Monday 10 March 2014

Three...

Things breaking...
All three...

After losing my broadband a month ago due to damage to the line outside the house, once I was reconnected I found my printer/scanner/copier wasn't working.

It took changing all the inks and doing a few maintenance tasks to get it to photocopy, but printing from documents on the computer, no!

There are two chapters of my first draft waiting to be printed out...

So I thought I'd start looking at replacement printers. Choices, choices...

Then the mouse began being unresponsive- checked for faults, made sure the driver was up to date and it was no better...

It was only when I went into John Lewis looking for a new one that I discovered how techy the mouse had become, and everything is geared to Windows 8, even if you're still on version 7!

I gave up in despair- not enough staff and too many people wanting help to hang around, so I looked online. That was a case of too much choice...

And yes, you've guessed it, the keyboard went next.

One moment it was working, then I shut the computer down while I was off doing something else, came back, turned the computer on and I got a screen load of data, and at the bottom, the message that my keyboard was kaput! (Admittedly it didn't actually say kaput, but you get the idea.)

I'd been intending to get on with editing a short story, but without a functioning keyboard...

My personal knight-in-shining armour (my OH) responded to my phone call and went and got me a new keyboard on his way home from work.

(As I had to do the keyboard, I tried a spare mouse too.)

It's brilliant. Okay it cost a bit more than a standard keyboard, but it's worth it. It's curved, and the central area is raised- makes typing consonants much quicker- I'm a one or two finger typer, but even better, the shortcuts are marked on the edge of the keys.

Now I've never been able to remember Ctrl and whatever letter to do things quicker, but now it's there for me to see instantly.

As that's three items that have gone wrong, I'm hoping that's it and I can continue writing, and printing, without further troubles.

Technology, can't live with it, or without it...






Image courtesy of Stuart Miles: http://freedigitalphotos.net



6 comments:

Teresa Ashby said...

How frustrating when so much goes wrong at once. I get very attached to keyboards and I love my current one, but the letters are disappearing - I touch type so it's not too much of a problem unless I position my fingers wrong when I start! Your new one sounds lovely!
Hope you can write now without any more technical interruptions x

Rosemary Gemmell said...

Ouch - can't believe so much went wrong at once, Carol! As I don't touch type, that new keyboard sounds great.

Patsy said...

I hope this is the end of your tech problems for a long while.

Carolb said...

Yes, I liked my keyboard, Teresa, it was comfortable, but it was at the stage where letters were wearing off, like yours.

Hopefully the technology will play nicely from now on. :)

Carolb said...

I suppose when one bit of equipment starts running down it puts a strain on other bits and thet wear out quicker.

It's an ergonomic keyboard- apparently it's 'contoured for comfort' :)

Carolb said...

I hope so too, Patsy. I have a lot of writing to get on with this year.