They say procrastination is the thief of time, so I've been thinking of giving my computer a new name: Procrastination. It's a simple question of logic, or maths: let's use P for Procrastination, T for Thief of Time, and C for my computer; if P=T, and C=T, then C=P.

It's just that once I sit down at this machine, with the intention of "just doing x", one thing leads to another and time disappears. There are so many possibilities, there are blogs to write and blogs to read, there are emails and Messenger and games and all sorts of fun... Not to mention the tendency of this thing to suddenly decide that it wants to install some update or other, do a scan, or get stuck, just when I thought I would send a quick email and get on with the non-virtual parts of life!

Ho hum - what's a blog for if you can't get these things off your chest...

Both feel better after some prayer and some rest.

A few hours ago I felt absolutely exhausted. The fact that my computer was on a go-slow strike didn't help. It was worrying.

I asked God for wisdom. I asked people to pray. I switched the computer off and went and sat in an armchair for a while with a coffee and a book.

God is good. I feel much better. The computer is behaving itself again. Halleluiah!

Did I say their helpline was helpful and worth every penny of the £8.99 a month that they charge? If you hear a crunching sound it's me eating my words, with salad dressing. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, read my previous blog.)

When I got this new laptop part of the setting-up instructions was about making a recovery DVD, whatever that is. Well, I thought, shame they didn't think to tell me in the shop that I would need a blank DVD. Oh well. So as soon as I could I went and bought some. However, when I tried to make the recovery DVD, I got an error message. (Of course the error message was in Computerese, not in English, so that didn't help me.)

I won't bore you with all the details of the different variations on the theme that I tried. The long and the short of it is, I couldn't get it to work.

Having other things to do, I didn't get round to ringing the PC World helpline about it until a few days ago - over  a month since the purchase of the laptop. Oh, said the guy on the phone, here's the Packard Bell phone number (as it's a Packard Bell computer) but as it's been over a month they may charge you.

Reader, I did not phone Packard Bell. I went onto their website. And there I found all the answers I needed.

Giving them my computer's serial number, they know exactly what I've got, and they know that I haven't got a DVD writer!!! I have a DVD combo drive, which can read DVDs but not record onto them. It can write onto CDs but not onto DVDs. Which, I must say, I had begun to suspect, but it was good to get confirmation.

And apparently it's a known problem that some computers keep reminding you to create a recovery DVD even though you haven't got a DVD-writer so you can't do it; and there's a patch you can download from their website which tells the computer to stop pestering you about it.

Problem solved - and no thanks to the PC World helpline! I'm cancelling my direct debit and writing to tell them why.

Grrrrrrr....

Earlier today I was thinking of blogging a bit to let off steam, to express my anger and frustration about things not working, telephone helplines being unhelpful, etc etc. But now I'm just full of praise and thanks to God because he has helped me sort out a couple of big problems, and if I had a microphone attached to this computer you'd be in danger of being blasted by my singing

It all started about a week ago when my email started acting up. (For those who are interested in the technical side - I'm using a new programme called Windows Mail, which is the successor of Outlook Express.) I was getting a strange error message when I tried sending email. Receiving worked fine, but sending - oh no, it just wouldn't.

So I phoned my ISP and reported the problem. A very nice guy tried to help me, he even looked at my computer through remote access, checked the settings for himself, tried to change all sorts of things, but at the end - nada. Not a problem on their front, he concluded, but a problem with my software - I should uninstall Windows Mail and reinstall it, was his advice.

Well, I was a bit reluctant to do that, especially as I don't have the disk (the software came pre-loaded on the laptop when I bought it) so didn't think I would be able to re-install the software once I'd uninstalled it. So I thought I'd have to ring the PC World technical helpline and ask for help with this (see my previous blog here).

