Seventh Heaven

The end of last week saw me both ill and gadgetted up with a brand new PC. Unfortunately the former delayed my getting to grips with the latter by a day or two.

‘Cos, let’s face it, you have to be completely healthy when faced with a brand spanking new PC complete with brand spanking new operating system – the much vaunted Windows 7. New PC’s are stress-fests of the highest order. Will it like your peripherals? Will it run your software? Or will it spit the dummy at the first whiff of your modem, tantrum at the mere proximity of your scanner? Will you have to claw your way through dozens of installation discs that have littered your shelves like strange voodoo objects that you’re too scared to throw away but have no idea what at all it is they were created to do?

The man in the computer shop assured me that the above scenarios would just not take place. Windows 7 is – despite a ubiquitous mistrust of all things Microsoft – a break-through. An operating system that for once delivers; it does exactly what it says on the box.

Just plug everything in, the man advised me, it’ll all work instantly...

Yeah right.

I’ve run PC’s for 10 years, mate. Plug ‘n’ play in a fallacy. It rarely happens. Instead it takes hours of head-bashing to work everything out or to download the necessary patches and updates and tweaks.

Like I said. I needed to be fully fit and healthy before attempting a job of this magnitude.

But blow me if the man wasn’t right.

The installation discs for my various bits of antiquated hardware were unnecessary. The dust on them has not been disturbed.

I plugged everything in and everything worked with barely a pause. I was online, emailed up and fully connected with the WWW in under 10 minutes. An absolute record.

No glitches. No freezes. No compatibility issues. All my hardware A-OK. All my software A-OK.

Microsoft has at last come up with a shiny new operating system that I have fallen completely in love with. It’s smooth. It’s (so far) stable. It’s visual and intuitive. It’s easily customizable. It’s fast (though this might have more to do with my quad core processor and fully stocked memory than the OS).

It’s, in short, beautiful.

I like it. I’m impressed.

Suddenly I’ve fallen in love with my computer again. I’m experiencing a new honeymoon period. I hate being away from it. For anyone or anything.

All other life is a distraction.

Me and my new motherboard, we’re like bonded, OK?

So, that’s it, folks. Me and Windows 7 have got things to do, things to discuss. We gotta shoot the breeze. And we might be some time.

Bye.

Psychic Jam

Sauntering along to the local shops the other day I was struck by the sheer number of satellite dishes that adorn the houses – my own included though we are not connected (it came with the house and we haven’t as yet motivated ourselves sufficiently to have it removed).

And not for the first time – after all this is hardly an earth shatteringly original thought – I found myself musing on the terrifyingly large volume of radio waves that we must all spend our lives totally immersed within. TV, radio, satellite, citizen’s band, police radios, MI5 ops (they’re always hanging around outside my house) not to mention various pirate radio stations and various terrorist groups constructing vast microwave machines to fry our pituitary glands while we’re sleeping.

It can’t be good for us, surely, all that static and electronic caterwauling constantly beaming its way through our genetic building blocks? I’m not sure I want my DNA modified by Chris Moyles though Jo Whiley is very welcome to run her fingers through my scintillating chromosomes.

It’s only a transient worry, I admit. I hold it only for a few seconds and then it’s gone (possibly fried out of my brain cells by Jihadi microwaves) but it does keep recurring.

How do we know that all these radio waves aren’t having an adverse effect on our emotional make-up? That we’re not being psychologically damaged?

I’d love to be able to breathe some clean, unadulterated air one day just to be able to find out. To do this I need to find somewhere that’s in a technological blind spot – literally off the radar.

Anyone got any suggestions?

(Royston Vasey doesn’t count.)

Electric Boogaloo

I have just survived the maddest two days at work that I’ve ever experienced in my life.

Day One. On Tuesday afternoon a burning smell was reported coming from the main electric metre of the building. Investigation revealed not only an overpowering smell of burning wires but also an inordinate amount of heat emanating from the metre box and the cable housing beneath.

I’m not a trained electrician but even I know that’s not a good sign.

Cue various visits from various electricians and experts who all, to a man, sucked their teeth, nodded, oohed and aahed and basically said there was an imminent risk of fire and/or explosion.

We promptly evacuated. The building that is. Though the public were amazingly nonchalant about getting out of the danger zone. The internet junkies from the Library’s cyber café had to be dragged away twitching and sobbing about their abridged chatroom romances. Old ladies had to go to the loo just to spend that last penny. And we even had a Christian group in the Assembly Room who refused to leave early because God’s work was far more important than saving their own hides – though they were lightening fast at demanding compensation for their lost room hire. God certainly moves in mysterious ways.

As do the electricity board. They turned up around 7.30pm, took a look at the metre and cable intake, isolated it, shrugged their shoulders and said they’d see us in the morning around 9.0am. Ta-ta.

Great.

Except that the building only has battery back-up power for a maximum of 8 hours. Which meant that all the fire alarms, security alarms, heating, IT facilities, and all other essential services all died around 1.0 am the next morning leaving the entire building – including the Art Gallery with an art and object collection worth millions of pounds – completely “unprotected”.

To add to our problems most of the external doors to the building are electronically operated. Without power they all defaulted to open so absolutely anybody could have walked in off the street and helped themselves to whatever was available. Hence my boss, Jeff, and I were stuck at work until 10.30pm getting all the doors secured with a local carpenter. This involved nailing planks of wood across them on the inside so that they couldn’t be opened and swapping the electronic lock on one door with a mechanical lock so that at least staff with a key could get back into the building again the next day.

Day Two. Back at work to find the place in total darkness and quietude. The electricity board arrived at 9.45am (as opposed to 9.0am) and straight away brewed up for a cup of tea. I guess it’s all a question of priorities.

While the building staff milled about in the penumbral atmosphere, reading newspapers by the light of their mobile phones and basically making use of the shadows for whatever nefarious purposes that took their fancy I ran about trying to coordinate the “clean up” operation so that when power was restored at 12.30pm I was able to lead in a team of engineers, alarm experts and IT boffins to restore the full range of exciting services that my place of work usually offers.

By 3.0pm we were back on-line. All systems go. Sorted. Open for business. Hallelujah.

Except at 4.30pm there was yet another reported smell of burning coming from the electricity metre...

Aaaargh! Here we go again. Sigh.

Anyway the current state of play is this: the smell (and this is from the mouths of top-notch high level experts) is merely the new unit “bedding in”. All is kosher. All is well. It’s fine, gov. Have a cup of tea. Praise the Lord. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to worry about at all.

Worry? I’m too effing knackered to worry.

Night-night all.