Hi all
I have recently came across a realization about myself that I am not sure how I feel about. I think that I may be addicted to technology. It all started a few days ago when I was watching a movie on my computer (alas I can not say I was watching the news being intelligent, but rather the new X-Man movie). Anyways, everything was going well and then all of a sudden in the middle of the movie my computer just turned off. Well, I wish I could say that I was surprised but given that I have heard my hard drive becoming increasingly louder I figured that the hard drive had finally given out and that it was time for a new one. Even thought I am planning on returning to Canada (BOO) shortly I decided that I couldn't bare the thought of going without a computer for that long so it was off to fix the problem. I headed to the nearest media store and set about to buy a hard drive; however, I was dismayed to learn that there was no hard drive to be had which would be Mac compatible so I was given a name of another computer store on the opposite end of Amsterdam that could probably help me. Now I know what you are thinking, "Amsterdam is not that big" and you would be right however anytime you have to traverse an entire city, especially when you have time constraints (Eric was leaving for a few days and I needed to be back to get the keys) so it felt that the trip was taking forever. Well needless to say upon arriving at the store which was to have the hard drive I learned that I had been hoodwinked and that there was no hard drive there but rather at another store quite some distance away. Being that I was down a laptop and I was desperately wanting to finish my movie I did the only sensible thing (phoned eric and told him to hid the key and headed off to the next shop). Well the next store did in fact have what I needed and I was able to get a really good deal on the hard drive but the problem was that they were unwilling to install the hard drive (perhaps it was because it was a mac or perhaps it was because when asked why I didn't want to install it myself I replied that I would rather have someone that I could blame if things went wrong). Well anyways I made my way back to the original media store to get the hard drive installed only to be told that the technicians were done for the day. This left me in a difficult position as it was only 5 in the afternoon and I couldn't really go to bed waiting for the next day so I headed off to the library for my computer fix (I was desperate to check my email) and then after a while I headed home. Upon arriving back home I was confused as to what to do as generally the first thing I do when walking in the front door is open my computer. I ended up reading the book the Urban Saint (great book by the way, not particularly well written but the content is very compelling).
The next day I was up and at it early as I was wanting to get this computer thing figured out as soon as possible (and because my running shorts had blown away in a storm the previous day (they smelled so bad that I had left them outside on the balcony to air out and i guess they managed to get a little too much air and took off). Anyways, I got to the computer store bright and early and presented my precious mac and they promptly replaced the hard drive. With this new hard drive in place I headed home to start the monotonous task of reinstalling all my precious programs, podcasts, music etc. I arrived home, stuck the startup DVD in my computer and waited... Nothing. I pulled out the disk and tried again and again and again (you know what they said if at first you don't succeed keep doing the same thing over and over again and you may get different results). After trying this approach for a while I got frustrated and decided that I needed some help, now generally at this point I hit the internet but given that Eric had taken his computer I was internet less so I was stuck with the problem of how to get this figured out. To make matters worse I couldn't really phone apple or a computer store as I didn't have the internet to look up any phone numbers. I ended up phoning a friend at work and begging him to help me out with looking up Apples dutch number. As much as I like Macs I am not a huge fan of their customer service ( I would imaging that it is even worse here in the Netherlands as dutch people seem to lack a filter for their comments sometimes). After a frustrating 15 minutes on the phone which got me no where and cost me .1 a minute I still had no answers. So I packed everything up and headed back to the store to try to get some answers, the original store I went to was clueless as to how to proceed so I ended up going to the Mac store for some expert advise. I was told that they could install my operating system but it would cost me 80 euros or I could buy an external dvd drive for 30 euros and do it myself. Well being truly cheap I jumped at the chance to save some money and headed off to buy an external dvd player (took me the rest of the day but I was the proud owner of a cheap dvd player which would play my installation dvd so I could install my software and get back to business). Back home I went with the DVD player and a smile. About 2 hours later after my computer turned off suddenly for the 4 time my smile was gone and I was again annoyed. Back to the city I went (perhaps I should say that where I am currently living I am about 20 minutes outside the city, may not sound much but when you are making this trip about 6 times a day it becomes annoying). Well as things go by the time I returned to the Mac Store they had closed for the night so again I returned to the library to get my computer fix. Upon returning home that night I started to read another book (Megatrends 2010) not near as good as the Urban Saint.
