ACK - I’ve got techno-DT’s
Mar 5th 2007
Karen RoseWhen Goddesses Fall To Earth
I am in a nightmare. My computer died. DIED. I’m in a virtual twitch.
It could be the hard drive. It could be Windows. I don’t know and at this point, I don’t really care. All I know is I’ve got STUFF in there and it’s not accessible.
I do have a backup, thankfully. I backup to an external hard drive every morning religiously at 6 am. It’s automatic, so it’s the only thing I do religiously. Trouble is, I’ve been gone for 2 weeks, in the tundra of MN and Chicago, so I hadn’t backed up in two weeks. And before that, my external hard drive wasn’t connected for a week or two - I needed my USB cable to download pictures from my digital camera and forgot to hook it back. So my backup’s about 4 weeks old and I’ve got lots of STUFF inside that computer that I really need to get out.
Important stuff like email. ACK!!! I’ve got important tax records and to-do lists in my email. It’s in there, taunting me from the machine. Hello, Karen. We’re here. So close, yet so far away. Ha, ha, can’t touch us. Like some modern version of HAL. Blankety-blank dead computer. I found your poltergeisty ghosts, Sabrina. They’re in my laptop.
Okay, deep breath. Even though my laptop computer is dead, I could still use the family desktop computer to get my email via Webmail through the server that hosts my website. Slower, but hey, it’s still email. BUT THEN, two days ago - coincidence or angry gods - you be the judge - my email server stopped, well … serving, or whatever the heck it does. Or at least it’s stopped serving me. Normally I get 300 + messages a day, 290 of them spam. But as of Saturday morning, there were no emails - from anybody.
OH MY GOSH. I am cut off from the WORLD. What if somebody needs me? What about all those people who want to enlarge my (well, you know) or those guys from Nigeria who want to allow me to “share” in the fortune their uncle died and left in probate? What if I win the INTERNATIONAL LOTTERY? What if somebody has unauthorizedly accessed my Paypal account and they need all my identifying information like major credit cards and bra size??? My delete finger is twitching, needing to delete something.
HELP! SEND CHOCOLATE!! Oh, wait. That won’t help the computer, but it will help me. Deep breath. Focus, Karen. Keep it together. I can survive a few days without email … can’t I? Um… no, I can’t. I suppose I will because I must, but nobody in my household will be happy until Mommy gets her email back.
Face it, I am techno-dependent. A few days without deleting spam and I’m seeing flying pink elephants. And twitching. Can’t forget the twitching. 
How did this happen? I’ve got a cell phone, a PDA, a laptop (curses, you laptop), an adorable little digital camera, several flash drives - and I’m not the most techno-dependent person I know. I met a guy on the plane back from Chicago this week with a Blackberry - cool little gadget. I’ve wanted one for years. He was emailing as we sat at the gate, but then the Blackberry rang. “Hello,” he said to the caller. “Oh, I was just sending you an email.”
What the heck? This is like that comedian who sees a Starbucks across the street from a Starbucks. It’s like the universe has curved onto itself or something.
Anyway, the guy with the Blackberry said he uses it to talk to his daughter, away at college. She will text with him, but is usually to busy to talk when he calls.
I repeat - What the heck? To what lowly state have we reduced ourselves? And when did ”text” become a verb?
Oh, all right. You knew this was coming. When I was a kid, back in the dark ages before Space Invaders and Pong, we had TV. Ours was black and white until I was 8 years old when we got a color set and I realized that the Wizard of Oz was really in color, and that the B/W part was only a short portion. It was perhaps the first major AHA of my life. But I digress. We had three channels and were darn glad to have ‘em. We had rabbit ears and “cable” was the verb for sending telegram-like-thingies.
If we missed our favorite show, it was a BIG HAIRY DEAL, because there was no TiVo and no VCR or DVD. Calculators were only for the rich and nerdy. Computers filled entire rooms at places like NASA. We, the lowly ones, went about our hum-drum little lives, watching our three TV channels and listening to 45’s on our record players. Maybe, if you were hip, you had an 8-track. Who knew what was coming?
