Critical Update! :

I've come out of the closet. Scary, I know! But hey, a gal's gotta upgrade, right? I'm the newest DELL Dudette.

My Inspiron 8000 was configured with the Windows 2000 OS (operating system for those who didn't know that - am I turning into a computer geek yet?), but I screwed up the login password thingy. Ick!! Then it occurs to me ... I like Windows 98 and I know it as I use it on my desk-top, so why not load that on the "lappy" (my pet name for my travelling companion). I could do this. Thanks to help from the gang at #Windows95 on Dalnet (a Mirc channel), I got loads of guidance. First I had to reformat the drive, then load the Windows 98 from my cd. That part was easy. Next, I scampered all over the net reading this and that and learning about bios and drivers. I visit the channel even now just to learn new things or ask questions.

The Dell site had all the drivers I needed to get the Inspiron working with Windows 98. Terrific. I just chose all the drivers that were required for my OS, and I was off and running (sort of) There's loads of information on how to reinstall drivers and OS. Very helpful, indeed. It's important that one takes time to read all the information if having difficulty. If you're really freaking out, surf over to Pilsbury has many great resources to fix problems. BTW, he knows I "borrowed" this image, so he won't stalk me.  Another site worth investigating is WinForums, where you'll find useful information for sorting out problems.

The one glitch I had was the modem driver. I had taken the back off the laptop to see what kind of modem I had. I downloaded that brand-specific modem - it didn't work. So a gal in the Windows help channel found the right one. Being the newbie techie type that I am, I burned all the drivers to a cd and labelled it straight away. My Dell doesn't have the cd-burner, but I didn't need it on the lappy. I think I lost a few pounds going back and forth from my office to the dining room, where the laptop is set up for now.

The laptop is up and running now and works great. I found a really super pointer - I'm visually impaired and needed something that was large and colored - check out Dolphin Computer Access . The one I use is red and has a wiggly tail. Can't miss it! :)

The Dell keyboard is easy to get around and the the pointing device and keypad controls are easy to use. I am an experienced typist so I had to adjust the settings to keep up with my speed. The monitor displays crisp images even with the enlarged fonts that I require. I'm very impressed. The battery life is great, too. I didn't get that message about switching to electrical power source for close to 3 hours. Not too shabby! If I had a DVD player, I could watch a whole movie before I had to recharge. The sound quality is great - not tinny like I had anticipated in a computer so small. I listen to tunes from the 50's while I'm writing or surfing. My husband insists I use headphones. Soon, he'll be experiencing the internet as I hope to have the laptop and desk top networked to share internet connection. Then, I won't have to be doing his research for him. Oh joy! Given he has rather large hands and is rather like a bull in a china shop, I may need to adapt the laptop for external keyboard and mouse. No big chore.

More RAM will enhance the performance of some programs I hope to use in the future.

Following is my previous forays into the world of computers and upgrades. It's been quite a trip.

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It was a cold and blowy afternoon; a Thursday (this story sounds familiar already read further along to find out why). Here I was, sitting at my desk, web surfing (love CNN page), chatting on Mirc, and sending a tune to a scrabble pal. Then it happened. Can you say "fried modem!"? When will I learn? Today, I think I did! Anyway, I was frantic (well, not quite frantic) and made a few calls. I scoured the Yellow Pages under Computer Repairs and called a few places. No luck! So, I thought I'd wait til the next morning and try again; not only was it Friday, but it's also a busy time of year for computer techs, being so close to Christmas. No one could help me out, as much s they wanted to; they were just too busy, and that was most understandable. One more call ... I had the good fortune to call BITS ( Business Information Technology Specialists). I spoke to the owner, Allan Underhill and explained my dilemma. What a lovely man! He said he would see what he could do.I was thrilled as I had an on-line meeting (my advocacy stuff on behalf of disabled). I also had to upload a link to my web site about a project I'm working on. Mr. Underhill drove an hour from his place of business to my home, with modem in hand. Oh what a relief it was! We chatted while he checked out my system and then installed the new modem. Yippee! I wouldn't have to suffer `net withdrawal over the weekend. The internet is great for folks like me who are "shut-in" especially during the winter months. Mr. Underhill went above and beyond the call, and he and others like him deserve recognition. If you're reading this little tale, and you live in the Fredericton or surrounding area and have any type of computer-related need, I encourage you to give BITS a call. I'm sure glad I did. They're the best. Click on the funny little dude to visit their web site.

