Heavenly Beverley : First World Problems

Saturday, 3 September 2016

First World Problems

Twenty years ago, give or take a year or two, I used a computer and a keyboard for the very first time. I remember the place - the HeartKids office - and I remember the circumstance - writing Alex's story for the HeartKids newsletter. Having paid scant attention, ever, to any touch typing courses, I painstakingly pounded my fingers over the keys for an interminable few hours. Then I hit what I thought was the "Save" key.

All hell broke loose. Every letter vanished in front of me. I was distraught. What's worse, my second attempt at producing a best seller with Alex as its focus, was a tragic disappointment. I felt I had already used all my best expressions in the first edition, which had unfortunately disappeared into cyberspace.

I was left with a complete horror of Failure to Save and spent years afterwards so traumatised I was saving every sentence I wrote. Exceedingly slow and tedious but I was absolutely terrified of losing another large body of work. In fact, I was in a state of prostrate fear of my first desktop and screen for a very long time indeed. During this period, I studied at uni a bit, set up a support group and produced its newsletter and meeting agenda and minutes. I also became more proficient at e-mail, began enjoying the jokes in Very Poor Taste that were flying around and even used Google from time to time.

Even so, I still regarded the computer with a sense of trepidation. Later on, when I acquired my Very First Laptop, there were further obstacles to overcome. I resisted giving up my beloved XP. Then after discovering Windows7 was not the anti-Christ, I began to thoroughly enthuse Being Online. Sure, I still had some monumental catastrophes, but I lost the majority of my fear.

Then came meeting Michael, recording our adventures, the move to Beverley, conquering Facebook, beginning my Blog, and pretending to be a curator at the East End Gallery. I still avoid formatting like the plague, particularly text boxes and the artistic placement of photographs. Being someone who is appalling at following complex instructions, either visual or written, I know my limitations. A bit like my disasters with scones.

The upgrade to Windows10 was actually fairly pain-free. Only minimal swearing and the odd crash (of crockery). My confidence was high and I finally figured I'd mastered the Internet. And to a lesser extent, the gizmos that go with all the high falutin hoo-ha.

Until my camera's SD card stopped talking to my laptop. Apparently, this is all to do with one of the myriad drivers that Make Things Work. Our local IT troubleshooter has re-installed this particular driver on two occasions. Except that the SD card and my laptop still stubbornly refuse to talk to each other.

So now when I take photographs I have to insert my SD card into the appropriate slot in Michael's laptop, download the photos onto a thumb drive and then load them up into My Pictures on my laptop. Sigh...

Worse still is the difficulty of charging the modem I use at the Gallery to go online. The connection point between the charger and the modem is dodgy. To say the least. Which means I end up angling the plug and the modem together at some very weird angles and using other objects to Maintain their Positions so the connection remains patent. Today I had the modem wedged against the bottom of my laptop with my cup carefully pivoted on the plug, holding the two of them steady. As she goes. This was after several frustrating tries to get the charger to activate by any means.

I felt suitably triumphant as I saw the charge reach a hundred percent. I live to fight another day. Until the next time.

Maybe, the only lasting solution is to brave the Telstra Shop and exchange the equipment for a newer, unfamiliar and possibly more terrifying pair of devices!

Wish me luck.