But I'd already spent a long time on the phone with the ISP guy, and didn't feel up to another one of those phone calls, so I put it off. In the meantime I had an alternative way of coping - I could send emails through the ISP's website instead of using Windows Mail; and as long as I added myself as a BCC I could get a copy of the email to put in my Sent Items in Windows Mail.

Anyway, yesterday I decided it was time to make that phone call. What do I pay £8.99 a month for to PC World? I should just ring them and they'll sort it out. Right? Well... not quite.

First of all you ring this number and have to go through those familiar but irritating hoops of pressing 1 if you like pizza and 2 if your grandmother had blue eyes. So first time I got through to the wrong person, who gruffly informed me that he dealt with hardware only, and that if I wanted to talk to someone about software problems he could put me through but it would cost me £1.50 per minute!!!

So I put the phone down. Took some time to ponder the situation. Looked again at the bumph I'd got from PC World which promised me that they do deal with software problems as part of this package that I'm paying £8.99 a month for. Looked at the phone numbers they list and they're all 0870 numbers. Thought: I wonder what the charge is for calling an 0870 number. A bit worried now because of what that guy said about £1.50 per minute, I decided I must ring BT and find out.

You'd think that should be easy... Just ring the phone company to ask how much they charge for dialling 0870 numbers... Hmmm... First you go through all those hoops again of pressing 2 if there's an R in the month and 5 if your favourite ice cream is cherry. Then you wait for 15 minutes whilst being repeatedly told that they're very busy (in other words they can't be bothered to hire enough staff to deal with all the calls they get). Then I get put through to a girl with a very strong Indian accent who is struggling to understand what I say, and whenever she does think she understands what I've said, she repeats it very very slowly, e.g.

Caller: I really feel like strangling everyone who works for BT

Call Centre Person: So, I understand that you are telling me that you really feel like strangling everyone who works for BT, is that correct?

Which would make her excellent at counselling, but rather infuriating when all you want is a quick answer to a short question; and you've been waiting 15 minutes for this pleasure; and before she can even listen to your question the rules dictate that she has to first of all ask you for your phone number, your name, your postcode and possibly something else I've already forgotten.

Poor girl - she doesn't make up the rules, and it's not her fault that BT seem to have decided to cut costs by using an Indian call centre.

Anyway, the answer which I eventually got was that dialling an 0870 number in the daytime costs me 6p a minute. So I breathed a huge sigh of relief and went back to phoning PC World, this time making sure I did get through to someone who deals with software.

This guy heard my problem with the email and suggested that it was probably related to my firewall. What security software was I using? When I told him, he said they didn't actually have the relevant information for that one and I should ring Norton, on an 0800 number (for those who are not in the UK - this means freephone).

So, another phone call... Got put through to a very nice technician (yes, another Indian call centre, but this guy spoke intelligently and pleasantly) who again did this remote-access trick and had a look for himself, checked all sorts of settings, tried disabling the firewall, tried even disabling Norton completely, but... nada. Diagnosis: the problem is not caused by Norton. Go back to your ISP, was his advice.

Okay, at that stage I decided I needed a break from all this, so decided to go visit a friend. Got into the car, put the key in the ignition, and...

no, it's not that it wouldn't start, it just wouldn't turn in the lock. Not one tiniest micro-milimetre. Just wouldn't budge.

Tried everything I could think of, including the spare key. Nada. And this is in the evening, when garages are closed. I do have AA membership but not including Home Start - I don't remember what the minimum distance is, but there is a minimum distance I have to be from home to be able to call them out.

Well, this friend lives only 20 minutes' walk away from me. Had a nice walk.

Came back and thought, I'll just do an experiment with the email. I have got a couple of other email addresses, with Google and Yahoo, that I don't normally use. Why don't I try setting one of those up on Windows Mail and see if I get the same problem?

This is where it got interesting, and I got my clue! There's something in the advanced settings that I don't claim to begin to understand, but there's this place where it says "port" and there's a box with a number in it - one for incoming mail and one for outgoing mail. Looking up these settings on my ISP's website, I discovered that the number for outgoing mail was wrong. (But how come that guy didn't know that?! He looked at all my settings.) Changing this number got my email back to work.

