Computer Pains

Last week was a painful one.  After three years of service my Alienware Area 51 laptop died on me.  I was in the middle of work, had to reboot, and it never came back.  This left me in an interesting prediciment.  I couldn't work.  It sucks big time that I have to rely on a working computer at all time in order to do my job.  It's the downside of writing and doing internet work.

Early last week I was given the position of Senior Editor for the new Tattoo.com site (it launches Oct. 31).  That means not only do I have to write, but I have to be in constant email contact with the writers of the site to find out what they are working on, have articles emailed to, and find out how things are going, not to mention answer questions.  Then there is the building of social networking profiles on pages like Myspace and Inked Nation.  A working computer and internet is vital to what I do.  This doesn't even get into the photo editing software and all that I need for doing movie reviews.

So, after a reboot the Alienware never came back.  It's dead, Jim.  I can't even begin to list the work I had to do and was quickly piling up as my computer sat there, powered up and not doing anything, mocking me.  This meant I had to go computer shopping.  I have never experienced anything so painful in my life.

Armed with the budget I could safely spend on a new computer my first stop was Radio Shack where the motto should be  "You have questions, we have dumb looks."  They actually had a computer that I was interested in, that naturally they knew nothing about, but tried to find out for me.  I ended up not getting it because it didn't have a 2.0 processor or the the graphics capabilities I need.  The upside about this machine would have been it came with Windows XP.

The next stop was Best Buy.  Everything was overpriced with the exeption of a desk top that I found that I would need a monitor for.  The cheapest monitor would push it over my budget.

Next...Circuit City.  Once again I found a computer.  They didn't have it in stock, told me I couldn't have the floor model because it wasn't discontinued (despite the fact that it was a clearanced item and the fact that it was no longer in their computer system).  They tried to sell me two other computers, one was more expensive than I could afford and the other was a 1 gig computer with Vista.  Vista needs at least 2 gigs to run, so naturally they would have to sell me more memory. 

We checked out the new Circuit City near us that we had forgotten about since it's only been open a couple of weeks.  They had the perfect laptop as a "open box special" that they refused to sell to me under the excuse that they needed to remove trialware off it that was installed at the factory to optimize it and tried to sell me something $150 over my budget.

At this point my frustration was at an end, having spent the day in the car (we had to run into MD to the bank during all this - an hour and a half trip one way with traffic in this area) and I was ready to kill the teenage sales person at Circut City.

My husband even attempted to take me to Wal-Mart of all places.  At least when you go in there to buy something they let you have what you want and you get to take it home that day.  The problem was, there was no one around to answer anything about the computers they have and I decided right off that I didn't want one of their emachines.

7:30 at night, no computer and working piling up for the second day I was ready to scream.  My husband had loaned me his work computer but of course I couldn't load any software on it so it was nothing more than an email machine to me.  The following hour was spent on the Micro Center website with their sales add next to me.  I finally found a computer and according to the website they had 33 in stock.

The plan was to get up in the morning and drive into Fairfax to get a computer.  That didn't happen because our van decided to break down.  I didn't make it out there unitl around 3:00.  The sales guy was ever so helpful and found a returned computer for me that would be cheaper but did the same thing that the one I was planning on buying would do.  Not only was I happy to find someone who was actually helpful but I was going home with a computer! 

Once again, traffic on the way home.  I got home about 7:00, a third day of work piling up.  You would not believe what goes into getting a major website ready for launch.  It's incredible and I am not even doing the coding!

I quickly discovered the one flaw with my new computer.  Something that is plauging me a week later.  VISTA.  I have spent more time learning how to use Vista, replacing software that isn't Vista compatable and won't run in XP compatible mode and dealing with other problems that the new operating system presented than actually working.

At least those three days of work are done and while things aren't going as fast as I would like, thanks to Vista, I can finally work again and can say that my computer trials have not been a major obsticle for getting Tattoo.com up and running.  I have even managed to turn out a few movie reviews in the process.  My husband is threatining to get me a shirt made up that says "Not Windows Vista compatable".  He's amused by my pain in learning how to use it.  He sucks like that.