Repairs required

Postings every Tuesday and Friday

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markkingtheauthor@gmail.com

For my regular readers around the world you will know that every now and then I have a moan about technology, and how it's always so unreliable. Well once again I have been proved right because my little lap-top computer has been ageing quicker than a damsel fly. My H.P is only just over three years old, and it's so slow, and keeps seizing up so often; I have known people in their nineties who are quicker off the mark. It's already had a new battery after I ruined the last one in a fit of rage over the lap-tops refusal to work, and after taking advice it now looks as if it will need a new hard drive.

So it's booked in on Monday to have a full investigation, and for repairs to be made. For you out there with eagle eyes you will have seen a blank posting that mysteriously appeared on Wednesday on this blog! It wasn't by choice, but because my damn machine was playing up, and I was checking to see if things were still in working order.

I hope the lap-top won't be away for too long, but it looks as if there will be no posting next Tuesday, but hopefully I will have it back before the next weekend so I can complete my Friday posting as normal.

It's quite frightening to think now how hooked most people have become with modern communications, and how desperately most of us miss our gadgets when we don't have them. For writers the computer is an important tool of the trade. No publisher will except a manuscript written down on paper using ink (unless you are so commercially successful you can dictate you own terms) and this means that I'm unable to write for the near future on my next book, Daniel Jones DOOM.

This is the most frustrating bit for me because over the last ten days I have been a flurry of inspiration that has flowed through my fingers, and onto the computer screen, like buds flowing on bright spring day.

The other thing is the cost. Like our old car we have just got rid off there comes a point when you are spending more money on it than it is worth, and you have to start looking at maybe getting a newer model. I have already spent £90 on the battery, and the investigation work plus repairs could cost anywhere between £100 to £160. I could get a brand new machine with more power and memory for about £350!

What should I do?

Our old car had many happy memories with it. Both our children came home from the hospital in it after they were born, the many wonderful places we have travelled in it from London to Scotland, and many other happy times in between. My laptop is very similar. I wrote my first book FRENZY a Daniel Jones story on it. I have investigated the world on it and we have bought many lovely things through it.

So on this occasion I'm going to give it one more go and spend the money on it to get it back on its feet. But like I always say there is always a but, this will be the last time. If it keeps letting me down, and becomes to expensive to maintain, I could easily be seduced by a younger model.

I would like to be able to tell you that I'm going to have a technology free weekend, or maybe even longer and not go near a machine for a whole week, but I would just be lying. Now I have a new touch screen 3G phone I will be using this to get my Internet fix.

Just one last thought. Last Friday as mentioned on my Tuesday post I watched the fourth film in the Terminator series of movies. That great genre that made Arnold Schwarzenegger famous, and revolves around the story of how machines came to takeover the world; then tried to eliminate their nearest-rivals, the human race.

It does make you think how close are we to this tipping point? Because in just two decades we have gone from technology being something used by a few professional geeks to world-wide addiction for the human race!

Regards
Mark