When I Turn On My Computer

There is a routine I have in those free times when I turn on my computer. It is usually accompanied by supper or a bowl of Extreme Moosetracks chocolate ice cream.

The first thing I do is pull up my Outlook Express and get it started downloading my emails. Then I open a window of Facebook (more recently via Google Chrome) and log in. While that is loading, I open two more tabs and send them to Blogger and WordPress.

Facebook is a between times activity. When a separate page is loading, or between tasks, I go scroll through my friends’ status updates, commenting on a few of them. I check to see who is listed as “online” at the moment, but hardly ever start chats with them. If a friend wants to chat with me, however, I’m usually up for it.

My Blogger Dashboard has my blog reader listed on it, so I begin scrolling through recently updated blogs for any that look interesting. I always click on the first post from A Holy Experience. That beautiful site plays the most peaceful music in the background, a soothing atmospheric playlist that can repeat for hours without growing old. It is also one of the blogs on which I will read every post until I am caught up. The other blog for which I do that is my brother’s, Silence Spoken. We’re like best friends, so I know most of what he says, though his poetry is a removed perspective, a picturesque turn of words to express the big ideas in his head and heart. Usually I will go through and open all the eye-catching blog titles in their own new tabs, so that I can read them later.

My email takes a while to download, but by this time they should be viewable. I start by deleting the emails I don’t want: updates from Amazon.com, Avon, weather forecasts from the week prior, Human Events ads and articles that I get because they are kind enough to email me Ann Coulter’s articles each week. Then I start at the earliest unread email and begin reading. Most are little Facebook notifications: someone commented on my wall. Another person added a comment to a wall-post or status on which I had commented. Friend requests and acceptances. Every month or so I collect all these into a separate file for archived Facebook notifications. The best things to read are emails sent just to me by a real live friend. Life ponderings, prayers and prayer requests, encouragement, or invitations to get together, these are my computer priority, and almost always earn a reply.

Blogger and WordPress will tell me if I have comments to approve for my blogs. I’ll read those, post them, and reply to them. On Blogger I will check out their profiles and their blogs if they have any. Then I stick in my USB thumb drive to upload the blogs I’ve written during my breaks at work. You can observe for yourself how frequently this happens. Finally I check WordPress for my blog stats, to see which posts are the most popular and if there are any surges of traffic. My most popular articles are about auto warranty telemarketers, chivalry and romanticism, making grilled cheese sandwiches… Sometimes I’ll get a hit on a post I forgot I wrote, and I go see what the post was about.

Next I open an additional Internet Explorer or Google Chrome window. I use that to do my projects. Maybe I’m going to search for some information. See if a book I heard about is at my library. Renew library items. Shop. Check my Etsy.com shop, Mi-Re-Do.com website, Googleads, or ebay. I like to download “Let My People Think” at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. Maybe I’ll be researching for my blog or my business.

IMDB is the best website for information on movies and actors – unless you want to buy a movie, and then Amazon is the place. When I post book reviews, I post them to Amazon.com as well. To see a decent review of a recent mainstream movie, Plugged In is pretty good. They do have spoilers, and I don’t always agree with their assessments or interpretations, but they have accurate objectionable content evaluation. For Bible Study, I use Blue Letter Bible, which has multiple versions, an online Strong’s concordance that can cross-reference the Greek words and root words too. Del.icio.us is on my toolbar so that I can quickly bookmark any awesome but singular articles I find and want to remember. (WordPress’s widget allows you to see my recent tags on Del.icio.us.)

If I am bored or lonely, I will frequently refresh Facebook and go searching for more than status updates on my friends, looking through their new photo albums especially. The best are babies and weddings, followed very closely by scenic pictures of far-off lands. When inspired, I update my own status. It usually has to do with what I did that day, will do tomorrow, or have been thinking. For some reason movies make frequent appearances.

When it seems my favorite blogs have been insufficiently updated, when I am craving a good intellectual read or a warm, encouraging girlfriend read, I’ll go to blogs that have lots of links and start exploring. Carolyn McCulley often has good links. WordPress has a tag surfer feature to find like-topic blogs. Or I can search places like Ligonier Ministries or Boundless for interesting articles. When I find a blog I may want to follow, I do follow it, pasting its URL into my Blog Reader on Blogger. It’s an eclectic list, as you can see if you look on my Profile.

Before I turn off my computer, I refresh Facebook one more time and check for any new emails. Then I minimize any windows I want to keep open, close the rest, and put my little laptop into hibernation.

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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Why Doesn’t My Computer Know Who’s the Boss?

And here all this time I thought my computer was my tool, serving me, doing as I told it.  But like a rebellious teenager, it thinks itself smarter than me, stronger, and more willful.  If it just puts off my instructions long enough, while it does its own thing, maybe just maybe bossy owner of laptop will go away and leave it alone. 

 

Alone to do what, you ask (as do the parents of metaphorical teenagers).  It might just want to be lazy.  The battery has already decided to barely do its job, as long as constantly fed energy from a wall.  Half the time my computer isn’t doing what I said, it doesn’t seem to be doing anything. 

 

I’ve tried all the things I can think of: defrag, updates, restarting my computer, adjusting my internet connection, scanning for spy-, ad-, or mal- ware, running Windows Task Manager to see if my computer will give up the secret obsession its hard drive has with unauthorized activity. 

 

Aside from being slow, online or offline, the other really annoying thing is that in the midst of its procrastination, I may switch to another window.  Exactly when I am most engrossed in reading or typing or filling out important online forms with passwords, the slow-loading window superimposes itself on my screen, interrupting and even hijacking any keyboard or mouse input.  What on earth is it thinking? 

 

My brother says the next big thing to be invented on a computer is a button that suspends the activity.  See, for some reason we both think that we should be able to tell an internet page to stop loading if it’s so long it’s virtually frozen.  But being frozen, the whole window, including the stop button, is also frozen. 

 

Is my problem my web browser?  Am I suffering from hardware?  My computer reports that it has plenty of memory and spends most of its thought on ‘idle processes.’  Maybe my wireless modem and my laptop are not getting along.  I’m certainly not getting along with this self-absorbed block of technology. 

 

Perhaps my problem is software?  I could have the wrong browser, the wrong network connections driver, something amiss in my security software, or even windows itself. 

 

My dad taught me to be loyal to PC’s, and I still hate Mac’s (do they have a thing for treating intelligent people who just want to word process and blog like children with cute bubbles and code names for basic functions?).  Is there a better option for me?  What’s Linux about?  Do I have to be a nerd to use or appreciate it?  Did I just prove I’m not a nerd by spelling it wrong?  Does everyone have these sorts of difficulties? 

 

(Dad works at a helpdesk, and often brings home stories of silly customers who had no idea what they’d done to their computers.  Not so with us.  Our computers produce the hardest of brainteasers to our expert sleuthing father.  We only have hard questions for him about our computer difficulties.) 

 

Any hints?  Commiseration?  Solutions?  Recommendations? 

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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