Thursday, February 14, 2008

Computer Store Shopping

Balazs called the computer store today to see if the computer was ready. They said it was ready, but he said they sounded dubious about it. We decided to try an outing there anyway. Across the street from the store, they have another store that only handles laptops. I had made the decision that since the university was not going to supply my office with a computer to use in the classrooms, I was going to do it myself and went to look at what was on offer. The first issue was getting an English keyboard. This narrowed the selection quite a bit and when we came to some decision of what would be the best options, they had to call and see if it could be fitted with an English keyboard. The salesman called, but they would have to call him back. We went across the street to pick up the desktop and returned. Still no answer. We went for coffee and returned an hour later to learn we had success. The model I wanted was available with an English keyboard; they could have it by Monday. However, it Windows is extra and only in Hungarian. I handed him my disk and code that I had just retrieved from across the street and we were set. Balazs mentioned earlier that he had a bad feeling that they had forgotten to return my disks or to install the WiFi card or both. Neither bit of his premonitions were were welcomed thoughts, but when we did find the disks in the box, at least he would have been 50% wrong in his predicting skills thus far. He carted the computer home for me so I did not hurt my back again. We set it up, found the WiFi card and all was going swimmingly when the electric went out. One minute later it is on again and we start again, but after three minutes of configuring, boom, no electricity. A minute later, let there be light and there was light and we said this is good. Turn the computer on, work away for a short time when darkness yet again. Primal scream number 48,475. We changed the outlet that the computer was plugged into. Started it up. Windows was corrupted. It would not start in normal mode, it would not start in Safe mode. To fix this problem, install the original Windows disk and press R for repair, was the message on the screen. But you don't understand, my disk is at the other computer store to be put on the laptop. I don't have it. The screen flashed "Your tough luck buddy boy". Personally, I think computers are getting to damn smart for their own good. Balazs was off the mark with his premonitions of the reasons for disaster, but he must have sensed something was going to happen and it did. So the new computer is sitting there as useless as its predecessor did until Monday at the earliest. Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.

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