Who knew that in less than 20 years we’d have computers you could really carry and record players would be obsolete? That 20 years after that we’d have cell phones and CD players and iPods and Blackberries and free Wi-Fi for email - instant access at our fingertips. And cable TV - 2 million channels, but only 3 I still want to watch, lol.
It seems like it happened so fast, but I guess it was really kind of slow. It’s been 34 years since my family got our color TV and if you want to know how old I am, you can do the math on a paper-thin promotional calculator that are now as ubiquitous as baseball cards once were in packs of gum.
In 34 years I have become dependent on gadgets like I never dreamed possible. One day away from email gives me DT’s. Leaving my cell phone at home gives me hives. And yet, even without all those things, life does go on. Please tell me that life does go on 
Okay, I’m done with my rant. I must now go and re-create my tax spreadsheets which were due to my accountant already (curses, you laptop) and re-do the rewrites I did for my new book - copyedit review is due on Friday, of course.
So are you techno-dependent? Are you a once-a-week email checker or once-an-hour? What’s the longest you’ve survived without your toys? And when did “text” become a verb?
37 Comments »
37 Responses to “ACK - I’ve got techno-DT’s”
KeiraSoleore on 05 Mar 2007 at 6:27 am #
I’m really sorry to read that you have to redo the rewrites. Hope you had them in hardcopy and/or a fabulous memory. (Who said printed books are dead or dying?)
I don’t text, but I do e-mail and blog and journal. Well, the last one has been a verb for at least as long as garden and breakfast have been verbs.
I would like free wi-fi. As it is, in our house, our local wireless network doesn’t work everywhere, despite repeaters and whatnot. In the family room, only if you stand in that one corner and are facing the right direction…sigh!
I had my hard drive crash on me a couple years ago. Scared the bejesus out of me. Cost the earth, too, to retrieve all the data. Since then I do daily backups on a second hard drive and a weekly one on an external drive. If I could case my hard drives in vacuum-sealed steel strongholds, I would.
I don’t have a laptop or an iPod or a Blackberry, but I do own a desktop, a cellphone, and an ancient PDA, but like flush toilets and potable water, I couldn’t do without either one of those three devices. Credit cards? Yes. Green bils? Maybe. E-mail? Nope.
Susan K on 05 Mar 2007 at 9:28 am #
I don’t think I could live without my cell phone since it’s the only phone I have. At this time I can’t afford a land line. And I love text messaging!
I only get to check my email at work cause I don’t have the internet at home. Once again I can’t afford it.
And I don’t have any of those other techno gadgets. And who knows if I’ll ever get them.
Maggie Robinson on 05 Mar 2007 at 9:34 am #
Three summers ago my computer died. I was in the middle of two books. I was wild. What did I do? I wrote about 20,000 words in long hand on something brand new, cause I couldn’t get my head back into the “real” books. I didn’t get around to typing up that yellow legal pad stuff (what I could read of it, anyway) until January 2006, and I’m still working on it, finally up to 85,000 words. For a woman who didn’t even realize Word came with a word-count feature a few years ago, I’m absolutely addicted to my computer and the Internet. I have a blog. I read blogs. I read newspapers online and have 2 e-mail accounts. I spend WAY too much time in my desk chair. That summer will forever seem a nightmare, although something good did come out of it…if I can ever finish it!
Julia London on 05 Mar 2007 at 9:55 am #
I’ve got the computer situation in hand — two computers, external hard drive. I haven’t lost anything in ages.
It is the loss of the ipod that I fear. If something went terribly wrong with that, I would be completely lost. If someone stole the computer that has my library on it, I would die. I back it up, but I don’t trust that I would be able to load it back in without a glitch.
Karen Rose on 05 Mar 2007 at 10:15 am #
Thanks for the cyber-strokes. I feel better now
Still can’t get to email. I think I’m doing something wrong.
So Julia, how do you back up when you’re on the road traveling? That’s when my nightmare began.
