:: The Wendy House ::

On a website called ars technica Joel Hruska points out that a Lloyds bank employee took offense at a customers online banking password ‘Lloydispants‘ then changed the password to ‘noitsnot’ .  When the customer tried to change the password again the Lloyds employee told the customer that several, slightly insulting to Lloyds, suggested passwords were also unacceptable. 

On discovering this story Lloyds officials declared that customers can have any secure password they want and added that the employee in question is no longer with them. 

With that pluck and sense of humour Lloyds should have promoted the employee into a position of influence.

Reasons to retire Darling,  part 4

1. Increasing requirements to contact computer support services

2. I am developing obstreperous-w intolerance.

3. 8loody hail, breeding task manager

4. I WANT Vista

I’ve used a Vista machine and I love all the search-stuff (start menu, control-panel),   I no longer have to remember where I put things.

Its got a thing called ’snippit’ which takes pictures of what’s on your screen in a much easier way that control-print-screen,  open-paint,  then paste. 

It’s pretty! The computer I used running Vista is a rather ugly thing,  unlike Darling.  I want to marry the two,  prettiness of Darlings body-work with the human-memory-complimenting functionality of Vista.

Reasons to retire Darling,  part 3

1. Increasing requirements to contact computer support services

2. I am developing obstreperous-w intolerance.

3. Generally increasing bizarre behaviours that do not actually require support calls because they are solved by reboots. 

In this example we see the results of my having hit control-alt-delete (CAD) in an attempt to get the task-manager so that I can Zap the program that for some reason is now using all my processing power….  nothing happened… then…   …I didn’t press CAD that many times,  its been breeding…

8loody hail, breeding task manager

Darling and I have trouble communicating multiple U’s. Darling’s w-key is getting fussy about being pressed,  it requires twice the pressure of any other key before it ill register a letter.  The increasing dodgyness of the keyboard as one of the core early symptoms of Tinkerbell’s stealth senility and eventual NMI Parity death. 

After over 2 years of daily blogging and travelling all over the place (and Spokane) maybe Darling is seeking retirement perks.

windows support answer to my query

No curmudgeonist moments for me today.

In less than a 24hr turnaround I got a response that was concise and useful.  I also tried to report my ‘bug’ to Google,  I couldn’t find a way to report it,  I used their ‘questions’ section and,  to my knowledge, no-one replied. 

I am a little bit short-sighted,  

I can read my computer screen with normal font sizes despite their ridiculously small size. 

Then one day, 

unexpectedly,

IE7 decided to give me

buttons bigger than bars of soap

and black-out the page content. 

It’s a cheeky little browser.

That IE7

Feeling pleased with myself for first discovering how to create a useful survey in Microsoft Office Sharepoint 2003,  then created one,  I finally sent a link out to some colleagues asking for feedback on the survey content. 

Colleague:  Do you want feedback on all the typing, spelling, grammar and spacing errors?

 The words ‘wind’ and ’sails’, (or sales),  with a liberal dose of ‘removed’  colons; semi-colons, commas and apostrophes galloped around my mind as I wondered whether ‘discrete personal editorial coaches’ is a job description gaining momentum in the service industry …

In the small cafes of Earley on Wokingham Road you can find mugs of tea,  English breakfasts and free wireless internet access.   You can also find many second-hand shops (US = Consignment,  thrift)  raising money for good causes:  Sue Ryder,  Barnados, Amnesty International to name 3 in but a mere 100 yard amble from Palmers park. 

The Wendy House still doesn’t have its own internet access so public hotspots have become an essential part of my weekend routine…  ..and jolly good fun it all is too. 

facilitator:  what’s this?

Wendy: an excel pie chart?

facilitator:  anything else?  a branding symbol

Wendy:  errrrrrmmmmm…

facilitator:  Mercedes

Wendy:  I’m a pedestrian

facilitator:  [?????]

