Back in 2019 I wrote of the disaster that was the catastrophic failure of the hard drive of my laptop and the heart-breaking loss of work that was the result. Now as I write in the January of 2024, I am acutely aware that I have never really caught up with the ensuing backlog of work. The loss and disruption has been too great, too much to rectify and at times, too painful to even comprehend fully. I write about that experience in the post below:
https://chatteringmagpie-summonerofthehearth.blogspot.com/2019/02/our-electronic-dependence.html
In the November of 2023 I became aware of certain failings of my main laptop. It had become progressively, a battle to use and frequently failed to do what I required. I slowly came to the realisation that I could not ignore this and that I would have to do something eventually. It had to be frank, never worked correctly since I upgraded from Windows 8 to Windows 10 and that action I began to regret. The laptop would no longer recognise various plug-ins, such as my DSLR and my external speakers. Fortunately the external hard drives were still recognised and I could continue to write. I still had access to the Internet and this blog was therefore, still maintained.
By the Christmas of that year the failings had become too great for me to accommodate any further and I had begun to transfer all my vital files. Even Microsoft Word eventually ceased to function and that was a major concern. I am a writer; I am an essayist and I am a blogger. As much as I may complain about writing, how difficult and how painful it can be; I must write. This drive, this mad hag-ridden desire to express and to explore ideas beyond that of the common; it is not something I expect those who do not write to understand.
Between Christmas and the New Year, I had managed to avoid the issues I faced with the failure of Microsoft Word, by using Google Docs and Apache Open Office. These two mediums had been recommended to me by family and friends. They are both mediums that I as a writer, will now recommend. Then a day or two after Christmas, the laptop finally failed altogether. I was left without my electronic ‘voice’ and the pain was unbearable.
It was Wednesday the 27th and I had plans to meet a friend for lunch. Taking the opportunity of having the morning free, I popped on the bus and took my now sickly laptop to a computer repair service that I have used before. The engineer there had effectively rebuilt this same laptop from the inside out, inserting a much larger hard drive and increasing the RAM. I left it with him and I could only hope for a successful report in the New Year. I was trying very hard not to be pessimistic.
Of course this still left me with a problem, I had no laptop, no Internet access and I had approaching deadlines. I had spoken to my friend on the telephone prior to our lunch appointment to acquaint him with the situation and so it was that once joined by his daughter and her partner, we set off in search of a replacement laptop. I set myself a budget of £200 and I wanted something small, easy to use and capable of replacing my reserve laptop. I had previously a reserve laptop you see but unfortunately, this too had failed in November. It was now beyond any hope of salvation. That one had served me well for a few of years and it had endured three holidays in Scotland. That final trip in the October of 2023 had been its death knell; I had returned with a battered, cracked and a slowly expiring piece of equipment.
My friend had suggested that we should try a pawnbroker or as they are now called, a cash-converter outlet. This was an option that had not occurred to me. Here in the United Kingdom, pawnbrokers suffer from a historically poor and quite unsavoury reputation. They have in the past and perhaps still are, perceived as being rather ‘seedy’ and as the ‘front’ for a variety of stolen goods. It is in an effort to shed this poor reputation, that pawnbrokers have ‘rebranded’ themselves as the aforesaid cash-converters.
We visited if I remember correctly, some five or six of these outlets. We found several potentially good and useful pieces of equipment on sale, many of which were at remarkably good prices. It was in the second shop that we had visited, where I had spotted one that I particularly liked. A rather small HP laptop, pre-installed with Windows 10 and Microsoft Word Starter Edition, which is quite adequate for my needs. The hard drive of the laptop was admittedly rather small at only 120GB but since I primarily use external hard drives, this was not very important. Of rather more importance was the RAM, which at 12 GB would be more than capable of managing my external equipment. We returned to purchase and although at £230 it was over my budget, I came away quite pleased.