As for my MP3, it was going squirrely before the laptop crashed - when I logged in to synch my MP3 with Rhapsody to Go before I went on my trip, it deleted my playlists. My Josh Groban Awake is GONE. Charlotte Church, GONE. And my Barry Manilow greatest hits, GONE. All my country music is GONE. The only thing that is left is AC/DC and Aerosmith and in the mood I was in after my computer crashed, those boys would have het me up to a right boil. Postal, even. I wanted my calm, soothing tunes, but they were all gone. Now I’m thinking that the computer’s recent demise and the playlist issue might even be related… You think?
Well, Maggie, good for you! The thought of writing longhand makes me queasy, but now I see it can work
Success to you in finishing the rest of that book “borne of adversity” !
I started redo-ing my spreadsheets for taxes and went to add them up with an old fashioned calculator and guess what - no batteries. I think I’m going back to bed and pulling the covers over my head.
claudia dain on 05 Mar 2007 at 10:27 am #
I’m with you, Karen. I need my electronic connections all around me to make me feel, um, connected.
I love checking my email, feel naked without my cell phone (even though it’s not usually turned on), and love taking pictures with my cute little digital camera and seeing exactly how the shot turned out in that instant. Did I really ever wait months to see my photos?
Yes.
My problem now is that I take 250 shots on my digital camera and never DO anything with them. They sit in there, safe and secure. It’s like I’m waiting for someone else, someone at the drug store, to call and tell me my photos are ready.
Going techno takes a little practice.
cookeemama on 05 Mar 2007 at 10:54 am #
Oh Karen! You have my extreme sympathies! I’m a good deal older than you as I can remember not even having a television set. I used to listen to the radio shows while lying on the floor with my feet up on the huge radio set in our living room.
At 68, I am a complete, helpless techno geek. I want a Blackberry but can’t figure out how to justify getting it. I’m working on that, of course. I’m sure I can convince myself of the absolute necessity any day now. I just bought a GPS because I HAD to have one. Mind you I mostly drive around in areas where I could find my way in my sleep. But I reeeeaaaallly needed that GPS. What if I had an accident and nobody could see my car? They could use the GPS to locate me. See how good I am at justifying?
I also just got a new Dell with Vista installed. Even with the handy dandy transfer cable, it took me the better part of a week to get things the way I want them. Love the computer. Not sure about the Vista yet.
I can’t leave home without my cell phone. If I am driving along and discover that I don’t have it with me, I will turn right around and head back home to retrieve it. I feel naked without it. Just the same as I feel if I don’t fasten my seatbelt!
I don’t know what I would do if I were in your position. Arsenic sounds like a relief. Here’s hoping you get it all back together soon and bet back to the thing you do best. Writing for the likes of moi.
Sabrina Jeffries on 05 Mar 2007 at 10:58 am #
I’m a pseudo-techie–one of those people who knows just enough to be dangerous. To give you an example, until two years ago, I designed and ran my own website. I hired a professional not only because I wanted a professional design, but because I couldn’t be bothered to learn CSS and scripts, despite having Dreamweaver (which I love, by the way). I still do most of the monthly updates, although CSS is mostly a mystery to me.
I have a laptop, desktop, external drive (which just went kaput less than a year after I bought it–grrr), ipod, and a digital camera. All but the desktop were bought in the last few years. I will probably not buy new ones for ANOTHER ten years. I tend to keep my techno-toys until long after they’re obsolete.
I refuse to text message. The keys are too small. My brother and I were talking about it, and we’ve decided it’s a generational thing. You kids go ahead and do the text messaging. I’ll stick to e-mail, thank you very much. *G*
RachelG on 05 Mar 2007 at 11:29 am #
I am techno dependant, although I don’t know how any of it works. And really, I don’t care to know. It’s like when I was young and my father tried to explain how a telephone works. Half way through, my brain hurt and I held up my hand and said never mind.
DebMarlowe on 05 Mar 2007 at 12:26 pm #
Rachel, I don’t believe anybody really knows how it all works. My dh is a computer geek for a living and I tease him all the time about this.
