Computers & Clouds

Why can't computers enjoy a few weeks holiday like the rest of us? You come home after being away and they want all kinds of updates. Between my wee netbook, my own laptop and the laptop for the camera club, which I am now responsible for as secretary, this can add up to a lot of grief.

This morning's task was quite simple. Send two emails to camera club members and attach a couple of documents to them. Dead easy you would think, but it ended up taking me the best part of the day. I won't bore you with all the details, but a brief resume is as follows:
Microsoft updates to club laptop - Write emails - Internet Explorer won't allow documents to attach to emails - try copying and various other ways but no luck - McAfee has expired message must update (no chance already replaced with free security software) - McAfee stripped from laptop to stop messages - Message that AVG will expire in seven days - AVG 2014 downloaded - Internet Explorer acting up - Executive decision to replace it with Google Chrome - Emails checked and documents will now attach - SUCCESS!

Well that was the story on the club laptop. While waiting for the various downloads, my own laptop decided that I would need to buy Microsoft Office for $99 if I wanted to open my Word documents! How did that happen? There was nothing in the MS Word Starter software that came with the laptop to say this would happen. Anyway, after searching about I eventually found a way of opening the documents without spending $99!

To top it all off the printer decided it wasn't going to speak to either laptop wirelessly. Over 2 hours spent trying to fix the problem without success. Had to eventually settle for a USB connection. Result of all this - totally hacked off with computers!!

Never mind, every bad computer day has a cloudy lining!