Monday, March 12, 2001
Fixin' Up 'Puters Again
Early yesterday morning, before Erika woke, her sister Jennifer called. She wanted to send an email to Erika, and we got talking about the fact that their mother Jean now has a computer (thanks to house-mate Nancy Roy, who managed to get an obsoleted but decent Pentium I-era machine with monitor from work for $100). I had recommended to Nancy that she get an external modem, knowing from experience that installing an internal one is usually a hassle, especially for somebody who has never done it before. So, Nancy goes and buys a cheaper internal modem, cheesing me off a bit. But then I got justly chided by Jennifer for being stand-offish about installing it, because after all, I am the only one in the immediate family who has the technical know-how to do it. Thing is, I have always had this thing about installing computer hardware, as it never seems to go as smoothly as I had hoped. So I get to Jean's place first thing in the morning with Erika and Vanessa. Turns out the modem requires a CD-ROM drive in order to install the software. But the machine doesn't have a CD-ROM drive. Quick trip in the car back home, and I come back with a couple of spare CD-ROM drives cannibalized from older machines I once had. So I installed everything: modem, CD-ROM drives (both of them -- what the heck ;-) and software. Much to my amazement, everything works the first time! Woa! Confidence boost! ;-) Gave myself a real pat on the back for that one. This morning I dropped off a spare old sound-card and speakers, which I will install on the machine at a later date. Figure it will be a good educational machine for Vanessa to play with when she's at Grandma's place. Spent the rest of the day writing articles for The Computer Paper. Did reviews of "Web Design: The Complete Reference" (not quite, but pretty close), and "Visual QuickStart: Macromedia Flash 5" (exhaustively detailed; definitely for beginners only). Also started work on a list of Canadian photography Web sites. Am amazed how many dud photography Web sites there are out there (great pictures, but lousy Web sites).
Early yesterday morning, before Erika woke, her sister Jennifer called. She wanted to send an email to Erika, and we got talking about the fact that their mother Jean now has a computer (thanks to house-mate Nancy Roy, who managed to get an obsoleted but decent Pentium I-era machine with monitor from work for $100). I had recommended to Nancy that she get an external modem, knowing from experience that installing an internal one is usually a hassle, especially for somebody who has never done it before. So, Nancy goes and buys a cheaper internal modem, cheesing me off a bit. But then I got justly chided by Jennifer for being stand-offish about installing it, because after all, I am the only one in the immediate family who has the technical know-how to do it. Thing is, I have always had this thing about installing computer hardware, as it never seems to go as smoothly as I had hoped. So I get to Jean's place first thing in the morning with Erika and Vanessa. Turns out the modem requires a CD-ROM drive in order to install the software. But the machine doesn't have a CD-ROM drive. Quick trip in the car back home, and I come back with a couple of spare CD-ROM drives cannibalized from older machines I once had. So I installed everything: modem, CD-ROM drives (both of them -- what the heck ;-) and software. Much to my amazement, everything works the first time! Woa! Confidence boost! ;-) Gave myself a real pat on the back for that one. This morning I dropped off a spare old sound-card and speakers, which I will install on the machine at a later date. Figure it will be a good educational machine for Vanessa to play with when she's at Grandma's place. Spent the rest of the day writing articles for The Computer Paper. Did reviews of "Web Design: The Complete Reference" (not quite, but pretty close), and "Visual QuickStart: Macromedia Flash 5" (exhaustively detailed; definitely for beginners only). Also started work on a list of Canadian photography Web sites. Am amazed how many dud photography Web sites there are out there (great pictures, but lousy Web sites).
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