An End User Licence Agreement (EULA) is the long legal agreement presented to you before you can use a specific software service.  Wikipedia says:

“The enforceability of an EULA depends on several factors, one of them being the court in which the case is heard. Some courts that have addressed the validity of the shrinkwrap license agreements have found some EULAs to be invalid…   … No Court has ruled on the validity of EULAs generally; decisions are limited to particular provisions and terms

I suspect that end users rarely read or,  and even more rarely, understand the implications of the EULA.  This undermines a EULAs validity beyond merely establishing a common-sensical understanding of software use.  I have no idea what a common-sensical understanding might be except perhaps privacy of the individuals’ information and the service providers intellectual property. I would value seeing an introduction of readable, understandable, short EULA’s.  Eulas that are actually designed to communicate to potential users rather than covering the legal-butt of the service providers. 

Given that the software providers MUST know that their users DO NOT READ and most likely DO NOT UNDERSTAND the provided EULA,  merely providing a requirement to accept before progressing is INSUFFICIENT safeguard for either the service provider of the user.  

A google search on the phrase “guidelines for producing understandable EULAs” did not find any such guidelines.  In my opinion the software and legal industries are morally obliged to produce short, succinct, clear EULAs otherwise a Nation’s court systems wealthy users will have to pay,  through expensive disputes,  to establish the precedents that may be limited to nation,  state, laws rather than developed for the general good of people who I suspect behaive in a consistent way when dealing with EULAs.  Less empowered people will pay through loosing their privacy and rights through lack of awareness of what the service is actually costing them.  Recently a friend on facebook invited me to join a group called ”Against Facebook integrity rape“.  The group’s point appeared more generic to EULA’s generically,  treating facebook as a specific case.  The group description says:

Automatically people who join facebook accept a 13-page legalcontract. This contract in short makes ALL your info, pictures and EVERYTHING you do on Facebook their property.
You don’t have to accept this. If enough people empty their photoalbums and only have a protest or nothing as profile photo, then perhaps they will react. Also if enough people join this group and mail Facebook that this slave contract isn’t OK that would help to keep pressure on them.

I chose not to join this group because I object to the groups unwise choise to use of the terms slave and rape to describe Facebook’s EULA agreement.  This choice under-emphasizes the extreme negative experience of slavery and rape, the absolute lack of free choice available to slaves,  in a EULA people have CHOSEN to publish information that could be used in (EULA detailed) ways that are more akin to the experience of THEFT than RAPE where there is no consent. Understanding how your information, writings, pictures, held by a service will or wont be subject to proliferation,  republishing etc is a fundamental civil rights issue that deserves the attention of people equipped to make good decisions on behalf of normal , click and explore rather than read essays, software users.

Why hasn’t it happened already?

Has it happened and I missed it?

OOOOPS!  the BBC reports that the UK govenment has mislaid the indentity information of people who claim child-support benefit.  Everyone with a child under 16 is entitled to this benefit. 

Alistair Darling does have a fabulous name,  at school in the 1970’s my teachers referred to boy-pupils by their family name,  can you imagine referring to him as Darling in class.  Character building all around I’d say!

Decision quality is inversely proportional to the rate of decisions made and directly proportional to prior experience of making similar decisions provided the hormone level remains constant which the bugger never does. 

Darling’s cascading start menu is

icky

because I have to be very dextrous with Darlings touchpad to pick the right item at the top-level, and it gets even more tricky to get the second level menu to stay there long-eough to get to a specific choice there.  I rarely manage to get to the third level,  at least not without buckets of tears. 

fabulous

because it holds long readable lists of all sorts of things that I could use.  They are hidden away until I click on whatever opens the menu and then I can see it all without clicking again.  No multiple clicks to see something, no digging around,  I can easily visually scan.  I virtually never go there, having these things hidden then scannable even when I get the impulse to run a quick disc defragmentation.  The cascade is works,  I really don’t want to have to remember where things are.