In reflecting on this literary adventure in the world of the electronic and the ‘virtual’ reality of our existence, I wish to return to my introductory paragraphs. We see once again, how awfully dependent we are on modern technology. This entire episode is an illustration of this reliance and our collective inability to function without technology. I remember when I first began to write for magazines and that was last century, I used a typewriter and I posted manuscripts to editors. They in turn would write back to me with either an acceptance or a rejection. In the early years of this century I had a combined word processor and printer, on which I wrote articles and my university essays. There was no Internet connection and no permanent internal memory; I saved my work on floppy disks. Some of you reading this may not know what floppy disks are or perhaps I should say were? Today they are I believe, as rare as hen’s teeth and unicorn eggs; so I suggest you Google them as it will be quicker.
The manner of submitting work as described above is unacceptable today. Editors quite understandably expect materials to be sent via email and almost all resulting communication is in an electronic format. No serious writer today would dream of submitting a typed manuscript or one that is handwritten, which would be even more unacceptable to most editors. In only a quarter of a century we have moved from the typewriter, passed through the standalone word processor and become almost completely reliant upon the personal computer. It is a remarkable technological evolution of the methodology of self-expression and communication. There are clear benefits that we have gained by the harnessing of this modern technological wonder but part of me still feels a sense of disquiet deep within my artistic soul. That we have become a little too dependent civilised and that we have lost our self-reliance is the cause of my spiritual unease.
Our Electronic Dependence II
(2024)
Back in 2019 I wrote
of the disaster that was the catastrophic failure of the hard drive of my
laptop and the heart-breaking loss of work that was the result. Now as I write
in the January of 2024, I am acutely aware that I have never really caught up
with the ensuing backlog of work. The loss and disruption has been too great,
too much to rectify and at times, too painful to even comprehend fully. I write
about that experience in the post below:
https://chatteringmagpie-summonerofthehearth.blogspot.com/2019/02/our-electronic-dependence.html
https://chatteringmagpie.wordpress.com/2024/01/04/from-the-archive-our-electronic-dependence-2019/
In the November of
2023 I became aware of certain failings of my main laptop. It had become
progressively, a battle to use and frequently failed to do what I required. I
slowly came to the realisation that I could not ignore this and that I would
have to do something eventually. It had to be frank, never worked correctly
since I upgraded from Windows 8 to Windows 10 and that action I began to
regret. The laptop would no longer recognise various plug-ins, such as my DSLR
and my external speakers. Fortunately the external hard drives were still
recognised and I could continue to write. I still had access to the Internet
and this blog was therefore, still maintained.
https://chattering-magpie-uk.tumblr.com/post/738527783453687808/my-desk-2021
By the Christmas of
that year the failings had become too great for me to accommodate any further
and I had begun to transfer all my vital files. Even Microsoft Word eventually
ceased to function and that was a major concern. I am a writer; I am an
essayist and I am a blogger. As much as I may complain about writing, how
difficult and how painful it can be; I must write. This drive, this mad
hag-ridden desire to express and to explore ideas beyond that of the common; it
is not something I expect those who do not write to understand.
https://chattering-magpie-uk.tumblr.com/post/692642493438853120/no-one-enjoys-writing
Between Christmas
and the New Year, I had managed to avoid the issues I faced with the failure of
Microsoft Word, by using Google Docs and Apache Open Office. These two mediums
had been recommended to me by family and friends. They are both mediums that I
as a writer, will now recommend. Then a day or two after Christmas, the laptop
finally failed altogether. I was left without my electronic ‘voice’ and the
pain was unbearable.
https://chattering-magpie-uk.tumblr.com/post/738527819365285888/at-work-2021
It was Wednesday the
27th and I had plans to meet a friend for lunch. Taking the
opportunity of having the morning free, I popped on the bus and took my now
sickly laptop to a computer repair service that I have used before. The engineer
there had effectively rebuilt this same laptop from the inside out, inserting a
much larger hard drive and increasing the RAM. I left it with him and I could
only hope for a successful report in the New Year. I was trying very hard not
to be pessimistic.
