Electronic Overload

Aah, we are definitely in a new age, aren’t we, with a computer in just about ever home. Be it laptop, desktop, or notebook. Then, we have our iPods, iPhones, iPads, tablets, E-Readers, and MP3 players, to name a few; all to help us get through the day, and keep in touch. In fact, most of us can’t understand how we ever got along without any of this stuff. I’m seriously surprised hubbie doesn’t have a holster sewn in to his pajama bottoms, he’s so attached, and the phone is going off most of the day. No, he’s not a drug dealer, he runs a pet sitting service – LOL. I have to say, once the technological age hit, it went full throttle, didn’t it? It doesn’t seem very long ago that one had to hit the phone booth on the corner to call the office to inform them you’d be late. How about running your film over to the local drug store to wait a week or more to get it back. And what about that first camcorder? You know, the one that needed strapping to your shoulder, because of its size.  But, not only has the equipment reached new techno highs, so has our ability to reach out, or even service ourselves – e-mails, text messages, Mapquest, Google Maps, Expedia, and Google Earth. Personally, I could almost be rendered useless without my Google Earth. That’s how addicted I am. More on that later. I mean, even as a writer, we don’t have to traipse off to the library any longer for research. All we need do is type in Google, or Bing – am I right?

Some of you know hubbie and I had to go north a couple of weeks ago. Before we left, I slept my desktop, since I wouldn’t be home. All the other play things came along for the ride. Well, when we returned home, and I booted up that desktop, it began giving me a “more than I need” set of problems. It ground along with the little orange light on the Central Processing Unit (CPU) blinkety, blink, blink, blinking. Because it had been turned off, so to speak, I assumed it just wanted to update itself. Until I realized it would update itself while asleep; I had it set that way. Two days later, weird messages started popping up – “disk space low.” What!! This computer is two years old, and when the guy explained a terabyte, I knew I’d only need to buy a new one for appearances sake. What to do now?

I feverishly began cleaning out everything I could. I caught up with archiving pictures, and blog pics. I then, headed off to the cache on both Internet Explorer and Firefox. I moved every text document I could to a flash drive; deleted programs that I would never, have never used. All e-mail folders – emptied of old stuff. Why do we writers keep organization e-mails three years old, thinking one day we may need one? I went over to the Microsoft site, and ran the free virus scan thinking gee, maybe I have a bug. And, lastly, I called Hewlett Packard to make certain I hadn’t missed hidden areas that may need emptying. But, they pretty much said, buy a warranty and we can talk.  Anyhoo, all that work saved me three point whatever gigabytes. On general principle (GP) alone, I simply refuse to buy a new computer. And, as you’ve figured, I had to delete Google Earth. With like 850 MB of space used – WOW! But, aaarrrggghhh!!! Each day that passes without it, I get more and more irritable. Like someone looking for that fix.

So, what to do, what to do? There is seriously only one solution. The attorney I work for has at least four other external hard drives hooked to his network. It’s a tiny office.  “OORAH!” I do not want to become a replica of him, but after some research, I actually found that those external drives come in terabytes; one or two, if you want. Therefore, I’m definitely seeing one for iTunes, and another for Google Earth if that’s possible. Then, maybe a third for my regular text documents. You know how iTunes has a “Wish List” tab? My wish list is to have a separate computer for Google Earth. Huh? Huh? That would be too kewl. But, the more you use all of your gadgets, the fuller they become, until they all begin to scream at you, NO MORE. In any event, yes, I’ll have wires everywhere with these external thingies, but hey, we’re talking connectivity, and isn’t that what all of this is about? Staying connected. And, I WILL do it without a new computer.

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