I suscribe to the Men in Black theory of technology. Really, we must have stolen all of this knowledge from some poor, ship wrecked alien. We have people who have a specialized insight into bits of it, but nobody who can put the big picture together. If it goes kablooey, we’re all going to be bereft and depressed!
Yes, Ursula–I’m just kidding!
Suzanne Enoch on 05 Mar 2007 at 12:42 pm #
I’m kind of techno-phobic, but only in the way that I have a laptop and a digital camera and just want them to work when I turn them on. The connectors, digi-whatsits, diodes or whatever — I don’t want to know how they do WHAT they do. I just want them to do it.
KMB25 on 05 Mar 2007 at 12:45 pm #
Rachel–My husband is also the computer/techno geek–he teaches midi production and sound design, among other things and he knows how to make all the crazy stuff work.
I usually get so frustrated that I end up yelling at him–and it’s totally not his fault..but I get so frustrated with computers sometimes!
hehe…I usually calm down after lots of chocolate!
~Kim
Karen Rose on 05 Mar 2007 at 12:46 pm #
Oh, I’m technical of a fashion. Like Sabrina, just enough to be dangerous. I used to design databases for a living. That I know.
I was an engineer, but TV and radio and (gulp) airplanes are still sweet mysteries of life. I know they work, and I could tell you how, but I still don’t believe it entirely myself. My grandmother went to her grave swearing that the US never set foot on the moon - it was all done in Hollywood. I won’t go that far, but as I get older, I’m less interested in HOW it works, more in how to make all my gadgets talk to each other.
HA! Men In Black theory. I love that! It’s like Stargate explaining the pyramids and Stonehenge.
GPS + Blackberry = sweet love. I lusted over a Blackberry when I was shopping a few weeks ago. The model I was checking out came with GPS navigation. I’ve always made getting lost an artform. I think I just justified buying a Blackberry for myself, lol. Before I was going to get one a) because it’s cool, b) because my pre-teen wants one, but won’t bring up her grades high enough to earn one and I wanted to say nyah nyah to her, and c) it’s so cool. Now, I can keep from getting lost and perhaps MURDERED. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Vista - now I’m very, very afraid. I just ordered a new Dell and it has Vista. Shaking in my boots here…
Daisy Ward on 05 Mar 2007 at 12:56 pm #
I understand completely. My laptop crashed on me a few years ago, as well. Luckily for me, I actually prefer to write it out the old fashion way on paper first, then type it into the computer. So, all it really cost me was A LOT of typing. And the fact that I was close to killing my darling husband who is a computer nerd. He actually repairs computers for a living, which is the reason we have 4 desktops and laptop and I don’t want to know how many bits and pieces of others computers around the house. I love playing with new stuff, but I also hang on to the old tried and true too. Believe it or not, I still have a B&W TV that my dad gave me for Christmas when I was 8. The miracle is it still works. It survived four moves, two dogs, me and my brother. I also still have a record player that has an 8 track. Even my first type writer. I know scary. My friends think I should open a muesum.
TheNightPoet on 05 Mar 2007 at 1:12 pm #
I know what you mean about being techno-dependent. I like to think I’m not as bad as some other people out there. I recently left my cell phone at home one morning when I had class. I almost freaked out! A number of scenarios ran through my mind, what if my car stalled on the highway, what if I got pulled over (this thought ran in my mind b/c recently I got a ticket…don’t get me started on that one either! darn cop!), what if one of my friends needed to get a hold of me (like any of them call me at 8:30 in the morning), or what if my parents needed to get ahold of me. That’s a few to give you an idea. I then had to talk myself down and say, “Hey, Andrea, you’ll be fine. Nothing will happen. Just think, it wasn’t that long ago that you didn’t have this new technology at your hand. Just chill.” And after telling myself that, I realized yeah, I’ll be alright. And I was.
