Tuesday, May 12, 2009

In praise of Maplin and Indian call centres (again)

First, apologies for not blogging. I've had massive technology problems. Firstly, my work laptop completely crashed and burned. I got a new one and promised to my wonderful IT manager not to overdo it with non-work stuff. That meant not using it for iTunes, Spotify, social networking, etc. My main technology problem has been the erasing of half my iTunes library (more later).

We've got a new home PC, and a back up drive, but whenever I've tried to set it up there's been something missing. Connecting to the internet hasn't worked. Does it have a wireless card? No. Go and buy one. Which one? This one. Doesn't work. Why not? Is the wireless box in the wrong place? No. How then can it connect. Is the WEP key case senstive? Can I type it correctly twice?

The wireless connector is clearly very good. And once again a young man in Maplin picked the right one for me, talking me out of a complicated rewiring of the house that had been suggested.

This kind of faff has been what I've been doing in the painfully small amount of time I have to do stuff like this at home. Anyway, last night I cracked it. I couldn't work out why the wireless wouldn't work so called the ISP. Once again, like last time, a call centre in India talked me through the whole thing with ease. We are all online now. The printer, the work laptops, everything.

I used a new programme called Media Widget to get my music off my Ipod and onto the PC. Most is back - but there are about 70 still missing, but these were purchases and Apple should sort this for me. Fingers crossed. But what a carry on, eh? This computer lark, it'll never catch on.

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