A couple of fellows compared web-based cascading menus,  with drop-down menus and in-page menus by timing people while they searched for things in them and asking them to rate their experience.   In-page navigation came out with the fastest-performance and being most liked.   Hoorah for inplace menus in web-pages.  Please don’t do that to Darling.  I defintiely would not like all of Darling’s start menu items on my desktop.  Quick access to my disk defragmenter and my control panel from my desktop is not really what I want.  I quite like them hidden away in the start menu. 

Darlings lovely cascading start menu,  you can see lots of things that I rarely use, all at once!:

person wearing Khaki Cargo pants walks by and I hear this fade-in then fade-away:

 ”…….so then I implemented the kill button which wasn’t that nice but it did the job,  all the ants died……”

*I’m not here, there, really.  I’m probably fidgetting on a plane flying over the Atlantic Ocean while the person behind me repeatedly knees me in back,  the person next to me picks their nose whenever I look at them,  the other person on the other side is silently flatulent.  I used an automatic-doobry to hide that I’m not there,  all not there,  already completely GONE.  

Gosh,  I hope I’m OK.

On a Friday night in Spring every warm blooded girl’s thoughts turn to disk defragmentation and clean-up.  Well,  not really.

While snooping around in Darlings  programs I found some accessories that include tools. Curiosity tempted me to click on Defragment.  It makes a multi-coloured barcode get less red and more clumpy-blue.   Hoorah for blue.   Since it’s Spring disc clean-up seemed like the kind of thing a responsible human being should be doing.  I did it!  See how much spring fun I’ve been having:

I wonder if Darling will be a bit perkier now she’s been cleaned up and defragmented,  or more prone to some promiscuous P2P? 

should cc be replaced by copy in e-mail writing, compose, templates?

When you write an e-mail there’s normally an address entry box below the one marked to this box is consistently labelled cc in every software that I checked:

• Gmail
• MSN Hotmail 
• Windows Livemail Beta
• Outlook 2003
• Outlook Express on XP

The consistency supports people’s ability to move between different e-mail softwares.  It doesn’t support virgin e-mailers that have never seen or heard of cc.  Everyone will be a virgin e-mailer, at least once

Cc is shorthand for Carbon Copy.  Do you remember carbon copies?  Do the children you know have an idea what a carbon copy is, or was?  Imagine you are a child,  learning to use e-mail.  Look at a new open e-mail can you easily guess what cc means?  Can you guess why you might want to use cc,  when is it appropriate to use cc rather than the to address entry line?  Imagine that you have to describe what cc means for an e-mail?  How would you do that?  I suspect software producers didn’t label it copy becasue copy has two more letters than cc and that takes up valuable screen real-estate.

I remember carbon copies,  in the US, the check (cheque) books still use carbon copies! Carbon dating, rather than Carbon copying,  is probably more familiar to today’s youngsters.  Personal opinon,  no research involved.

Then there is bcc.  Bcc, Blind Carbon Copy introduces a whole new can of worms for both virgin and experienced emailers that I will temporarily turn a blind eye to, for brevity’s sake.

beyond a criticism of the use of cc within email software my point is:

Software that uses the shorthand acronym (or small picture; icon) for a current technology (i.e. carbon) may enhance understanding of its meaning for the people familiar with that current technology but can have a long term adverse impact on subsequent generations’ ability to learn what the label means and how to use it effectively. 

Planning possible distractions for our drive across the USA

likely:

• Idaho: “A cosmic journey through time, space… and Idaho“ to the Center of the Universe,  a manhole cover in Wallace.  If we can find the restaurant at the center of the Universe we’ll stop for some heavy food.
• South Dakota:  A night in the National Historical Landmark that is Deadwood, signposts to and a wander though Wall Drug (map), the Black Hills,  Mount Rushmore,  Custer state park and a night in the Badlands (Map).
• Wisconsin: The House on the Rock (Map);  The Unitarian Meeting House, by Frank Llloyd Wright while listening to Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge over troubled waters”.
• Illinois:  Chicago stuff (possibly: City Hall, Water Tower, Haymarket Square, Jane Addams Hull House, the Tiffany ceiling in Macy’s on State street, Lake Shore Drive). 
• New York:  the Guggenheim Museum, another Frank Lloyd Wright.

unlikely: 

• Idaho:  Yellowstone park (map). 

