Up and running.............

So new laptop arrived bright and early yesterday morning and after a not entirely unexpectedly frustrating day is finally up and running.

Getting onto the internet proved a seemingly insurmountable obstacle until I discovered a tiny wee button at the front of the machine which switches on the Wi-Fi thingumy inside. Easily overlooked by both myself and the 'helpful' internet connection wizard which suggested just about everything except "look for a tiny wee on/off switch".

Setting up emails etc is always a bit fraught, but went relatively smoothly although getting to grips with the new email programme might take some time.

Setting up wireless networking to the printer was a 4 hour marathon, during which I completely messed up the printer settings on the main office machine and had to uninstall and reinstall the whole thing, which involved scrabbling around on the floor under the desk trying to find the relevant printer port.

However, I am nothing if not tenacious and a mere 10 hours after its arrival I emerged triumphant, if a bit dusty and battle-weary with a fully functioning, internet-connected, printer-ready, shiny new laptop.

Essential files have all been transferred and are now settling into their spacious new hard drive.
I am hesitantly wandering around Vista, which looks and feels disconcertingly different to XP, but comes with lots of helpful pointers when I get hopelessly lost which is often.

Poor old laptop is looking rather forlorn and I fear it must have the computer equivalent of a shot to the head, as it is both unusable and unsaleable. Even if a replacement graphics card could be found it would be difficult to replace, and most certainly an uneconomic repair, given the age and spec of the machine. So it has been usurped by a younger, slimmer, faster model, which happens to us all in the end. Still it has been a good and trusted friend and I will miss it.

New laptop is still too unfamiliar to be comfortable, although it's trying hard to please, and I'm sure that I will warm to it in time. It needs to be personalised though, so I've put a photo of small dog on the desktop which helps immensely.

So, things are getting back to what passes for normal.