Saturday, October 20, 2012

Whoo Hoo,, a bit of an upgrade!

Well, we had a bit of a setback here at ‘Chez Barnacle.
After about 4 years, maybe more, our desktop computer took a big shit.
It lost the bottom half of the screen, was making noise like it was going to throw a rod, had slowed down to the speed, of shit, time to upgrade.
Buying a new system in Belize is not as easy as it is up north.
For one, there is nowhere to go for at least a 2 hour drive! And anyone who knows us knows we don’t want to do that.
So we let our fingers do the walking.
Found a Dell up in BZ city that we liked.
We ordered up some changes and asked them to fly it to us when they make those changes.
‘No sweat’ she says.
That afternoon she calls and says it would be on the last flight. Sweet!
I pack up some road sodas and head for the airstrip.
Get there on time only to be told there was no room for cargo as the plane was full of people and luggage.
Fuck.
Oh well,, got some AC time and a few beers in me.
They phoned up the next day round noon and said it had arrived, so off I go again.
I forgot to mention there was already a trip to town as they want you to deposit the money into their account before they will fly you a new computer system, so this now makes 3 drives to town.
Get home and start setting the thing up. We now have the task of getting it going and everything the way we want, plus loading all the software we want on it.
Some things were smooth as shit, others a real pain.
Connecting to the internet was as easy as plugging in the cord! Done.
Same with the wireless printer. Setting it up with the last computer sucked, this one was a piece-o-cake!
Then we find out they did not make the changes we asked them to do.
We wanted 4gb more of RAM added to the existing 2gb. Nope,, didn’t do it.
We wanted an internal card reader added, didn’t do that either.
Another trip to the bank to deposit money for RAM and a card reader.
Loading software, getting things all nice and comfy.
Transferring backups from old computer to the new we find out we can no longer us outlook Express as a mail system. Nope, have to learn how to load everything into LiveMail and then learn how to use that new system.
Trying to download some software only to find out the internet connection is dropping out and back in all day.
Some photo editing software would not work with the 64bit system until we downloaded newer versions, which took hours! FUCK!
All the while we have both desktops running and the laptop trying to get things all set up.
Get the call our parts are in, another drive to the airstrip.
Install the extra memory, card reader, and a 1TB hard drive we use to store photos.
As I get the HD installed I see I need a new power cord, one with a right angle on one end.
Think I could find one of those in this country? Hell no.
Amazon had some for 3$ so I will get one smuggled down soon, but for now I made do with a straight cord.
So things are all but back to good now except for the internet issues.
We now have a sweet, speedy computer with all the latest updates to our software.
Photo editing just got a whole lot better!
Now to get some photos!



I never make the same mistake twice,, I make it 5-6 times just to be sure.

3 comments:

RPM said...

And I thought an hour drive to Fry's was a pain...

Congrats!

catdance62 said...

glad you finally got it all situated! There is nothing like a new computer! YAY!

Unknown said...

We are heading your way in March so if there is anything you need Mike and I to bring to you let me know. -Mary