How is it we have become so dependent on these new technologies? There are times I think, man, if I didn’t have my cell phone with me, I wouldn’t know what to do. Or what about how much I depend on a computer now adays??!! I mean when I was a kid growing up in the 80s, the cool thing about having a computer at school was being able to play Oregan Trail! One of my cousins, who lives in Texas, and I used to write letters to each other on a regular basis. Yes, letters…courtesy of the good old fashioned snail mail system. It used to take her letters and mine about seven days to get to it’s destination and now thanks to the internet, I can shoot her an e-mail and get a reply in a couple days, depending on how busy she is. I like being able to stay in touch with her with e-mail, but I do miss sending an actual letter to her and receiving one from her.
I check my mail everyday. Mostly because the account I have is used for getting e-mails from my professors and all that kind of stuff. So because of my classes, I have to check my e-mail on a regular basis. Some days I just don’t want to. It kind of makes me mad that I have to depend on it so much. I’m not one that texts. If this tells you anything….I had a cell phone that friends of mine nicknamed “The House Phone”. (b/c it was bigger than the newer cell phones out today, but not as big as the first cell phones that came out) The House Phone was a present for my 18th birthday (my senior year of high school) and only had 150 anytime minutes. No, it didn’t have nights and weekends. Last year, in the fall, I finally got a new cell phone!!! Yes, I have arrived at the new-age of technology and replaced my six and a half year old phone with a newer one. I’m not one that needs a lot, but there are some things I have noticed I have become dependent on.
Andrea
MelisR on 05 Mar 2007 at 1:24 pm #
Oh gosh that is scary when your computer just dies! I have never had it happen, knock on wood, but I my friends have had it happen. I have a really old computer with a dial-up connection and it works just fine for me. We will have to finally get a new one this summer because our software is getting to old. When that time comes I don’t know what I will choose.
Well, I am the type of person who goes on my computer everyday. If I don’t then my e-mails stack up and it takes forever to go through them all. We average anywhere from 30 to 70 e-mails everyday. We have to e-mail addresses. Sometimes we go on our computer 2 or 3 times a day depending on what we have to do. Our computer is pretty important anymore.
One time we went two whole weeks without our computer. Wow I don’t know how we survived! ha! We tried to change our internet provider to DSL but our computer was compatible, to old in other words, so we gave up trying to fix it and went back to our old internet provider. We have been happy ever since!
Michele
Karen Hawkins on 05 Mar 2007 at 1:34 pm #
Shudder!
My laptop crashed a total of SIX times last year. SIX. Now I work off a thumb drive because I can’t *quite* seem to remember to back it up all of the time, but I *can* seem to remember ‘to plug in that little thingee’ before I start to write.
My non-techno heart is with you, Karen Rose! Mucho techno-sympathies coming your way.
PS Uhm Karen … did you say Barry Manilow’s greatest hits?
Karen Rose on 05 Mar 2007 at 1:35 pm #
I had to laugh about the big cell phone. I got my first cell phone in ‘94 when I was pregnant with my youngest. I’d just had a flat tire, mercifully in front of an auto garage, but my hubby was worried that if it had been on the highway, I would have been stranded. I never gave the phone up after that. It was HUGE. It had a regular phone hand piece, even. It resided in a big box with a strap and weighed about 6 or 7 pounds I think. It was really a car phone with the illusion of portability. Now, my cell phone fits in the palm of my hand with room to spare. Progress. It’s fun to remember when we had to “rough it.” LOL.
Which makes me remember the first time I saw a “portable computer.” My dad brought one home from work one day and it was a Compaq. It was as big as a large suitcase, and the screen was about the size of my two hands together, if that. We didn’t play Oregon Trail, we played Zork 1,2, and 3. We thought we were HOT STUFF. Ha.
I used dial-up when I was traveling recently. It was faster than I remembered, but slow on photos.
Karen Rose on 05 Mar 2007 at 1:41 pm #
Chuckle, Karen Hawkins. I was wondering if anyone would pick up on good old Barry Manilow. Yes, I like him. Yes, I do. When I’m writing my happily-ever-after scenes at the end of the book, I listen to “Can’t Smile Without You.”
