Computer woes

[Catrin]

To make a long story short, I won't have a computer, or internet access at home outside of my iPhone for week or so. I figured it out, and I think this will have been the first time this has happened since something like 1988 :eek: Back in the days of dialing directly into BBS and paying long-distance charges for the pleasure :)

It was a comedy of errors - computer guy came to my house to replace the motherboard as I have in-home warranty service for a LARGE 1-piece computer, and the NEW motherboard was bad! Oh well, at least it isn't costing me any money.

What WILL I do without a computer at home for that long?

RIDE :)

[OakLeaf]

Ha ... we just got our internet back on this afternoon, first time since Saturday. Traveling and/or too wet to ride ... I developed my thumb dexterity. :cool:

[Mr. Bloom]

Hmmm...tonight I was at a meeting and had my laptop, iPad, and iPhone....and I was using them all! I think I'm in The Matrix

[Roadtrip]

Ahhhhhh... BBS.. Squawks/schreeks from a dial up modem... Dot matrix printers... 5 1/2" floppy disks... Hard drives LESS then 1GB.

What did we ever do before dsl, blazing fast computers the size of an iPhone, and WiFi?!?!

[tulip]

Um, read a book? I'm currently reading a real, paper book. It's a wonderful invention, actually. You don't have to plug it in, and it doesn't have any nausea-inducing animations. And all the vivid and creative images are wired directly into my brain! Talk about wireless!

Pretty amazing what they can do these days.

[withm]

Um, read a book? I'm currently reading a real, paper book. It's a wonderful invention, actually. You don't have to plug it in, and it doesn't have any nausea-inducing animations. And all the vivid and creative images are wired directly into my brain! Talk about wireless!

Pretty amazing what they can do these days.

Here's an "early" book - you should enjoy this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ&feature=related

[Pip]

I met my husband via a BBS. We joke we had an Internet relationship before the Internet. Now I have an iPhone I couldn't imagine not being connected. I have Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and GoogleReader on it. We did go on holiday for a week over New Years where there was no connection whatsoever, and it was most strange, but probably good for me, and certainly good for my attention span!

BTW: I'm typing this on the sofa with my laptop next to my husband who is online gaming on his laptop. We are quite pathetic and have been known to Tweet eachother from opposite sides of the house ...

[Trek-chick]

Um, read a book? I'm currently reading a real, paper book. It's a wonderful invention, actually. You don't have to plug it in, and it doesn't have any nausea-inducing animations. And all the vivid and creative images are wired directly into my brain! Talk about wireless!

Pretty amazing what they can do these days.

I love real books.... Couldn't imagine reading off of a netbook ever, I need pages to flip. I just wrote my niece a letter yesterday too. Forget emails etc. There is nothing like a written letter.

[Mr. Bloom]

Um, read a book? I'm currently reading a real, paper book. It's a wonderful invention, actually. You don't have to plug it in, and it doesn't have any nausea-inducing animations. And all the vivid and creative images are wired directly into my brain! Talk about wireless!


Au contrare!;). Yesterday, I went to Barnes and Noble to get a gift for DW's coworker. To save time, I pulled up the book on BN.com, went to customer service, and said "I want one of these, please". She took me to the book...$99..."is there a mistake! It's $78 on YOUR OWN WEBSITE". "No sir, it's a different pricing strategy. Shall I order it for $78 and have it delivered to your house?"

Awkward moment "you mean it's $22 cheaper to have it shipped across the country to my house than it is to buy the one that's in my hand?". Hmmm, that's a successful value proposition:rolleyes:

Ahem...I paid a $22 premium for the privilege of getting them gift wrap it for me...when I asked for a bow, they said "sorry, we're out...[and I quote]'you'll need to go to Target to get a bow'"!!!!!

This is me, recommitted to my AMAZON Kindle!:D

Sorry for the hijack!

[OakLeaf]

Same thing with a bait-and-switch at Best Buy the other day ... DH had found a cable on sale online, of course none of the stores had it in stock even though the consumer-side website said they did - but they did have very nice cables starting at four times the price! No thanks. Showed the clerk the SKU number on the website, ordered the cable, walked out with NOTHING else.

And I'm doing plenty of reading. More than I had in a while, actually - thanks to my iPad and Sony Reader. Yes, I do regret the energy usage. But not enough to carry another couple of pounds everywhere I go - it DOES make a difference. I have a couple of paper books in my stack, that I just can't seem to get around to.

The iPad animates page turning, very faithfully. Sometimes I find it a little bit creepy ... other times, if I get distracted from what I'm reading, I might just sit there and curl the page back and forth, side to side. :p

[Mr. Bloom]

The good news: I just found out that the recipient was brought to tears by the gift...that's worth $22 (plus $1.99 for the box:rolleyes:) :cool:

[tulip]

Well, I get my books from the library. I think of it as off-site storage for all my books.

[SheFly]

Well, I get my books from the library. I think of it as off-site storage for all my books.

Tulip - that would be books in the cloud ;)

SheFly

[OakLeaf]

Well, I get my books from the library. I think of it as off-site storage for all my books.

I download books from the library, too. :D

[Mr. Bloom]

Well, I get my books from the library. I think of it as off-site storage for all my books.

Touché ;):D

[OakLeaf]

What did we ever do before dsl, blazing fast computers the size of an iPhone, and WiFi?!?!

We sat around wondering and arguing about stuff that we forgot about before we were able to get somewhere that we could confirm it. ;)

[tulip]

Tulip - that would be books in the cloud ;)

SheFly

I simply prefer to hold a paper book. I like the feel of the pages, the smell of books. I like to go to the library and browse the shelves and discover books I might not know about (and therefore could not look up on the internet). I'm a tactile person, though, and not everyone is.

I don't consider myself a luddite. I obviously use the internet; I even have very fast FiOS connection in my home and the internet allows me to work from home instead of going into an office. In fact, I live in a different state than my employer simply because I want to live here. Without internet, my job would dictate where I live, instead of me dictating where I live. I have an iphone 4 (Verizon--I actually can use the phone in rural areas), and I have quite a few apps. I use my computer every day for work and for some play. But I don't have a TV and I don't use facebook or twitter, so I guess I'm luddite-lite. My non-work hours are usually spent exercising, daily life, gardening, and reading--real books from the real library, the library that I ride my bike to.

[roadie gal]

2-3 days a month I go to a small town in Nevada to work at a part time job. I take my RV and park in the parking lot of the hospital for the days I'm there. I don't have a TV or a computer. I access the internet on my phone just long enough to check my email and delete those generous offers to make my p@nis bigger :rolleyes:. That's it. I find it very freeing.

[Catrin]

Ahhhhhh... BBS.. Squawks/schreeks from a dial up modem... Dot matrix printers... 5 1/2" floppy disks... Hard drives LESS then 1GB.

What did we ever do before dsl, blazing fast computers the size of an iPhone, and WiFi?!?!

Sit and read a book as we waited for things to download - and I remember having a computer with a 150 MB hard drive - and being quite proud of having all of that space :cool:


I download books from the library, too. :D

This is a nice feature of the Sony Reader, and it returns them automatically when you forget - I just found that out the hard way ;) Well, it disables them and that amounts to the same thing!

I love real books, but I do enjoy my Sony Reader - though some of the books aren't much cheaper than the hard-back version. Options are nice though, and I am thankful to have it :)