You may have noticed that I haven't been keeping up on a regular basis as of late. That has to do with a sick computer - my Hewlett-Packard notebook computer. I've been experiencing problems with it since the summertime when I noticed that most of my drivers and hardware stored on the computer would just disappear. Then I couldn't get the wireless card to work. Then other things just began to deteriorate in the computer to the point that I had to contact HP service. Just recently, I've not been able to get any Internet access (even with a hard wire hook up), to be able to print anything from the computer, or be able to open any Adobe files.
I've been on the phone with HP service so much over the past few weeks that I'll be trading Christmas cards with a couple of the techs. I can now say that I am a qualified HP technical person as I've learned how to remove and reset the wireless card and the hard drive in the computer. My problem has also vexed some of the most senior technicians at Hewlett-Packard who have spent hours on my computer via the Internet searching for the problem.
Long story short, my hard drive is dying and they're sending me a new one - at a cost of a cool $375 bucks. My computer is five months out of warranty. The hard drive was supposed to be here on Friday, but now I find that it's sitting on a FedEx truck in Moline to be delivered tomorrow. Sometime. I was hoping I'd be able to install the new hard drive and be able to get somewhat back to normal over the weekend. Now, what stacks up to be an already busy Monday is going to be even more busy.
Yes, I've backed up all my data on a Western Digital outboard hard drive, so I'm not in danger of losing anything of significance. I will lose all my e-mails that I've accumulated over the past 18 months. I'm hoping that I won't lose my e-mail addresses.
Since I've been on the road an awful lot lately, I haven't been able to keep up with some of my posts to Road Tips. I do a lot of writing in hotel rooms at night or early in the morning. Since I haven't had access to Internet over the past couple of weeks, it's pretty hard to keep up. I've been able to get e-mails via my Blackberry, but any chance of sending long replies is next to none.
Computers can be so aggravating, yet they're a necessary evil in today's society. I've been a big HP fan for a long time, but problems with my notebook and initial problems with my new desktop that I bought back in March have soured me somewhat on their products. I've not had any more problems with the desk top (fingers crossed, knock on wood) and I'm hoping the new hard drive in the notebook will get things back to normal in the short term.
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