As well as the Patsy Cline and Johny Cash Albums and a purple hat I have purchased a copy of Microsoft “Streets and Trips” with a GPS locator (The GPS service is free with the software!).  On the journey my laptop will plug into the lighter-socket on the truck and tell us (voice!) how to get to the places we want to go!  You can find Indian Restaurants,  Information centers,  Museums,  Gas Stations and all sorts of useful things.   Why pay for an expensive incar GPS navigation system when for less than $150.00 you can use your own laptop both in and OUT of your car.  oh, oh OH!  I’ll calm down later.  Reports of heat on the East coast are severe.  This trip is going to be HOT.

We’re open to recommendations for places to visit… …what would you try and see or avoid on this route?

overheard phrase:

’so I was manually trying to delete 3 binaries from the drive’

wendy-ist deconstruction:

• so = popular US phrase opener that appears be shorthand for ‘this is what happened next’ 
• manually = an unoffensive gender biased word that appears to mean not using any fancy tools.  rather than ‘men not using fancy tools’.
• delete = software technical jargon for ‘remove’
• binaries = things that can only have two states, like ‘true’ or ‘false’ rather then having a continuum of existence or any form or ambiguity. 
• drive = some computer part,  not something that you do in your car

phrase recast to wendy world:

‘this is what happened next i was not using any fancy tools to remove 3 things that can only have two states from some computer part.

born to waffle,  that’s me!

When? After

1. any insensitivity crime.
2. sending an email containing a rude word (examples:  Toilet,  Communion) to a large distribution list.
3. rear-ending the car in front (I haven’t done this… yet)
4. purchasing a new Sony Vaio laptop called Darling.

We’re going to focus on #4.  Darling didn’t come with any CD’s,  no recovery CD’s,  no copy of Windows XP CD.  Darling travelled light.  This lack of CD’s was a little distrubing at first,  then,  in all the excitement of a new pink laptop I soon forgot the lack of recovery CDs….   

can you guess what’s coming?

Tonight I made a back-up DVD using the Vaio software.  All should be well in the Wendy House when Darling decides she isn’t playing ball.  Do I know what I’ve backed up?  Um,  ‘the system’ of course!  What’s the system?  I haven’t a clue.  Will recovery give me all my programs,  anti-spyware and antivirus subscriptions,  favourite lists,  digital photographs,  and email?  Darned if I know.  Why don’t these programs tell me.  All it said was “recommended“,  not what that back-up covers.  System????  How VAGUE is that! 

Obviously,  I’ll find out what ’system’ is when I have to ‘recover’ it.

Summary

1. It’s firkin HOT
2. I spent a bundle on a replacement digital camera
3. Installed IE7.0 Beta 3 on my home laptop and regretted it,  then it worked and I got ditsy happy again.

3 blog entries for the price of one!  (free)

HOT details

As anyone in the US who’s ventured outside today knows, its worse than muggy.  It’s jennifer agitating, dangerously oppressive.  Niether my home nor my old car have those wonderful systems that produce cooled air.  I’ve already had 3 cold showers today and I haven’t even seen or sniffed a cute lad in or out of his khaki cargo pants.  A three shower day without sexing is way too hot for a northerner like me. 

In search of air conditioning I made a trip to a Mall. 

BUNDLE details

On flick-r I’d placed a couple of the photograph’s that I’m most proud of in a group that rate’s photo quality.  I was really pleased to find that some people would consider framing my pictures on the wall.  Thanks!  One person commented that if the picutre was more crisp it would be a lot better.  My Canon Powershot S330 digital camera is at least 4 years old.  It doesn’t have the resolution and quality of newer cameras.  It has had an exciting life;  its been swimming in moutain rivers in the early hours of the morning;  its bounced off numerus floors around the world;  it’s casing is cracked.  It’s a real trooper because it still works fine.  

