Technical Hitches
I’m so flushed with the success of installing broadband this week on 2 PCs, involving scary things like routers, network cards, configuring software and firewalls, and throwing in the odd CD-RW almost as an afterthought, that a surge of reckless confidence has convinced me that anyone with my skills could build an entire new PC from a hairpin and two old custard tins!
Now as it happens, we need a new PC for J - hers dates from the days of Charles Babbage, takes up one entire wall but can only perform minimal calculations while emitting a tinny beep from time to time, not to mention that it ungratefully turned its nose up at the shiny new network card I tried to tempt it with. So I have ordered lots of exciting PC parts at a total cost of £300, that’s only about £15 more than the price of a similar spec PC bought ready made, and well worth the extra for the fun of assembly!
In case I run into a little hitch or two I have warned Panikos he will need to be on call 24/7 while I stick the darn thing together, just like he was when I was configuring the router last week. Unfortunately, it turns out it coincides with his once-yearly visit to his Auntie Dorcas who lives in the Galapagos on the only island still waiting for a telephone connection, bad timing or what! But I’ll manage. How hard can it be? No way can it be as fiddly as the Lego Harry Potter Castle, and I knocked that off in one afternoon!
There’s just a glimmer of apprehension….a teeny note of unease…. Looking round our house it strikes me we already have more than the average number of things which don’t work quite right. I don’t suppose many people have to hang a heavy candlestick off their Velux skylight blind every night to stop it pinging up and down like a bungee. And is it normal to have to repeatedly bash a marble rolling pin on top of your chip pan to make the thing perform? The fly swat beside the CD player (hearty whack on the lid gets it going), the anglepoise lamp dangling from a wire secured with a big blob of BluTack... J’s PC case stuck securely round with parcel tape – so much faster than screws! Not to mention the electric garage door you have to sneak up on, quickly pointing the remote round a corner to catch it unawares. I am a master of the bodged fix but, hmmmm, a whole real computer may be less forgiving We shall see. I bought the case on Ebay where they had a good selection of really flashy ones and I’m still waiting for that to arrive. The other bits have all arrived and I was hoping you could snap them together in advance and just drop them into the case when it comes, bingo! but apparently not so, it seems the case will have some little wiggly wires you have to pop over some sticking-up bits first. Just like Lego, see?
While on Ebay my fingers itched to bid on a ‘lightweight horse trailer’ for a mere £430. How light? I need to know because our small, feeble car is not typical of the tank-like affairs owned by most pony people and struggles to haul one large old lady up a steep hill, let alone a big angry pony rampaging about at the back. Someone had asked the question ‘what is the weight of the trailer’ to which the seller replies ‘I don’t know but you can push it with one finger, if that helps’. Why, yes it does! We can load the pony and then push the trailer to Blade’s Hill, and when my finger gets tired J can use hers.
Since the next Blade’s Hill is this Sunday and Pat can’t help us out for that one, the only alternative plan I’ve come up with is strapping Clyde to four big rollerskates and encouraging him to grip a towbar with his teeth.
Now as it happens, we need a new PC for J - hers dates from the days of Charles Babbage, takes up one entire wall but can only perform minimal calculations while emitting a tinny beep from time to time, not to mention that it ungratefully turned its nose up at the shiny new network card I tried to tempt it with. So I have ordered lots of exciting PC parts at a total cost of £300, that’s only about £15 more than the price of a similar spec PC bought ready made, and well worth the extra for the fun of assembly!
In case I run into a little hitch or two I have warned Panikos he will need to be on call 24/7 while I stick the darn thing together, just like he was when I was configuring the router last week. Unfortunately, it turns out it coincides with his once-yearly visit to his Auntie Dorcas who lives in the Galapagos on the only island still waiting for a telephone connection, bad timing or what! But I’ll manage. How hard can it be? No way can it be as fiddly as the Lego Harry Potter Castle, and I knocked that off in one afternoon!
There’s just a glimmer of apprehension….a teeny note of unease…. Looking round our house it strikes me we already have more than the average number of things which don’t work quite right. I don’t suppose many people have to hang a heavy candlestick off their Velux skylight blind every night to stop it pinging up and down like a bungee. And is it normal to have to repeatedly bash a marble rolling pin on top of your chip pan to make the thing perform? The fly swat beside the CD player (hearty whack on the lid gets it going), the anglepoise lamp dangling from a wire secured with a big blob of BluTack... J’s PC case stuck securely round with parcel tape – so much faster than screws! Not to mention the electric garage door you have to sneak up on, quickly pointing the remote round a corner to catch it unawares. I am a master of the bodged fix but, hmmmm, a whole real computer may be less forgiving We shall see. I bought the case on Ebay where they had a good selection of really flashy ones and I’m still waiting for that to arrive. The other bits have all arrived and I was hoping you could snap them together in advance and just drop them into the case when it comes, bingo! but apparently not so, it seems the case will have some little wiggly wires you have to pop over some sticking-up bits first. Just like Lego, see?
While on Ebay my fingers itched to bid on a ‘lightweight horse trailer’ for a mere £430. How light? I need to know because our small, feeble car is not typical of the tank-like affairs owned by most pony people and struggles to haul one large old lady up a steep hill, let alone a big angry pony rampaging about at the back. Someone had asked the question ‘what is the weight of the trailer’ to which the seller replies ‘I don’t know but you can push it with one finger, if that helps’. Why, yes it does! We can load the pony and then push the trailer to Blade’s Hill, and when my finger gets tired J can use hers.
Since the next Blade’s Hill is this Sunday and Pat can’t help us out for that one, the only alternative plan I’ve come up with is strapping Clyde to four big rollerskates and encouraging him to grip a towbar with his teeth.
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