Day One

When I was saying goodbye to my therapist yesterday, we agreed that I might not be able to have my head shaved in two weeks, because I might be pulling it out tonight, trying to bond with the new computer.  I am happy to report that this is not the case.  In fact, I've been trying to make it as close as possible to the old one and so far have run into no problems at all.  Of course I haven't done a lot yet, but so far so good.  I am cautiously optimistic.

Before Steve arrived with the machine, I took a chance and checked Amazon to see if it were possible to get an affordable version of Front Page that would run on the new operating system and I found one.  $50 for a "used but excellent condition" disk from a seller with a 100% customer approval rating (new is >$200).  With Front Page and Word Perfect that would both work on Windows 8.1, maybe I wouldn't need that virtual computer after all.

Steve arrived right on time, after I'd put the dogs outside.  (They were SO good...didn't bark or leap at the door during the 2+ hours he was here.)

As usual, Steve came in spouting alphabet soup and jargon about things I didn't understand at all.  Steve is a good computer guy, but that is his entire focus, it seems.  He doesn't listen at all, but then I don't know what I'm talking about with regard to computer upgrades, so maybe that's why.

E.g., I finally contacted him after a month to ask if he had an ETA for when the computer would be ready.  The understanding I had was that he was going to set up a virtual computer to run my old software before bringing it to me.  I also told him there was no rush as we would be gone for the weekend.

Well, he called and said that he thought I was on vacation and would call him when I got back.  Not even close to what I said!

He started in to work and the first thing he did was to get my printer working again.  I know so little that I've been frustrated for weeks at not having a working printer when what I was trying to plug into the laptop was the MONITOR, not the printer at all.  Steve didn't even bother with plugging anything in, just set it up to work wirelessly, which means I can even print from the laptop, if I want.

Next he settled in to set everything else up.  When I asked him about the virtual computer, he said that it was his understanding that I was going to see if I could find a work around and if I couldn't, he would set it up.  That wasn't at ALL what we discussed, but in the meantime, I did find a work around and I found out from a couple of people that they weren't happy with the performance of things run through the virtual computer, so I think we're OK.

He then gave me more information I didn't understand, speaking a mile a minute, but I got some hands on time and things seemed to be fine.

He gave me his bill (which was quite a bit less than I expected) and then I was on my own.  Isn't it pretty?

(By tomorrow all that neat looking desk will be close to back to what it was yesterday, I'm sure!  But the floor that Walt spent hours cleaning yesterday [because I can't get down on my knees any more] will still look beautiful for awhile more, at least!)

I don't have Front Page yet, so I'll be doing FTW on the laptop until it finally arrives, but WordPerfect installed beautifully and I've started setting up some of the files that I lost on the old computer.

I don't know when I will start running into problems, but for the moment, I am a happy camper to be (almost) back in business again!