Into Purdah with a new PC
Today (Sunday 3 December) I transfer to a new computer, with all the ghastly and time-consuming business of installing dozens of programs from CDs and the web, transferring thousands of data files from CDs, and the rest of it. So there'll be a (no doubt welcome) period of silence on my part, as Attlee requested of Laski. Any urgent e-mails to my googlemail address only, please!
Brian
Haste ye back.
If it's any comfort to you, Brian, my own PC is on its last legs; indeed, our relationship is akin to that which Noel Coward described himself as having with his friends, reported by David Niven after the latter had complained all his friends were dying.
I'm glad it makes it through lunch.
Brian writes: Martin, then don't delay (1) backing up all your data files, address books, calendars, email accounts, dial-up nodes, etc., to CDs: (2) List all the programs and apps that you'll have to re-install on a new PC, indicating which you'll install from CDs and which from the Web, with URLs: and (3) Buy a new PC or laptop! If your hard disk dies on you and you haven't recently done (1) and (2), life will suddenly become very hard indeed — even harder than it will be if you have. I have just done all three (he said smugly) and even so the hours of drudgery getting the new PC set up stretches ahead into infinity. I was gallantly started off by the chip off my old block who solved at lightning speed about a dozen fearful problems that arose instantly and whose solution would have been way beyond me; that was yesterday and we spent about 12 man-hours on it. I have done another five or six hours today, flying solo, and the surface is barely scratched. And I'm retired, with bags of time available… Not for the faint-hearted, especially if, like me, you're a sucker for little electronic gadgets to help one, like WordWeb, Autohotkey, Gmail Notifier, a customised Google home page, Copernic, Flickr, Adaware and Spybot, AVG Free, … — I could go on and on. Oh, well. Back to work!