Blogphen

Oh, they’re the bane of my life!

Today I had a single task to complete - set up our late Grandpa’s computer for my half-sister to go on the Internet and use eBay.

I got the computer at 0930 when Dad brought it back from Mamma’s. After spending about an hour arguing with Windows ME about what a modem and a network card do, I realised a reformat was on the cards. After arguing with the machine about whether it was going to boot from CD (it won; I had to create a boot FLOPPY!), I finally just reformatted.

At that point though, mum decided she’d nab an hour of my time to fix her computer’s wireless connection. In the end I realised the only realistic and permanent fix would be a reformat, something I wasn’t prepared to do at the time. So instead, I plugged her in with the unreliable and interference-stricken cable leading upstairs (the reason I gave her a wireless adaptor in the first place!).

It then took nearly 2 hours to reinstall WinME on my half-sister’s new machine (233MHz, 64MB RAM - not good enough to run XP by a LONG shot!) including installing AVG and hopelessly searching for a free firewall which runs on the OS. Failed on the last count (they all only run on XP/2K these days) and I’m not too happy about her being connected unprotected but it’s not my problem any more…!

I then got roped into setting up Dad’s ex wife’s TV, VCR and DVD which didn’t please me.

Then when I got home I was required to type up an email for mum (because she’s too slow/crap to do it herself…) as well as doing some photography for her…

In conclusion, a lot of help and not a lot of thanks. Heck, they didn’t even celebrate System Administrator Appreciation Day this year, claiming it was merely a “joke”…