The air conditioned Mall had a camera shop.   

I’m really looking forward to my ‘once in a lifetime’ vacation driving the I90 across America.  I will be documenting it with stories and pictures.  My Canon could do the job.  I do like taking pictures and I don’t like taking ‘fuzzy’ pictures which happens too often.  The result is that I want a new camera.  I spent hours playing with all the camera’s in the camera-shop.  Oooooh  fun.  Then I walked away with this:

can you see the ‘fuzziness’ added by my dear old Canon?  Enjoy it now because it wont be happening again…. future photographs will have HARD LINES.  Wendy gets hard on fuzziness.

How much is a bundle?  Approximately the same price as one of these list items:

• half a classy sofa
• two pairs of undiscounted italian designer shoes
• six mani & pedi cures
• ten full tanks of gas

I need another cold shower to calm down after parting with all that cash.

IE7.0 details

I want tabbed browsing and any other fancy features IE7.0 might give me.  I installed it.  Loved the tabbed browsing.  I now have 3 home pages,  Hooray!…. …..But…..

When I navigated to my ftp site to drop the above picture onto my webserver I discovered that I could log-in but I could no longer use drag and drop to move a picture to the server.  30 minutes of trying all sorts and I didn’t manage to use IE7.0 as an ftp client.  CRAP.  My workaround was to use the FTP client provided by the hosting service.  700 clicks and you’re done.  YUCK.  I tried to uninstall IE7.0.  I couldn’t find a way to do this. BOLLOCKS.  I’m angry-MAD.  Grrrrrrr….  …blame the heat….

late update:  IE7.0 works as FTP client now - must just take some ‘time’ before the controls work in liaison with the server.  I’m a happy bunny now 

wendy: I did this then that then this to the computer and it just farted at me.support:  pinch your not insubstantial nose between your thumb and forefinger then try then this and that..

Loop the conversation theme above for over an hour through 8 loops and different computer produced offences, then

 computer error message:   “go away,  I’m full of cow-pats and will explode to sprinkle them all over you and your not insubstantial nose”

support:  I can’t solve this over the phone. I’ll send someone round to spank your computer tomorrow“

Hah!  I normally have to spank my own computers around here.  Though whipping them with power-cables only fixes my mood.

Another support fellow glanced at the quagmire of equipment surrounding me ‘do you work in hardware production?’ prompting a complete break-down in Wendy-composure.   I fell over;  lay laughing in a matted muddle of cables ‘yes,  I think I do‘ this handsome lad helped me off the floor and began to teach me a thing or two.  Gosh!  My profuse gratitude almost exclaimed a proposal.  

(extremely boring entry warning)

today I had to scan a copy of my new passport information for the US immigration people.  I haven’t used my scanner since Tinkerbell bit the dust.  Somewhere in the universe there is a CD that I should use to make my Canon scanner work with Darling.  Do I know where it is?  Um,  no,  Do I want to rummage through piles of user manuals and CD’s in some dark disorganised cupboard, err, no thanks.  I probably threw the CD away when recycling the original packaging,  I like to live ‘light’.  Below is a description of my punishment for trying to live light…… 

