poor Willow. Daddy's playing with the Not-a-Walk and not you."

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 4:28:00 PM

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