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It was a dark and stormy afternoon; a Friday, to be precise. My husband had gone down to the mailbox at the end of our drive to collect the ... bills! He never gets good mail. I keep telling him to get interested in the computer and he can surf the net, join newsgroups, chat with all kinds of people about things he's interested in, but he'd rather have me do his searching, which really cuts into my own internet time.

    Anyway, continuing with the stormy afternoon saga ..... I had been working off-line on my web site when all of a sudden there was a crackling near the floor. My husband was still outside in the rain. Silly man!

My desk/hutch is in a closet in what normally would be the master bedroom in our little red house in the woods. On the back wall of the closet is an outlet where all my computer stuff is plugged in, via a heavy duty power surge thingy.  Anyway, snap, crackle, pop! There it went again. I continued working away, thinking nothing of the noise. Later in the day, when I dialed up to my ISP to upload my edited page, I got a fateful message "modem not connected". How can that be? Everything was fine only hours before. Panic was setting in.

    At this point, I must make a confession ... "Hi, my name is Carla, and I'm an internet addict." Being somewhat restricted in mobility and ease of getting about comfortably, I have grown to enjoy the social connectedness the intenet has provided me. Most especially, I enjoy playing on-line scrabble, surfing the web, and chatting with people with interests similar to my own. I must do something, or be without my "fix" for the whole weekend. That simply would not do. So, I flew into action ... sort of.

    I called a computer store in Fredericton, about an hour from where I live. INTERACTIVE COMPUTER SYSTEMS LTD.  is in downtown Fredericton, and as I've had occasion to do business with them in the past, I thought I'd give them a call. Great people there; very helpful. For a computer klutz like me, helpful is important.

    I spoke to their Sales Manager, Richard Shupe about what had happened. My computer was struck by lightening and was officially a dead duck and really beyond repair. We spoke about a refurbished system as I had cash in hand, although my husband says I'm terrible for spending money, but that's not true. I'm very frugal; must be the Scots in me. Richard and I chatted for awhile and I came to a decision about what I could afford with the money I had available. I figured, what the heck. I wanted a computer. I needed a computer!

    It was around 3pm on that rainy Friday afternoon ... the day my computer died! I asked Richard to go ahead and put a system together and I'd arrange to have it picked up. Yeah, right. It was Friday. Now, the big question was how to get the system from ICS to my house to satisfy my addiction, as I could feel withdrawal setting in. I called a neighbor who works in the city and commutes daily to ask if she would mind picking up the computer. Not a moment to spare.Thankfully, she agreed. What a grand neighbor she is.

    Several hours later, my new toy arrived, equipped with all the things I could possibly need, and more. My previous, struck by lightning computer was a dinosaur by comparison. What was really a treat was the new 17" monitor. I look at the cereal box sized screen of my other computer as it rests  on the floor in my office and wonder how I ever managed on it.

Here's a picture of a computer system very similar to the one I got from Interactive.

  For the first few days, I was quite overwhelmed by the clarity of colors and images on the 17" monitor. With my deteriorating vision, this change of scene, as it were, was extremely helpful. Oh, and the scrabble board (another addiction is word games) looks enormous, with the sounds and movement being really crisp. All in all, I gotta say ... I love it. A scrabble friend with whom I play regularly was thrilled that I finally got a new system because I could now play a new word game with her - bloctionary. You can download it at PLAYLINK - it's sorta like scrabble on speed; great fun!

    Not only is my browsing speed enhanced, chat programs run more efficiently. RAM is a good thing. More would be better, but all in good time, my pretty!  My computer currently has 32mb of RAM;  64 more would fix me right up. Maybe I could sell baked goods to barter with. Anyone for a chocolate chip cookie? Perhaps a dozen or two?

Recently, a new addition was added to my stable of computer tools - an all-in-one scanner/copier/printer; the OfficeJet, by HEWLETT PACKARD  It arrived days sooner than I had expected and my office was an absolute mess, as I'm in the process of redecorating but we won't go there! I had to terminate a fast-paced scrabble game to chat with the courier who delivered the HP unit. In fact, she got it out of the box for me, and set it on a table I had cleared off for that purpose. The unit is just the perfect size and fits nicely beside my desk.