Hey, after leaving dozens of bodies in the wakes of villains’ over the years, I need the bounciness of Manilow to make me smile
But hopefully to restore myself to your good graces - I listen to Aerosmith and Blue Oyster Cult when I’m writing the villain scenes.
Funny story - when I was on my way to NYC in ‘03 for RWA National, I sat next to this guy who turned out (I chat with everybody remember) that he worked for Barry Manilow - wrote songs for him. Well, after years of justifying my Manilow albums to my snobby songed hubby, I blurted, “Oh I LIKE Barry Manilow.” The man just smiled at me. I wanted to know if he’d written “I Write The Songs” - which Barry didn’t write, but he said he’d written “Weekend in New England.”
Sigh, Give me the old songs …
Maria Duncan on 05 Mar 2007 at 1:53 pm #
I’m obsessed, absolutely obsessed with all thinks internet, it’s an addiction
Kay on 05 Mar 2007 at 2:30 pm #
Oh Karen, I am hurting for you. Life without my toys–and email–I can’t imagine. Have some CHOCOLATE, and a drink!
I was a confirmed Luddite until two years ago. Now, I have a cell phone, digital camera, iPod (Got it for Christmas and don’t know how I lived without it) and an aging iMac desktop. I am lusting for an iPhone and a laptop. I email several times a day and am working on a photojournalism piece with my digital camera and desktop.
Old computer story–
Several years ago, we had a 7 year old Apple desktop, but could not get yahoo mail wih it because it was so old. In desperation, I called the Geek Squad. They asked about the problem and what year my computer was. When I told them it was a ‘93, they laguhed and said, “Lady, in computer years that is older than dirt!” We bought a new computer the next week, my ‘01. I will nurse it along until the new Mac operating system comes out this summer, but I back up EVERYTHING, just in case.
I still can’t stand Windows.
Julia London on 05 Mar 2007 at 4:22 pm #
Oh yeah, the giant cell phones, LOL — I had one, too. I almost had to have another purse to carry it. This was back when I was was in public administration, and I had all these departments I was responsible for scattered across the county. I asked the county board for a cell phone because I was in different places all the time, and I remember them asking me why anyone would want a phone that they could take with them. Couldn’t I just use an answering machine? The said thing is, that wasn’t that long ago! Mid-90s.
And Karen H, I use the flash drives for everything. That’s my fail safe — if the world blows up and I manage to survive with my purse, I will have all my books with me.
Sabrina Jeffries on 05 Mar 2007 at 5:12 pm #
Okay, for those of you who’ve read Karen Rose’s awesome books, as I have, the image of her listening to Barry Manilow as she bumps off another character is just surreal. And I thought *I* was weird!
Judy F on 05 Mar 2007 at 5:28 pm #
Oh Karen hugs….. I once was without my computer for like a week. Thank god I could check my email from work or my sisters computer. YOu feel like you are out in the jungle and can’t talk to anyone.
I remember the big cell phones. Mine now just has a tiny little slot in my purse.
I have that Barry Manilow cd too. Great minds and all that..
Estrella on 05 Mar 2007 at 6:47 pm #
I got my first cell (big and heavy) phone in 94 .. I could probably use it now for self defense…my first computer (Gateway) in 98..by the way my parents still have that dinosaur. I am sure if I had to .. I could live w/o my cell phone or email…but why would I wanna do something like that?? So I made a list of all the techie things I want. Technology advances at such a rapid rate..I feel like I am always left behind. So last year I started buying stuff from my list. One of them is an IPod..but I still haven’t downloaded anything into it. I think I am scared of it..oh well I will just have to ask my nephew to help me. As far as any important documents..I save them in my yahoo account. That way if any of my computers crash I can get it from any computer.
Karen Rose on 05 Mar 2007 at 6:49 pm #
Sabrina, I had to chuckle at the thought of killing off victims to Manilow. That would be surreal, lol. Actually I only write with Manilow for happy stuff, like the epilogue chapter when everybody has babies and lives happily ever after.
