November 16, 2010  9:12 p.m.

It has been an eventful week for me so far, and it is only Tuesday.

First off, on Sunday we bought a new computer, after using our prior computer for nine years.  We felt it was time, and we didn’t want to have to endure the crisis of a failing computer before getting a new one.  So we got an Acer with a pretty fast processor and we are very satisfied right now.

This was not an event that I looked forward to, much, as I don’t know enough about computers to feel confident about transferring to a new one.  In fact, part of me was dreading the task.  As it turned out, we picked it up before heading to church for the Sunday evening service, so I didn’t get a chance to open the box until some time after 7:30 p.m. on Sunday.  Well, we got the basics plugged in, and turned it on around 8:00 or so, and were relieved to find out that functions such as an Internet connection were established rather quickly.  I was taking nothing for granted.  So I managed to get that going, and the first thing I did was to make the factory config backup (recovery) DVDs.  Apparently, computer manufacturers no longer include these; customers have to make them on their own.  A sign of our times.  So after doing this, I set about downloading an email client (Windows 7 does not include this – go figure!)  Next I worked on adding Virus software – Vipre, which I had on my old computer and I liked how it worked.  And finally, I added our printer into the mix, and our scanner.  Here was an “oops” because there is no driver available for our 7 year old scanner with Windows 7.  So while I was trying to do research to find if there would be a work-around for this, I grew very tired and went to bed.  This was about 2:00 a.m. Monday morning, by the way.

On Monday morning, I awoke to find the computer acting very poorly.  Apparently something had gotten to it, maybe a virus.  It would not respond to the simplest request, nor would it behave after a reboot.  It was hosed.  Completely hosed, and I was one frustrated lady.  Believe, nothing in life frustrates me more than computer problems!!!

So, after realizing that our brand new computer was completely beyond hope, out came the brand new recovery DVDs that I had just created the evening before.  I installed them, and allowed them to do their thing.  Basically, everything was wiped clean off the hard drive, and the factory default installation was created afresh.  So that, when all was done, it was as if I had turned back the clock to 8:00 p.m. on Sunday night again.

In effect, I got a second chance.  This time, I would not attempt to install my own choice of virus software; I decided to go along with the recommendation of Acer and install the McAfee internet security software it included.

Lesson learned: Make those recovery disks immediately!  And be very careful about installed a second virus program.  I really think, in retrospect, that I created my own problem.

Fast forward to today.  We love the computer.   It is lightning fast, and the new software has great features!  Just look at the picture above.  The old computer is on the left, and the new one is the tiny black tower on the right.  So much smaller than the old one, yet it can store so much more and can run many, many circles around the old computer.  It is remarkable.