Once again the next day started off bright and early as I took my laptop back into the city (I was also worried as I feared that it may be something seriously wrong and I would have to end up buying a new laptop and I was weighing the pros and cons of waiting until I returned to Canada for this). A quick trip to the Mac Store once again proved to be fruitful as they turned it on and there was no problem loading the software and after a brief conversation I was on my way (the repair didn't cost me a cent, WOOHOO). I returned home happy with a song in my heart as it appeared that my laptop was good to go and would continue to live, my happiness was very shorted lived as upon returning home my computer worked long enough for me to get everything set up and then turned itself off. "Not good", I thought as I tried to restart my computer hoping that it was just some kind of fluke which would not repeat itself but true to form my computer lived for about 2 minutes (enough time for me to look at my email) and then it turned off again. Well by this point I was once again worried and once again I packed up everything and headed back into the city to the mac store. HAHAHA the same mac guy helped me out again and upon inspection told me that my system was overheating at first but seemed to be alright, "The stupid computer is working here for everyone else so I appear as a fool but not a home", I silently thought to myself but after 5 minutes of the computer not crashing I conceded defeat and once again took my computer home for me to try to figure out. After playing around with it all day I have finally figured out that my computer is over heating for some reason and I can only do one or two things at once but I figure that it will be good enough to get me though to returning back to Canada and will help me be more productive as it will not let me watch videos (I can only surf the net, listen to podcasts and use my the different applications like word).
Anyways, I have learned two things from this ordeal. First, I am addicted to my computer and am willing to go to great lengths and frustration to get it working again. Second, my computer hates me.
Well i hope that everyone is doing well, mom and dad I hope that you have managed to dry off after your attempts to best nature. Also, to let you all know I have booked my flight back to Canada for Oct 1st and I fly into Calgary.
I will talk to you all later.
Love
Wes
P.S Mom and Dad where are your camping (or rather rain pictures)
I have recently came across a realization about myself that I am not sure how I feel about. I think that I may be addicted to technology. It all started a few days ago when I was watching a movie on my computer (alas I can not say I was watching the news being intelligent, but rather the new X-Man movie). Anyways, everything was going well and then all of a sudden in the middle of the movie my computer just turned off. Well, I wish I could say that I was surprised but given that I have heard my hard drive becoming increasingly louder I figured that the hard drive had finally given out and that it was time for a new one. Even thought I am planning on returning to Canada (BOO) shortly I decided that I couldn't bare the thought of going without a computer for that long so it was off to fix the problem. I headed to the nearest media store and set about to buy a hard drive; however, I was dismayed to learn that there was no hard drive to be had which would be Mac compatible so I was given a name of another computer store on the opposite end of Amsterdam that could probably help me. Now I know what you are thinking, "Amsterdam is not that big" and you would be right however anytime you have to traverse an entire city, especially when you have time constraints (Eric was leaving for a few days and I needed to be back to get the keys) so it felt that the trip was taking forever. Well needless to say upon arriving at the store which was to have the hard drive I learned that I had been hoodwinked and that there was no hard drive there but rather at another store quite some distance away. Being that I was down a laptop and I was desperately wanting to finish my movie I did the only sensible thing (phoned eric and told him to hid the key and headed off to the next shop). Well the next store did in fact have what I needed and I was able to get a really good deal on the hard drive but the problem was that they were unwilling to install the hard drive (perhaps it was because it was a mac or perhaps it was because when asked why I didn't want to install it myself I replied that I would rather have someone that I could blame if things went wrong). Well anyways I made my way back to the original media store to get the hard drive installed only to be told that the technicians were done for the day. This left me in a difficult position as it was only 5 in the afternoon and I couldn't really go to bed waiting for the next day so I headed off to the library for my computer fix (I was desperate to check my email) and then after a while I headed home. Upon arriving back home I was confused as to what to do as generally the first thing I do when walking in the front door is open my computer. I ended up reading the book the Urban Saint (great book by the way, not particularly well written but the content is very compelling).