But I can see it in my mind, “Oh Mandy…” Pow-papapapapa-pow. (That was rapid gunfire.) Now I’m scared.
My dad had this ancient computer with no email. Now, you must understand that my dad was a computer geek for his whole career. He can program in Assembly (that’s uber-geeky for you non-geekoid types), he tried to teach me binary — 0’s and 1’s — when I was only seven, which explains a lot when you think about it. ANYWAY, my husband and I got him a new system last Christmas and I thought, now he’ll get email. But NOOOO, he has this spiffy new system and no internet link into his house. “I’ll go to the library for the internet,” he says.
I don’t get it.
Karen Rose on 05 Mar 2007 at 6:57 pm #
Kay - your ancient Mac should be in the museum with Daisy Ward’s B/W TV and 8-track.
I remember a sad, sad day when I was a senior at University of Maryland. I was leading a tour of boy scouts and I see these machines being taken out of the ComSci building. OH NO!!! It was the CARD READERS. I stopped the men taking the machines out and said, “Where are you taking them?” “To the Smithsonian, lady,” one of them said and the boy scouts thought this was hilariously funny. I was not amused.
I was afraid of the blinking terminals, then. I liked the cards. They were tactile. You could zip the edges and they made a comforting whirring sound. They were versatile as bookmarks once used. My dad used cards. I liked the cards. They were also a bitch to debug and heavy in my backpack, but okay, you can’t have everything.
So I was forced at the tender age of 21 to learn NEW TECNOLOGY - those dang (explicative deleted) video monitors that connected somewhere else. Disembodied screens… I was traumatized.
You youngsters have no idea. No idea at all…
Llarasandra on 05 Mar 2007 at 7:29 pm #
As I was reading all of these lovely posts, I was thinking I could live without technology. Then I remembered last fall when my video card fried and I couldn’t play computer games. I was very stressed out. I have a Blackberry and I can’t live without it. I pay an extra $20 on my poor college income because I can’t live without it. That is what I have my school email hooked up to so I don’t have to check it everyday. It comes right to my devise whenever someone sends me something. I could live without my computer more than I could live without my Blackberry. The funny thing is, I would never have purchased one if I had not been doing tech support for one of the cell phone companies. I would still be in blissful ignorance of these wonderful devices.
I couldn’t image a computer that I relied on for work crashing. yikes! You have my sympathies!
-Betty
dbrown3400 on 06 Mar 2007 at 12:05 am #
I was prepared when my laptop died because I had been nursing that sucker along for months. My first programming job was for those big computers in huge freezing rooms that could do what a game boy does today. Yes, I started with punch cards (or was it punch before and punched after), binary, programmed in Assembly and Cobol, even cured a virus at the United Nations. I pretty much followed everyone’s trail as you listed above in the computer industry without working directly for IBM or Apple.
I had backed up my files on 3 1/2″ floppies so when I powered up and nothing happened, I had my new system purchased and installed within six hours. I thought I was ready to go. I picked up the first disk to restore and wondered at the sanity of the first person who had ever hired me. My new desktop has no 3 1/2 ” drive!
I went to the library, imported each floppy to MS Word, copied it into Yahoo and emailed it to myself. I know that is infinitely better than losing everything, but did I feel like an idiot. There might have been an easier way, but at least it’s done.
And I could do all this with Barry Manilow singing ‘Could It Be Magic’ in the background. How can that not be a must for everyone’s collection?
Donna
Ashley Danielle on 06 Mar 2007 at 12:30 am #
Just bought a CRACKberry….er Blackberry I mean. And yes it’s so addicting. I don’t know how I managed without one. I too pay the extra $20 a month to have internet on it. It’s amazing. I go into withdrawl if I don’t have it with me. Sometimes all this technology makes me think that we could possibly go for days with no direct interaction with another person at all.
Karen Rose on 06 Mar 2007 at 12:46 am #
Donna - oooh, no floppy drive. That happened to me with one of my laptops. I actually paid to get an external floppy drive and an external CD burner - this was before the installed CDR’s were affordable.