Of course this still
left me with a problem, I had no laptop, no Internet access and I had
approaching deadlines. I had spoken to my friend on the telephone prior to our
lunch appointment to acquaint him with the situation and so it was that once
joined by his daughter and her partner, we set off in search of a replacement
laptop. I set myself a budget of £200 and I wanted something small, easy to use
and capable of replacing my reserve laptop. I had previously a reserve laptop
you see but unfortunately, this too had failed in November. It was now beyond
any hope of salvation. That one had served me well for a few of years and it
had endured three holidays in Scotland. That final trip in the October of 2023 had
been its death knell; I had returned with a battered, cracked and a slowly expiring
piece of equipment.
https://chattering-magpie-uk.tumblr.com/post/692645642204479488/dry-paper
My friend had
suggested that we should try a pawnbroker or as they are now called, a
cash-converter outlet. This was an option that had not occurred to me. Here in
the United Kingdom, pawnbrokers suffer from a historically poor and quite
unsavoury reputation. They have in the past and perhaps still are, perceived as
being rather ‘seedy’ and as the ‘front’ for a variety of stolen goods. It is in
an effort to shed this poor reputation, that pawnbrokers have ‘rebranded’
themselves as the aforesaid cash-converters.
We visited if I
remember correctly, some five or six of these outlets. We found several
potentially good and useful pieces of equipment on sale, many of which were at
remarkably good prices. It was in the second shop that we had visited, where I
had spotted one that I particularly liked. A rather small HP laptop,
pre-installed with Windows 10 and Microsoft Word Starter Edition, which is
quite adequate for my needs. The hard drive of the laptop was admittedly rather
small at only 120GB but since I primarily use external hard drives, this was
not very important. Of rather more importance was the RAM, which at 12 GB would
be more than capable of managing my external equipment. We returned to purchase
and although at £230 it was over my budget, I came away quite pleased.
https://chattering-magpie-uk.tumblr.com/post/738495928320819200/laptop-december-2023
In reflecting on
this literary adventure in the world of the electronic and the ‘virtual’
reality of our existence, I wish to return to my introductory paragraphs. We
see once again, how awfully dependent we are on modern technology. This entire
episode is an illustration of this reliance and our collective inability to
function without technology. I remember when I first began to write for
magazines and that was last century, I used a typewriter and I posted
manuscripts to editors. They in turn would write back to me with either an
acceptance or a rejection. In the early years of this century I had a combined
word processor and printer, on which I wrote articles and my university essays.
There was no Internet connection and no permanent internal memory; I saved my
work on floppy disks. Some of you reading this may not know what floppy disks
are or perhaps I should say were? Today they are I believe, as rare as hen’s
teeth and unicorn eggs; so I suggest you Google them as it will be quicker.
The manner of
submitting work as described above is unacceptable today. Editors quite
understandably expect materials to be sent via email and almost all resulting communication
is in an electronic format. No serious writer today would dream of submitting a
typed manuscript or one that is handwritten, which would be even more
unacceptable to most editors. In only a quarter of a century we have moved from
the typewriter, passed through the standalone word processor and become almost completely
reliant upon the personal computer. It is a remarkable technological evolution
of the methodology of self-expression and communication. There are clear
benefits that we have gained by the harnessing of this modern technological
wonder but part of me still feels a sense of disquiet deep within my artistic
soul. That we have become a little too dependent civilised and that we have
lost our self-reliance is the cause of my spiritual unease.
https://chattering-magpie-uk.tumblr.com/post/724355640603131904/my-life-as-a-writer
https://chatteringmagpie.wordpress.com/2019/02/08/my-bittersweet-start-to-2019/
https://chatteringmagpie.wordpress.com/2020/06/22/the-joy-the-sorrow/
https://chatteringmagpie.wordpress.com/2023/07/05/do-birds-flock-on-twitter/
https://chatteringmagpie.wordpress.com/2023/09/18/an-obscurity-of-poets/
https://chattering-magpie-uk.tumblr.com/post/692638800272375808/an-obscurity-of-poets-in-pictures
Daniel Bran Griffith - The Chattering Magpie 
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