Although the image above is not exactly like the one I have, you can click on it, and go to the page that provides specs for the one I'm using. It's the middle image on the referenced page.

The computer was pretty easy to set up; just plug it in and go. Dial-up was already set at the computer store. Thank God! With the all-in-one scanner/copier/printer, however, there needed to be a certain degree of care and attention. So I plunked myself down on the floor with the three manuals, reading them in order. Then, I read them again. Yup, I read instructions first! Try it! Makes things so much easier. Hooking up the cables, and plugging it in was easy enough; even a computer klutz like me did it without a hitch. Then, I loaded the software - HP OfficeJet CD, and then the Adobe Photo Deluxe Business Edition. It's important to read the tutorials that come with the machine, too. I learned several things my first evening. The next day, though, I learned something else. My printer port needed to be adjusted. A call to Interactive Computer Systems (they must think I'm nutz) set me right. One of their techs, Mamhoud, talked me through changing to ECP Parallel Port - that makes the scanner work more efficiently. Heck, I was on a roll. Maybe they'll hire me to take phone calls from other computer catastrophe types like myself. Anyway, as I explored more features of the scanner/copier/printer, I discovered a problem - when I tried to load images from the Adobe CD, I kept getting an error ... "parser module cannot parse the file" ... nervous breakdown time.What the heck was a parser module?!?!  I e-mailed the fellow at Hewlett Packard to ask about that glitch. Hopefully, he doesn't think I'm always this crazed. In the meantime, however, I did a web search, typing in the seearch line verbatim, the error message I was getting with Adobe. I was led immediately to their web page and to the download site to get the "fix" for that particular problem. Once I downloaded the small patch file and ran it, Adobe and all its features were fully functional. Now, I could really play!

Currently, I'm using Word Perfect as my word processing software - will be upgrading that soon. But I was thrilled to be able to scan various manuscript pages (I write children's stories) and then work with them in WP - I saved paper copies of all my manuscripts - waiting to be published, one day. The diskettes they were also stored on got glitchy, and a couple of files I couldn't open. Now, I can simply scan the pages into WP and recreate the entire manuscript and save on new diskettes. What a time saver that's going to be. The OfficeJet is the perfect compliment to the at-home office. Its ease of use makes it a must for anyone who wants scanning, copying and printing capabilities at the touch of a button.

Here's a picture I scanned with the Hewlett Packard OfficeJet. My little red house in the woods .The clarity of color using the OfficeJet is truly amazing. I am going to enjoy learning about the various things I can do with this wonderful addition to my office tools. My on-line scrabble friends say I'm gonna be really dangerous now. Scanning everything in sight!

    A chap from the UK says he wants my house. You must admit it is rather pretty. Very much like a Christmas card picture. By the way, this little gem is not on the market!

One project I have in mind that will take advantage of my new scanner is decoupaging calendar prints. Copying the prints and then sizing them to fit the various woods I'll be using is going to really easy to do; very possibly a project for Christmas gift giving.

Another project I hope to undertake in the near future is that of scanning family photographs and putting them on a CD. A CD burner is on my "to buy" list at some point.

If you'd like to e-mail me to learn more about the HP all-in-one, please free to get in touch. And if you're in the Fredericton, New Brunswick area, drop in to Interactive Computer Systems. Tell `em Carla sent you.

Recent News:(Spring 2002) I've been upgraded again! Yippee!
Thanks to a great guy who lives not far from me, I've got a "new to me" computer. With a cd-burner, too! If he had a web site, I'd include the URL so you could read all about him. Rumor has it that he's got lots of spare parts to build computers. A great way to keep him busy and outta trouble, dontcha think? He comes to my house when I make panic calls - "my mouse died"; "I can't get a dial tone!" - "help!" On" our"last upgrade, he installed a new MB and HD and the burner, along with a new case. Everything works great. I say "our" because without his generosity of spirit, I'd not be up and running as efficiently as I have been for these past few years.I'll let you in on a secret. His nick on ICQ is fireeater, so send him a message to let him know what a great fellow he is for adopting this crazy person in the boonies :)