The next day I was up and at it early as I was wanting to get this computer thing figured out as soon as possible (and because my running shorts had blown away in a storm the previous day (they smelled so bad that I had left them outside on the balcony to air out and i guess they managed to get a little too much air and took off). Anyways, I got to the computer store bright and early and presented my precious mac and they promptly replaced the hard drive. With this new hard drive in place I headed home to start the monotonous task of reinstalling all my precious programs, podcasts, music etc. I arrived home, stuck the startup DVD in my computer and waited... Nothing. I pulled out the disk and tried again and again and again (you know what they said if at first you don't succeed keep doing the same thing over and over again and you may get different results). After trying this approach for a while I got frustrated and decided that I needed some help, now generally at this point I hit the internet but given that Eric had taken his computer I was internet less so I was stuck with the problem of how to get this figured out. To make matters worse I couldn't really phone apple or a computer store as I didn't have the internet to look up any phone numbers. I ended up phoning a friend at work and begging him to help me out with looking up Apples dutch number. As much as I like Macs I am not a huge fan of their customer service ( I would imaging that it is even worse here in the Netherlands as dutch people seem to lack a filter for their comments sometimes). After a frustrating 15 minutes on the phone which got me no where and cost me .1 a minute I still had no answers. So I packed everything up and headed back to the store to try to get some answers, the original store I went to was clueless as to how to proceed so I ended up going to the Mac store for some expert advise. I was told that they could install my operating system but it would cost me 80 euros or I could buy an external dvd drive for 30 euros and do it myself. Well being truly cheap I jumped at the chance to save some money and headed off to buy an external dvd player (took me the rest of the day but I was the proud owner of a cheap dvd player which would play my installation dvd so I could install my software and get back to business). Back home I went with the DVD player and a smile. About 2 hours later after my computer turned off suddenly for the 4 time my smile was gone and I was again annoyed. Back to the city I went (perhaps I should say that where I am currently living I am about 20 minutes outside the city, may not sound much but when you are making this trip about 6 times a day it becomes annoying). Well as things go by the time I returned to the Mac Store they had closed for the night so again I returned to the library to get my computer fix. Upon returning home that night I started to read another book (Megatrends 2010) not near as good as the Urban Saint.
Once again the next day started off bright and early as I took my laptop back into the city (I was also worried as I feared that it may be something seriously wrong and I would have to end up buying a new laptop and I was weighing the pros and cons of waiting until I returned to Canada for this). A quick trip to the Mac Store once again proved to be fruitful as they turned it on and there was no problem loading the software and after a brief conversation I was on my way (the repair didn't cost me a cent, WOOHOO). I returned home happy with a song in my heart as it appeared that my laptop was good to go and would continue to live, my happiness was very shorted lived as upon returning home my computer worked long enough for me to get everything set up and then turned itself off. "Not good", I thought as I tried to restart my computer hoping that it was just some kind of fluke which would not repeat itself but true to form my computer lived for about 2 minutes (enough time for me to look at my email) and then it turned off again. Well by this point I was once again worried and once again I packed up everything and headed back into the city to the mac store. HAHAHA the same mac guy helped me out again and upon inspection told me that my system was overheating at first but seemed to be alright, "The stupid computer is working here for everyone else so I appear as a fool but not a home", I silently thought to myself but after 5 minutes of the computer not crashing I conceded defeat and once again took my computer home for me to try to figure out. After playing around with it all day I have finally figured out that my computer is over heating for some reason and I can only do one or two things at once but I figure that it will be good enough to get me though to returning back to Canada and will help me be more productive as it will not let me watch videos (I can only surf the net, listen to podcasts and use my the different applications like word).
Anyways, I have learned two things from this ordeal. First, I am addicted to my computer and am willing to go to great lengths and frustration to get it working again. Second, my computer hates me.
Well i hope that everyone is doing well, mom and dad I hope that you have managed to dry off after your attempts to best nature. Also, to let you all know I have booked my flight back to Canada for Oct 1st and I fly into Calgary.
I will talk to you all later.
Love
Wes
P.S Mom and Dad where are your camping (or rather rain pictures)
Love it! I chuckled after reading your post. Well you are in good company, I too am addicted to technology. Maybe not to the same extent, but I like to daily check my emails, and the weather, and the news. Makes one wonder . . . if all of a sudden we lost the ability to use computers how well would we survive . . . but the truth is we'd probably get use to it and adapt.
ReplyDeletePS Will you be investing in a new computer, or just live with the overheating. . . do you know why it's overheating?
ReplyDeleteHey Beck
ReplyDeleteHAHAHA I guess we would all adjust but the question is do I want to adjust! I am not really sure why my computer is overheating, I am just racking it up to it being old. I figure that I will be able to live with it for now, as I am able to do everything that I NEED to do (not necessarily everything that I WANT to do), but after I get settled and a job I will start to look for a replacement.