Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Out with the Sony, and In with The Dell

It was a nice day today, but I still had to wear a sweater over my T-shirt.

Last night I had managed to get in touch with some old friends, Greg and Mel. I had tried to contact them before, but their phone was disconnected. Fortunately, I was able to find a cell phone number for them, and that is how I had got in touch. I knew that the husband had been very ill, I didn't know the diagnosis, but I really wanted to find out how he is. With a man being that incapacitated, you don't ask if they don't tell you what is the matter, you assume must be The Big Pr. Cancer. Well it wasn't.

He had 'fallen out' at work, lapsed into a coma, and it was discovered that he had cysts in his lungs and brain. They were surgically removed but he still can't go back to work, or drive. He says he has trouble remembering some things but from talking to him, I could tell that he hadn't forgotten how to work on computers.

Also I found out that their house in Montgomery (TX) had been destroyed by Ike, and that they had to move to a nearby town called Dobbin. He is selling a lot of different merchandise online now, more than he ever did, and he also sells computers. He doesn't keep them there, they are shipped by a warehouse. I was going through the ones he had for sale, and he happened to mention that he had a Dell at his house that he was going to sell. It is one that he had beefed up for his own use. I would rather get one that he has personally worked on, than one from a stranger. I didn't want a monitor or keyboard, as I have a very nice flat screen and mini keyboard. We had made a stand for the monitor, and I can push the keyboard under it, out of the way, so that I can use my desk. So I don't want the regular size clunky great big keyboard.

This morning, after doing my mail with my morning coffee, I unplugged my Sony Vaio from all it's umbilical cords. Took it, my laptop, camera, external hard drive, and another old laptop all to Dobbin. Mel and I hugged, it was so good to see her again.

I haven't been able to get the Camera Wizard to work since I had the new Windows XP put in the Sony, and it aggravated the dickens out of me. Even though I had re-loaded the CD for my camera, apparently it wasn't working right, and that is why My Camera Wizard wasn't showing up. He installed my camera on the Dell, and it worked fine.

The Dell that Greg had, has four times the RAM that my Sony has, and a Pentium 4. So it shouldn't be bogging down and hanging up like the Sony. The external hard drive has to have a driver, he said, so I have to look into that. I hope it doesn't require a CDL !! LOL.

I left the Sony with him so that he can clean it out, as I want sell it. He could have done it while I waited, but I didn't know what I might find missing on this one when I got home, so we held off for now. We did put all My Pictures that were in the Sony on a CD. Now I just have to learn how to get them in here ! All I know is how to type and push mice around ! Greg was amazed that I have a little job online as computer illiterate as I am. But as I said to him, all I have to do is type, and I have been doing that since I was 8 years old when I started to hunt and peck on my father's old manual typewriter.

Being with old friends made for a lovely day.

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