External modems and internal vision

I feel guilty being even the slightest unhappy with my world, when I have water, food, a roof over my head, and medical care (at least until March 31st). But, it is the only way to let you know I have not abandoned my blog, it has just been a bit hard to get to lately.

You would think that you could plug in a new computer and be good to go, alas, NO!

My faithful Gateway tablet gave up its ghost. I am obsessive about back ups and also got a few hours advanced warning that things were not right, so i did not lose my book or anything, however, my new Dell Inspiron 1545 came complete with OUT a modem.

Okay, you look through the list of stuff you are getting and you notice what they are giving you but nowhere did it say, at least in noticeable letters, you do NOT get an internal modem. I then ordered one and got online quite fine until I went to my Master's Daughter for Christmas and enjoyed WiFi, came home and my Internet would not work.

Yes, I am still on AOL dial-up. It stinks, but it is all I have, so i checked the setting and I was indeed trying to go on dial-up, with my external modem and then I spent an hour, on the phone with Dell. We did so much changing that I could not possibly write down each step just in case and sure enough, just in case happened the next time I went to the library on DSL. And, it did.

So, I am currently on a very old Windows XP desktop, on dial up. Some days I can get on, some days I cannot. I am working on the laptop again but my eyes are complicating all of it.

This is also not the month to fight anything having to do with reading as I am having cataract surgery and, while I now have 20/20 vision in my right eye (a new one for me) I am really struggling to read. Believe me, had I known and if this was elective surgery, I would not have done it. I would rather wear glasses and be able to read easily. But, since cataracts have to go, I did not have a choice.

I am sincerely hoping that tomorrow, after the left eye is done, that things will eventually even out or whatever, at the very least I will get reading glasses, and life will be back to normal; well, as normal as my life ever gets, once i get my laptop working on line.

My new Dell and I are cohabitating.

When the Gateway broke, I was devastated. Since the clips on the swivel screen had broken a year earlier, I was not too surprised but I loved that machine. Then, I used grandson's Gateway with VISTA. Not a good match but I found out that if you force yourself to use it, you can make peace.

My new Dell has Windows 7. We are in discovery mode with each other. I have figured out how to stop my thumb from setting off weird windows. I have also discovered that they make computers without modems now. Yeah, you out there in the boondocks, no modem! Who would have thunk???

It took me about forty minutes on their help phone to get my new external modem to actually work, but here I am back online. Now, the problem is my webpage. It works but I have these HTML errors and I am just not sure how critical that is. I do have several pages left to go.

We spent several days, of the holidays, with my Master's daughter and, guess what? Yep, her computer broke down too but was still under warranty. The bad thing, for me (not for her), was that she lost all her notes on my book. I guess that is for her too as she has promised to go over it again. She is only working three jobs right now, so what the heck???

Hope you all had a good holiday.