Woe is PC

November 7, 1998

I am extremely disappointed as once again I am going to have to rebuild my home computer from scratch. As I mentioned yesterday, I had received the card that would at last allow me to use the scanner I bought when I originally purchased my PC (Dell didn't tell me when I bought it that there were no slots left to connect the scanner).

I've already had to de-install and re-install windows on this computer once since January. Now they give me the choice of doing that again or using a hidden program on the computer to restore it completely to its factory defaults. Either way I'm going to have to reinstall more than fifty programs to get back to where I am today. Or where I was this morning, before I installed a Dell-recommended card into my Dell computer.

Last time I went through this, it was more than three weeks before I had everything back, and even then some things didn't work. All of my troubles have come from my video driver. I'm now down to sixteen colors. My modem works, and I can connect to the Internet; it's just that Netscape, IE, Outlook 98 and Eudora all cause protection faults.

Okay, okay, it's not really worth recounting all the details. It just stinks that computers are so unstable, so unreliable. I thought by purchasing a Dell I'd be getting a computer that was so mainstream everything would work. I was wrong, and I can only hope that reformatting my hard drive and restoring everything to factory defaults will work.

Jean's mom Ginger was here last night and today. I tried to keep my growing problems with my computer aside while she was here. It was good to see her, and we showed her baby's bedroom furniture to be. We'll see her again at Christmas.

We're off now to Brian and Alice's for dinner. I've got to let go of my frustration or I'll vent all night. It's been too long since we've seen them, and I don't want to waste our time together complaining about my bloody PC.

Just a few clouds in the sky today. It was too cold for just a rugby shirt, so I switched to a sweater. If tomorrow's like this, I'll probably get a fire going in the late morning to make the house cozy all day.

Listening: Whatever radio station Jean's got going in the kitchen. It sounds like a pop station (James Taylor is singing "Fire and Rain").

Reading: Nothing today -- company's here!