Wednesday, October 03, 2007

In Praise of EggSalad

Here's what I know about computers: they are rectangular, or made of rectangular components, light comes from their screens, and they do not come with instruction books.

When there is a problem, I have no idea how to solve it. Let's face it, most of us pass computer troubleshooting information the same way we pass diet information: we tend to talk earnestly about what worked best for our hairdresser's nephew, or what Aunt Mary swears by. My computer has been getting slower and slower since I bought it, for no discernible reason. I talked with friends and got all kinds of theories, but none seemed to apply. Now, I realize that being 5 years old, this computer is extinct, but even so, I'm only using half the memory and just starting up, without running any programs, was taking forever. Honestly, my spinning wheel went faster.

Luckily for me, one of Chris's closest friends, let's call him EggSalad, is a generous soul with a doctorate in computer science. His suspicion was that I had some sort of malicious software like spyware, and his advice was to do a full system restore. Actually, his advice was to bring it to him to do a full system restore. I am thankful and relieved that he did because
a) it was nerve-wracking as all get out because it involved wiping everything off the computer, and then starting over with re-installing windows, and
b) it took long enough to wipe and reinstall everything (like all those bloody windows updates) that I had enough time to knit the foot of this sock:
and we all went for sushi while it loaded stuff. EggSalad is now my hero. He wanted no money for this, and even offered to pay for our dinner because we had travelled an hour and a half to do this and it was my birthday. We didn't let him. Anyone else with his qualifications would have charged us approximately my week's pay.

Because of EggSalad, now when I start my computer it's like this
I can't believe the difference, it's like having a new computer. In a fit of excess, I also bought more RAM (not the intact male sheep, the kind of computer memory) so it's really really fast. Web pages now start loading with pictures, not 5 minutes before the pictures deign to show up. Now, every time I start the computer, that weird kid shows up and whispers, "zoom zoom."

Thanks EggSalad, you know who you are!

3 comments:

Lisa said...

Rats! I'm so bad about knowing when people have birthdays. I hope yours was a happy one, and that all is well with you.

Cool sock! Is that Eunny Jang's design?

I love that you have a friend you call Egg Salad.

Anonymous said...

yay. I knew that would solve your problem. I just didn't have the time to help you on the day before your wedding. (duh.) Glad you were able to get things fixed.

knitica said...

Derrick, you were right! Actually, I meant to credit you in the post with being the first to suugest a full system restore, but somehow that info got lost in the writing of it. So glad I didn't try it on my own, though.

And Lisa, yes that's Eunny Jang's sock from the spring issue of Interweave Knits. I've finished the first and started the second, and I now know that (not surprisingly) my calves are larger than Eunny Jang's.