Towards Restoration

Friday was a day off from being glued to the computer. It did not even come on during the day. Thursday had been a day of initial restoration. On Wednesday we had to tackle the inability to get on to the Internet, and I even rang the shop that made up the computer. Saying that his father, who'd have dealt with me, was in later at 3 pm was accompanied by them using standard chips. My friend knew that these would be labelled and looked for himself, eventually finding motherboard drivers to make the difference, but going semi-blind he installed a little too much and received the blue screen of death at every Windows boot up. So we ended up going across Hull and into Hessle where the whole reinstallation process began again from the beginning.

Data was extracted yet again via Safe Mode but this time I arrived at his house having purchased an external hard drive. The data went on to that. Then Windows was reinstalled and Service Pack 2 again, and the drivers as necessary were entered to gain connection to the Internet.

All I did today when home was replace two RJ45 wires to give the Internet to my old second computer. It is an old, robust one but slow. However, when our friends shuffle along computers, I have decided that my replacement will have to be different. I must learn how to operate Linux and to get it to do important tasks. I just get the sense that Windows is far too complex and bloated for its own good, subject to attack and leads on to these major restorations. I'm not happy that having installed and put in some software it needed a defragmenting, and I am typing while a Shred program is removing piles of enormous stuff from the Recycle Bin. It will need another defragmenting. I don't actually like the principle of 'automatic updates' by which Internet Explorer jumped to version 8 and then Service Pack 3 appeared and was entered.

I've learnt a lot but then years back I learnt enough about Mallard Basic to produce menus and tasks on an Amstrad PCW. The point of a computer is to write, to draw, to read, to communicate: to be creative. It is not - for me - about examining the engine and the means to travel. I want to actually travel. QVC this evening was flogging a complicated touch screen multimedia thing based on huge computing power and complexity: what it that gets a maleware and virus? It'll be like the modern car where only a garage will be able to repair, at a huge price, before the next attempt at money extraction, and the terms of what is viewed is all commercially driven.