Computer Curse

Before coming over here in Manila, I knew I had to work on the computer in the office since it was apparently taken over by a nasty virus and took HOURS if not days to even open Windows. I disassembled Matt's old computer from San Diego and brought it over to replace the one here. I figured that would take less time than assembling a new one. Right.

I spent the last 20 hours fixing that darn computer. First I had to setup the laptop so that Matt can work while I fix. That took longer than expected because I had to transfer email from Windows Vista to Outlook Express. No easy way to do it. Windows Mail is not yet backwards compatible (and why would they even do that really?!?) After manually doing it, the next thing on the list is the printer. I needed the driver for the ancient printer in the office. That took another hundred years to download. (And I thought we had "high speed" connection here!).

With the laptop all setup, I was ready to take a nap then work on fixing the desktop. Oh wait....we had a lunch appointment with the lawyers!!! So the computer will have to wait. I could barely stay awake at the Makati Sports Club Pattisserie. I am not sure how many cups of coffee I downed but I survived and went back to the apartment.

Phase 2 should have been fast and easy. After all, it was a working computer I brought over. All I needed to do is rebuild it using the case and power supply of the old computer here. Wrong! Murphy strikes again. For some strange reason, WinXP kept restarting which is a clear symptom that one of the hardwares does not want to play nicely. What???? But they were all the same hardware that cohabitated together in San Diego. What's the fuss now???

The only way to find out is to install/reinstall one by one every hardware connected to the motherboard. You can just imagine how frustrating that was and how long it took me to do it--considering I haven't had any sleep since we arrived at 4:00 am.

Long story short, the computer got fixed. I took a nap for a couple of hours, and woke up to find out that it had restarted by itself again. For no apparent reason. Oooooookey.....

It is now 2:22 am on Wednesday. I've had 2 hours of sleep after 24 hours of door-to-door travelling. I'll give up for now and let the computer warm up (or maybe it wasn't cold enough in the office) a bit and check again later.

Where's Matt? Once in a while, he'll come out of the bedroom and check on me, or watch the news, or get something to snack on from the fridge. (yeah right...more likely a nice cold beer or whatever is available). After all these years, he's learned not to interrupt when I am frustrated about getting a computer fixed.

I'll get it fixed eventually. And there's no sense getting us both frustrated about it.