Ouch - $20 extra a month for internet on the Blackberry (ha, crackberry, gotta love it!). I think lust just took a back seat to frugality. Of course, I could afford the internet if I gave up 5 Frappacinos a month… but that’s a different blog, isn’t it, lol.
My daughter has friendships with her online groups. I think she could disappear into her room for days on end if we slid food under the door.
Okay, one last parting thought before I go back to work on my copyedits, as it’s almost 1am. This is a bit bawdy (no not baudy, I’m giving up puns for Lent), so if you’re easily offended, close your eyes. When I was in college, I worked at an engineering firm as an aide, translate, gopher. The secretaries had early word processors - the brand was Wang. The floppy disks were 10″x10″. So one secretary would say to the other, “Hey, you got any 10-inch Wangs?” I still laugh at that.
Nicole Jordan on 06 Mar 2007 at 9:26 am #
Your story made me shudder, Karen! I CAN NOT LIVE without my computer. It’s attached to an artery or something. Or maybe it’s plugged into my brain. And I freak when my wireless Internet connection is down for 30 minutes. So I can truly sympathize.
NicoleJ
BevL on 06 Mar 2007 at 4:01 pm #
Wow, Karen, you seem surprisingly calm! I’ve been going through techno-hell the past couple of weeks with 3 of the 4 PCs we’ve got in the house. Frankly, my first blog about it would probably make a longshoreman blush! But I did feel a bit calmer afterwards. I just hope that anyone that happens to read it doesn’t have to wash out their eyes with soap! LOL
It’s so amusing to hear about your tech history- I’m guessing we must be about the same age because I have virtually the same Wizard of Oz story.
BTW, that 4th PC that ISN’T giving me problems? It’s a 1991 Micron running Windows for Workgroups 3.11 that I’ve been telecommuting with since before the word “telecommuting” was even coined!
MizMacgyver on 08 Mar 2007 at 11:29 am #
I had to go yesterday without internet, they are upgrading my cable, excuse me, but no one asked my permission to do that or give me warning that I couldn’t read my e-mail, or check out the Goddess Blogs! I suffered severe withdrawal and kept walking past the modem and looking for my sweet little “Go” light. I am telling you, I was traumatized!
Is there such a thing as semi-techno?? E-mail is the umbilical cord attached to my daughter. My son I can lay hands on most of the time, she is another matter entirely. My cell phone, well, if I am not physically with my son, then I have to have my cell phone in case he needs something. Like where do you put the extra tp mom? How did I manage before technology? I don’t want to think back to those days because I was a nervous wreck. These days I will actually go out in a vehicle and not rush to the nearest land line so my kids will know where I am. Not that said kids ever actually call me but hey, they might!
So Karen, how are you doing? Do you need anything? I am sure we could all get together and send you chocolate to get you through this most trying time. I have to tell you that I think you are one of the strongest people I know. You sound relatively calm in your post and that has to take a great deal of strength at a time like this.
Erica Ridley on 08 Mar 2007 at 7:41 pm #
The longest I’ve gone without my high-speed umbilical cord is 8 hours. And that’s because I was asleep.
Sorry to hear you’ve had such technology troubles! Here’s hoping everything works out soon!
(also might explain why the email I sent to you bounced back to me…)
Daisy Ward on 10 Mar 2007 at 4:56 pm #
Believe it or not, Karen, I have something older then the 8 track. I have an old Singer sewing mechine too. It is great for sewing when there is no electricity is out. And you also get a great workout at the same time. It is foot powered. LOL. It was my great grandmothers. Me and my family could probably open our own museum.
Laurie0514 on 15 Mar 2007 at 6:47 pm #
Dear Karen ,My computer was also dead for a while so i only check email like 2 times a week.
I was not surprised when I found out that you too were a Fanalow.I love Barry Manalow I just came out of the closet before Xmas and I tell everyone that I love him did you hhear his 60’s CD?Listien to #8 you will die!!!!!
Love,
Laurie
#1 Stalker in the USA