What do you MEAN my magic wand is a trojan?

Disillusionment envelopes me. My glittering sparkling magic wand cursor is a trojan. hmph.

When I was downgraded to this Aptiva computer of mine from my screaming Pentium 4 with 1 Gig of Memory... or wait, is that a false memory rearing it's ugly head? No I think I really did have a better computer last month. It could process a Seti@home unit in 4 and a bit hours. This one is on hour 47 and not even close to done.

Still, I am online and happy and I dont really need to download every single episode of Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, Absolutely Fabulous, Black Adder and Corner Gas... do I? Not on this machine anyway.

I am in the debt of some friends I met online who live in Macedonia.
When I could not find the drivers for this machine on the IBM site I took it to the local professional. He told me he gave up looking after one hour and a half. "They don't exist", he said. "Your computer is too old."

I live in the upperclass resort town so naturally most of his customers would counter with something like: " For Heavens sake my good man, sell me something decent and take this clunker off my hands."
I just said thanks and went home and sent out the distress call.

My Macedonian friends told me they do not have the luxury of newness for many things so they know how to fix things. They told me it took them longer to compose me the email than to find and attach the drivers.
Aptiva machines have the drivers on the motherboard for sound, usb etc.
My display had been stuck in hokey 16 color mode which is fine for text but rather obnoxious for any site with a plug-in. MOST sites.

After I installed the drivers I still had no sound but the display was perfect and I certainly wouldnt have complained. One of the fellas asked me how the sound was. "oh we forgot to send the sound driver" he said and voila... it arrived the next day.

So my friend in Macedonia who builds motorcycles for a living did me a wonderful turn while the man who would charge me the big dineros told me this machine is "too olde" with "non-existant drivers no longer available."

Thank you so much Morg and Rad and Dada. I know you dont read my blog nor even know I have one. But those who do should know that they are still people in the world who would help a total stranger for no profit at all to themselves just because they believe it is the right thing TO do.

I cannot tell you how happy I am on this old Aptiva.
It just hums along processing slow slow slow even on my lightning fast connection and boy, do I love it.

There is a Barbra Streisand song in here somewhere.
;P

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