My official desktop computer in the spacious Chattering Teeth Studios turns 5-years-old this week. My blog just turned 6-years-old last month, so the majority of my obama channeling ability can be attributed directly to my current blog machine.
Ever since my first PC from the mid 80s, a powerful DOS 386 with 1 Meg of RAM and hard drive sporting an opulent 40MBs, I've tried to buy a new computer every five years. That means my current PC is about 94 in human years. We've been through quite a lot together and have grown rather close. For this reason, I am going to try to get a little more mileage out of the ol' girl.
To accomplish this, she will be getting a makeover.
HOW TO GIVE YOUR PC A MAKEOVER
Step 1: Unplug, open the box, take outside, attack cat-sized dust balls with can of compressed air.
Step 2: Insert additional 2G RAM chip to double current memory to 4G.
Step 3: While its still open, sing soothingly to my Motherboard. (She likes Ted Nugent tunes)
Step 4: Full clean Install. No more Windows XP (and its growingly obnoxious faux repeat updates), which Microsoft will no longer be supporting. A new and shiny OS awaits.
The last step encompasses a lot and makes me a little nervous, as I am not exactly a propeller head when it comes to PC knowledge. This has never stopped me from doing this kind of "simple" maintenance before, but I still feel like the hospital janitor drafted to perform emergency heart transplant on the patient. Hey, it saves me about $80 bucks, and really... what can go wrong?
Step 4(a): Download all necessary drivers for the chipset and LAN, and all the other hardware thingys in which I have no idea what I am talking about, or if I've retrieved the right ones.
Step 4(b): Change the boot order in bios to boot from DVD drive, insert new OS. Engage!
Step 4 (c): Fly by seat of pants. Use iPad to google for answers to unexepected crises.
Hopefully this process will result in an actual working computer.
If not, I will put a wig on her, set her in the rocking chair and talk to her daily as if she were still alive, never really seeming to notice her decomposing hardware. I will sing soothing Ted Nugent tunes to her while rocking the chair with my foot. I will smear lipstick on her DVD drawer and on my face, as I dance in my birthday suit in front of a mirror, ignoring the fact that the inner CPU is no longer firing, the main circuit board and power supply long since gone dark. In rare moments of lucidity, I will take comfort in the knowledge that she is no longer in megahertz.
So in conclusion, my blogging will be temporarily interrupted. If all goes well, no one will even miss me. I must go now. Motherboard is calling.
"COMING MOTHERBOARD!"
Good luck.
ReplyDeleteI gathered as many bots I could catch, tried to instill a sense of loyalty to their electronic masters, but made the mistake of turning my back on them for a few moments.
ReplyDeleteThey're back running through the interwiz, causing problems and I doubt a one will come to give you some help.
Well, the computer I'm typing on at the moment was just resurrected from the dead.
ReplyDeleteThe flood in my family room had toasted it's motherboard.
Insurance bought me a new one, but a used motherboard was $40 off of Ebay.
Had to re-install Windows, after downloading (for free!) off of Microsoft.com and ISO for the install disk (which I did not have, and they were willing to sell me!) online activation worked like a charm.
Hmmm, looks like I just wrote a blog post.
Ahhhh! I'm baaack... I think. Don't know yet if my snark followed me here or if it was XP specific... I'll know as soon as I am able to amuse myself again. I never did get any bot help though Jess. I think they are still tied up with healthcare dot gov. and Ed, next time I'll just drop off the desktop at your place when I need work done on it. Just remember to sing to her.
ReplyDeleteThe only glitch so far is that I have lost the use of my Adobe Photodeluxe 2, which was discontinued in 2001 I believe, but I was able to trick into working on XP. It is the only program I have ever been able to master to do my photo shops. Ive tried several other free programs to no avail... It really ticks me off... Even if my word thingys return, my blogs will be pictureless unless I can figure something out...