1. plug scanner into one of Darling’s ample USB ports.  Little balloony-thing says new device detected and pops a wizardy thing asking me to either 
   • insert my CD 
   • search for the drivers on the internet 
   • browse to a folder that contains the drivers. 
2. Search the internet.  Drivers not found.  Bollocks.
3. Try a different USB port.  Drivers not found.  Bollocks.
4. Find driver downloads on Cannon’s web page,  find the name of my scanner (on the scanner) and download the driver.  Didn’t read the instructions. Just clicked ‘download’ and ‘run’.  That should work.
5. Unplug and replug the scanner.  Select manually point to a folder that contains the driver.  Darn,  I didn’t check where the download put it.  I’ll point to the windows folder,  its probably put there and its the default place being pointed to by the search anyway. Drivers not found.  Bollocks.
6. Try a different USB port.  Drivers not found.  Bollocks.
7. Go back to the Cannon download site and read the instructions.  I should have clicked on some “set-up.exe” once I’d done the download.  Bollocks.  Since I have no idea where the download went,  I download the drivers again and save them to my network drive with a sensible name rather than meaningless name that Canon has used.  Aha,  progress!  I run the set-up.exe. 
8. Unplug and replug the scanner.  Select manually point to a folder that contains the driver.  Try to select the folder on my network drive.  But,  when I point at this folder the dialog wont let me select ‘OK’,  it only lets me point to the Windows folder.  Bollocks.
9. Copy the downloaded folder into the windows folder,  run the set-up.exe again (just incase). Unplug and replug the scanner point to the folder containing the drivers.  Drivers not found Bollocksy-Bollocks.
10. Make cup of tea.  Breath slowly and deeply.
11. Open the device manager.  It shows my Scanner with a yellow exclamation mark over it - no drivers.  Right-click on this and select ‘update drivers’ get the same wizardy thing I’ve already tried 700x.  Point to the folder where I’ve downloaded the files.  Drivers not found Bollocksy-Bollocks with brass-knobs on. 
12. Start pulling at my hair and take the swearing up a notch to ‘unpublishable’.
13. Open the folder that I downloaded from Cannon,  notice there’s a second .exe in there that I haven’t yet clicked on.  Click on it.
14. Unplug and replug the scanner.  The yellow balloony-thing this time includes the name of the scanner.  Hooray.  A dialogue pop’s up asking me what I want windows to do everytime I plug in this device,  it includes an option for running the ’scanner wizard’,  thankyou,  I’ll take that please.  Then I successfully scan my passport for the US immigration people.  Phew.

Rumour has it that Windows Vista will be hot on ‘plug and play’.  No more keeping old CD’s from device manufacturers with the device,  no more searching for and installing (or failing to) drivers from the device manufacturers website.  I hope.  Vista might just let me plug in my scanner and scan.  In the future normal people might not have to know about drivers to use their computers.

How sexy is that?   ooooooOOOOOoooo  

My nail-file is banned from US plane hand luggage.  I can take my laptop on a flight.  I wonder how Air Transport Security are planning to deal with suicide laptops.

Two students using Apple computers in a coffee house with a free unsecure wireless access point to create and ad hoc network so that one can give the other copies of her ‘Office’ programs. 

Just the opening phrase ‘turn off your fire wall and enable file sharing’ made my gut twist.  

Setting up an ad hoc network on an Apple computer is not an inutitive task based experience. 

The experienced Apple user had done this before. I watched her ’back track’ and try different things before she successfully created the network.  She recognised when she did the right thing but was unable to recall (big human memory load) clear steps.  There were numerous obvious usability issues,  for example, when making the connection it was unclear whose credentials were needed,  the local or remote PC login.  Anyone familiar with the necessary technical pre-requisits to set-up an ad hoc network could probably complete this task but the steps are not clearly laid out in a user task centric format.  I was able to understand and follow what the technically able Apple user was doing.  I would have had trouble working it out myself. 

After the Office programs were installed on the newer laptop they concientiously remembered to turn-off sharing,  turn on the firewall, and drink their coffee.  Phew….

