Social media silence July 21, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings.trackback
Ever since I came back from my vacation in Florida to a dead computer (all I see is a wavy red checkerboard on the monitor and it won’t boot) I have been taking a break from social media. I’ve been working from my laptop, which although it has all the tools I need isn’t the most comfortable to work on. It also doesn’t have my Twitter add-on activated or a version of MS Money installed on it, which means I haven’t been entering my invoices into MS Money and balancing my finances. Luckily I had copied my latest quarterly spreadsheet and Taxes spreadsheet onto Dropbox before I left. Working from the laptop simply isn’t as convenient or as comfortable. I miss my ergonomic German keyboard and wide-screen monitor!
After trying to get a tech my friend recommended to come out (to no avail), my friend’s husband (who works for the Geek Squad) is coming to my place on Friday with a new computer (with Windows 7 and a parallel XP environment so I don’t have to upgrade all my dictionaries and tools). Luckily business has been somewhat slow, which I am relishing. I have had several small jobs a day and only two jobs of several thousand words each to occupy my time.
In return, my days have been filled with real life bothers like car repairs, taking the car to emissions testing so that I can renew my license plates, lining up repair service for my desk chair, gardening on my front porch, housework, taking the critters to the groomer, and manicures and massages (see – it’s not all bad news!). I promise to be back on Twitter once I have everything back up and running. I have to be honest though – I haven’t missed it all that much!
Musings from an overworked translator 
Hi,
have you tried connecting your wide-screen monitor to your laptop (via VGA, DVI or hdmi depending on which external video port your laptop features) and use a dual screen setup? If your favorite German keyboard is a USB keyboard (most laptops don’t have PS/2 connectors anymore), you could also connect it to your laptop.
thanks for the interesting posts as always
Fred
So that’s where you’ve been: hiding in the real world. Hope your tech problems get fixed soon, and come back to Twitter! It’s good to take a break once in a while, but you know… come back!
For me, it seems like at least once a year I have a computer crisis, your posting reminds me that doing my back ups is long overdue. Like you, when I can’t be working on my business I try to find the best use of my time and there is ALWAYS real life stuff that needs attending to. That way my time is not wasted and I don’t feel so frustrated. When computers are working, they are life savers, when they are not, it awful. Good luck on the new computer.
Shirley
At least you got a red checkerboard. When my computer tanked a few years back, it just died. No power, nothin’, nada. And I lost a lot of data, too (won’t make that mistake again). Isn’t technology wonderful?
Same here, Jill, when it comes to the silence. I am madly packing for my move.
Thanks for your recommendation recently, by the way. That series IS intended as a 3-parter, but sometimes the real world gets in the way…
Intriguing issue with the computer, by the way. I’d certainly have a go at diagnosing/fixing the issue if you were still in Bonn! 😉