Now I know
as a writer that might sound phony, but as much as I rely on computers and
virtual technology in my field, this artificial intelligence wanna-be that I
call my laptop really does seem to have a mind of its own. And I am convinced
that it wants to kill me! (…or at least frustrate the heck out of me)
Like many of
us, I get assaulted by “necessary upgrades” and even if I try to ignore these
in my busiest moments, I do try to do the “responsible” thing and take care of
THE MACHINE. Invariably each time there is another upgrade, SOMETHING changes
on my machine, most times it’s just my desktop appearance.
But NOOOO,
not this last time. I got the usual box popping up on my screen from MicroSoft
with the normal gobbledygook about upgrades — the first time that happened
(with this laptop) I was advised to let it upgrade and I have each time since.
Usually my desktop appearance changes, my fonts change to smaller sizes, or
other rather minor annoyances.
Oy! But this
time, this time it not only changed the appearance, it WIPED MY FILES off of
the hard drive! Yes, wiped, as in scrubbed. I am lucky, I guess, in that I
disconnected my external drive before allowing the upgrade, I didn’t see the
need for that to remain connected as the computer played around going on and
off. And while it will be time-consuming, I can gather most of the files I lost
from Documents and Downloads. It also removed some programs, but the only one I
can remember for sure is ZOOM.
I bothered
my son with desperate text messages yesterday when I discovered the emptiness.
Of course the first thing he said was, “Mom, upgrades don’t erase files.” And
trying to hold back tears I uttered back, “But something did!” He is my
computer guru, but he is miles away and so it will take time before he can
actually take a look at my machine. Something is definitely wrong in PC land.
In the meanwhile I can’t avoid using the dratted thing, my editors depend on me and just about everything these days is via the internet. So I am writing and sending my work –
BUT I AM NOT TALKING TO MY COMPUTER!
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