I’m still a bit confused about how one Apple user can give another computer a program (in this case Office) without there being any credit sent to the company that sells that program.  Why would Apple want their users to be able to ‘give’ away programs?  If I owned a business writing quality software programs this would deter me from writing programs for Apple computers because I would only get money from a few sales before the users were simply sharing the program for free,  leading to my business failing and my having to go home and live with mother.   

oOo look: 

Darling’s ‘Device Manager’ says she has 3 playful monitors!  I can only find one.  This baby is full of suprises,  I’ll keep looking for the other two… …maybe they’re disguised…

This was scrawled directly onto a PC screen with a pen!  I ‘borrowed’ the Tablet PC from a friend at work.  I had to tear it from his arms leaving him trembling in the corridor as I ran clutching my prize and laughing maniacally.  WOW (Wendy One Wants)…  …oh,  geekiness abounds…   …that’s like ’sploginess abounds’ without music or being stuck in the 1980’s:

aren’t you glad you can read my typed, rather than scrawled, miss-spellings 

The graph-map thingy below shows USA States that I have

• explored a bit (lilac)
• got lost in an airport (pink)
• probably flown-over (yellow)

apologies to the 3 United States (Hawaii, Alaska, Britain) not included in this Excel MapPoint thingy. 

Excel can tell me how many US states I have explored indside and outside of an airport…

Excel has not worked out how to predict the State’s I will visit……opportunity for product development? 

My gorgeous little Sony Ericsson T610 mobile phone reminds me of the answers to all these questions. 

It synchronizes with my Outlook 2003 contacts and calendar.  Both Darling and my phone know where I have to be and when I have to be there.  If they are turned-on, they remind me.  Wonderful for a scatterbrain like me.  My phone is always turned on.  I just need to remember to charge and synchronize it.  I did have to buy a ‘Bluetooth adapter’ to enable Darling and my mobile phone to build a ‘partnership’.  Disappointing that a brand new laptop had neither an Infra-Red beam port or internal Bluetooth given how common these connection methods are on phones. 

Now I dont ‘remember’ anyones phone number or where I have to be when,  my phone does it for me…. 

Geeky GUSH!

Darling’s inside casing is a light metalic pink.  Her touchpad is the same light metalic pink.  The gal not only has style she has 3 USB ports on her sides near the front.  Easy to plug-in and remove a mouse, music player,  camera,  or any other thing,  all at the same time!  Versatility with working well are so so so SEXY Oh!

Tinkerbell (HP Compaq nx9010) exceeded expectations.  Originally purchased as a ‘cheap’ functional laptop to enable exchange-student lovely, Swedish Frida, study and instant message from anywhere in The Wendy House.  Neither were intended to last more than one year.  Rent a teenager,  buy a laptop. 

First power-up by Frida.  Connected to the internet with a new Microsoft wireless base station. (17 Aug. 2003)

Blaster worm victim, rescued by Mark and Fizzz for the bargain price of a curry. (Aug. 2003)

New external wireless card.  Her internal wireless was Frida-irritatingly flakey. Irritating Frida is a very risky and dangerous passtime.  (Sept. 2003)

Bonding with Frida. They regularly slept together (2003-2004).

Frida ceases torturing us by returning to Stockholm and leaves Tinkerbell with me. Tinkerbell becomes my main digital photograph store (Jul. 2004)

I bonded with Tinkerbell by blogging on MSN Spaces (Feb 2005 thru Feb 2006)

Grinding noises spook me. I purchase a Network drive and use it to back-up Tinkerbell’s contents. (Aug. 2005)

Tinkerbell tours the UK. I store my travel photographs on flick-r.  After several blue screen’s her hard drive ‘dies’. (Sept. 2005)

New hard drive. Installation was not easy.  Mark solved the problem with a bit of expert serendiptious trouble shooting (Oct. 2005). 

Replaced Tinkerbell’s original Microsoft wireless base station with LinkSys wireless base station. (Nov. 2005)

Power-supply cable melts into Tinkerbell’s casing. (Jan. 2005)

Purchased a USB keyboard to augment Tinkerbell’s dodgy keyboard. (Feb. 2006)

Keyboard connection flakiness,  power-connection flakiness, USB connections flakiness,  display reliability and recent bluescreens suggest that euthenasia is the best choice for Tinkerbell. (Mar. 2006)

Tinkerbell will be dismantled to satisfy my curiosity and for parts. (Apr. 2006)

Tinkerbell resting in pieces (RIP)