I had asked God for wisdom and he gave me the wisdom I needed to sort this out. And before going to bed last night I also asked him for wisdom about the car. If I'm half out of my depth with computers, then with cars I am totally and completely out of my depth. (Husband not so, but he's gone away for a few days, and I do need the car in the meantime!)

So the advice I got was to contact the Nissan dealer, as my car is a Nissan. (Normally I would go to a cheaper garage for car problems.) I phoned them, and when I described the problem, was told to try and wobble the steering wheel as it may have got locked. "Go out and give it a really good hard wobble," was the suggestion. (And if this didn't work then they would have to tow the car to their garage and have a look, which I really didn't relish - not just because of the cost but because I've got to be somewhere tomorrow afternoon that really isn't very accessible by public transport).

So, I went out and gave the steering wheel a really good hard wobble, and a few more, until it was released from the lock and I could turn the key in the ingition - Halleluiah!!!

The result: a much happier Meirav.  (The sunshine also helps.)

(Might rethink the £8.99 a month deal though...)

Hi everyone.

Having recently bought a new laptop I thought I would share a few useful things I discovered.

Software

If you are thinking of buying the Microsoft Office Suite then think again - there is a perfectly good equivalent available as a free download here and you can use it to open Word documents and also save in Word format so that others who use Word can open your document. (And the same goes, I believe, for Excel and Power point, though I haven't actually tried that out yet.)

Technical support (the computer equivalent of the AA) (This is only relevant for people in the UK) Edited 2.8.07 to add: But see my more recent blog - this helpline is not all it's cracked up to be!

I bought my laptop at PC World (and no, they're not paying me commission) and found that they are now offering a deal which seems to me like an answer to prayer. I had recently said to a friend, when having a joint moan about the fickleness of computers, that if anyone came up with the computer equivalent of the AA I would happily pay a subscription. Well, PC World now offer exactly that - you pay a monthly subscription and you get a phone number which you can ring 24 hours a day and talk to a real person who knows what he's talking about and speaks like a normal human being and helps you solve your problem, whether it's to do with hardware or software. I have used this service a few times and it's been fantastic! They offer you the first month for free, and then you pay monthly by direct debit and you can cancel it at any time, which I think also means they have the motivation to provide a decent service as you are not committed to a year at a time and if you phoned and found it was useless then you wouldn't carry on paying.

Having lavished praise on PC World I have one negative comment to make: when I bought the laptop they did not think to mention that it doesn't come with a built-in modem. Which meant that I got home and found that I couldn't connect the thing, and had a white elephant sitting here (okay, not white, more silver) for over a week until I got the router from my ISP. (I was told that if you have Windows Vista you can't just buy a modem from a shop as they are not yet Vista-compatible.)

Broadband

Actually this is probably not going to be relevant to many people reading this, as I think I'm one of the last to come out of the ark and get onto broadband. But if you are thinking about it, here's something that my ISP didn't tell me when I ordered broadband. I don't know if this goes for all broadband connections - it may be specific to BT Internet and/or to this router, which is what you need if you have Windows Vista. Anyway, when at last I got the router it came with two micro-filters, which are these little things that you have to plug into your phone socket and then plug the phone cable into them. What they didn't tell me when I placed my order is that you need one of those for each phone socket that's in use in your home, so if you have more than two phones you need more than two micro-filters. Now, if they had mentioned this on the phone when I ordered, I could have said, Oh, in that case can I have one extra one please. I'd have happily paid the £6.99 that they charge. Instead of which I had to go to Curry's the next day and spend twice that much! (Yes, I could have ordered one from BT online but if I wanted next day delivery, the delivery charge would have got me up to the Curry's price.)

So there we are. A few recent lessons in the School of Hard Knocks :-)