Laptop crazies

My wonderful beautiful Dell Studio 15 laptop arrived. I love it! J truly gives special gifts and then is so patient explaining to me how they work. (I tend to think that magic and electric are the same thing.)As a computer programmer he doesn't hold with this theory .

L and C came over and while L and I talked knitting and spinning, C set up the router. I played on Studio for a while that afternoon. That night I plugged it into an electrical outlet to charge away. The next morning I went to get on, sitting comfortably on the couch with feet propped up, and Studio wanted to get the latest updates...and then you know what hit the fan.

In the middle of this lovely download with the computer flashing "Do not turn off your computer" at me the battery died. It beeped once and died, really dead. My shouting "no, no, don't do that" had no effect on it and so I immediately took myself to the nearest working electrical outlet and plugged the Studio in. (Apparently the outlet I had used last night didn't work.)

The updates seemed to continue, however it got in a loop and would not get out of it. Feeling as I do about the magic/electric thing, I was hesitant to touch anything lest the magic/electric gods rear their angry heads and banish me from the internet forever. I was patient!!! We're talking 3 hours.Finally, in desperation, I used the pc to im J and ask what the same hill was going on. After I tried a couple of things he suggested, and nothing worked, he suggested that I get on line with Dell tech support.

Thus began my 2 1/2 hours visit with "Benjamin". I found out where the battery is on my Studio, as well as the cd portal. Also found some other little square thingie that comes out when you poke it but until I get better reading glasses, I won't know what it is. Thankfully when I poked it again, it went back in and the Studio didn't fall apart .

Benjamin was kind enough to mention that I wasn't the longest chat he'd had, several people had needed 4 hours to get things fixed--not encouraging. NOTE TO SELF: If you are going to be on the phone with tech support for over 2 hours, put a comfortable chair next to the laptop plugged into the electrical outlet. The little kitchen stool is not the best for sitting or trying to knit while maintaining your balance.

Why didn't I unplug the computer and move to the more comfortable couch, you ask? HA, I was taking no chances on the battery dying again. I'd learned my lesson so I balanced, knitted and mumbled about Vista, Microsoft, and wondered whether Bill Gates really liked the rest of us or this was just a cruel jest on his part.

After finally re-everything (boot,load, whatever) the Studio it was up and running. I considered asking Benjamin for a mailing address so I could add him to my Christmas list but I am pretty sure he was in an area of the world where Christmas wasn't celebrated by most of the population.

This morning I got up, confidently turned on Studio and everything looked good until I got the notice that a program wanted to do something and should McAfee be notified. Dang it! Number one, I had already told Studio that I didn't want to deal with McAfee but there was no "go away" option in the annoying little box. Then, there it was at the bottom of the screen, the little flashing notice that said "Java Updates". Well, I'm not falling for that one again! That's what got me in trouble yesterday. I carefully shut Studio down and came into this room to report all this on my pc.

Could this be a plot on the part of XP not wanting to be replaced by Vista, or the pc not wanting the Studio to be more loved? I may yet prove that magic and electric are the same things. Laugh now, but think of that the next time you take Vista out for a walk on the internet.