ANOTHER new computer

Last Thursday, it being not only my 70th birthday but also Pension Day, I opened my internet banking to do the usual paying of bills etc. – to see that First FosterSon and FF Daughter-in-Law had deposited a large sum of money. It was labelled “Christmas” by which I understood it to be for both of us, but I thought how clever of them to time it so perfectly to arrive on my birthday morning, not to mention just before the 16th wedding anniversary. Turned out they hadn’t had those events in mind, and didn’t know how long the money would take to arrive anyway; they just thought it was time to send us “a little something”. (Their idea of a little something is our idea of huge.)

How joyous and exciting to pay off some large debts which kind people had been letting us chip away at gradually. (Car repairs, chiropractor, phone/internet provider, pharmacy....) With childish pleasure I put petrol in the car and filled it right up, something I’ve longed to do. I stocked up on supplies for the birthday/anniversary party. And, having transferred the computer fund to Andrew for a “previous generation” MacBook, I suggested he phone his older son (my First Stepson) who was handy with likely links when I was looking for one. I had a quick look in JB Hi-Fi while I was up that way in the morning, but the laptops there were fearsomely expensive.

First Stepson said to his father, “Why do you need a laptop? Are you going somewhere?” and explained that with a laptop you pay extra for the miniaturisation and portability. “Go for an iMac,” he advised. There wasn’t much persuasion needed. He Googled Apple resellers for us and found two quite near, so off we went – to find one didn’t deal with Macs at all, despite the listing, and the other one didn’t even exist. It was getting late. We made a snap decision to go to JB HiFi, and there was a lovely NEW 21-and-a-half-inch iMac for $1589 (same price as the tiny 13-inch laptop). So we got it. Just like that. Gee it felt good! The salesman threw in surge protector, firewire cable and screen cleaner for free.

Dear people who generously made donations towards our computers, I hope you don’t feel that it constitutes false pretences if we now transfer them to the car fund. The present vehicle is starting to die, just as the antiquated computers were.

The birthday party was Saturday, and the new machines were proudly demonstrated to guests who were almost as thrilled and impressed as we are.

I had said on the invitation, “No presents”. People either brought flowers instead or ignored it altogether and gave me books and hand-made treasures (a crystal bracelet, a crochet bag for holding loose crystals).  One friend insisted that I must have $70 on my 70th birthday, $1 for each year of my life. The good cooks brought Thai curry and jasmine rice,  cupcakes with purple icing, and a luscious chocolate birthday cake. Three people contributed extra software we wanted for the new computers.

And my very best present of all came from a friend who phoned up on the actual day of my birthday and told me, in tears, how much my poetry moves her. What more could I ever ask?

New toy

I can haz 15 inchiz!

And a sleek and lovely thing it is, giving me the greatest pleasure. I'm referring to a brand new 15-inch MacBook Pro – more thrilling to me right now than anything else you might imagine.

Anyone who knows me even slightly knows how I have been whingeing these past 18 months or more about the poor old eMac and the frustrations of being unable to upgrade operating system or browsers. Using the computer online was a constant struggle as the browsers jumped without warning to pages I didn't want to be on, took hours to complete simple operations, and frequently froze and had to be restarted.

What is less well-known is that I do a lot of volunteer work for the local Neighbourhood Centre, a very active organisation in addressing the needs of this community. I'm Secretary of the Neighbourhood Association which operates the Centre, taking minutes of meetings, writing official letters, etc.; I'm facilitator of the very successful, long-running writers' group, WordsFlow; and I edit and proof-read sundry official documents as required – in all of which I've hitherto been considerably hampered by working sometimes on the oldish Windows laptop at the Centre, with which I'm far from comfortable (just can't get the hang of it – so many unfamiliar operations to go through before you get to do what you want) and sometimes on my increasingly dysfunctional (desktop) eMac at home.

Further, this did not bode well for the course I'm scheduled to run at a nearby Community College in a few weeks, on "Brilliant Blogging" for the non-geeky. I was going to have to use yet another oldish Windows machine. Not a good look, for the tutor to be fumbling around incompetently!

All that is past.

As most of those who know me also know, I have been unashamedly begging for donations to help me get a new machine, as well as stashing away any extra I managed to earn by my own efforts. People who love me have been looking out for likely second-hand Macs for me, "previous generation" capable of being upgraded; and a Mac engineer I know was ready to vet anything they found ... but meanwhile I still had to amass the funds. The car reggo came due and I needed to dip into the amount I myself had contributed to the savings. Wouldn't touch other people's donations, given in good faith for the specific purpose, but dipping into the rest made a big hole in the fund.

It was all getting a mite disheartening. So in a recent casting of circle and talking to the Archangels, I thought of asking for something for me, namely that I get "the right computer for my needs" and that I get it before starting the blogging course – and that my dear, deserving Spouse should soon get one too. His own desktop computer, a nice little iMac that replaced an ancient laptop which died, is beginning to falter for the same reasons as mine: the software cannot be upgraded. I was clear that all this would take a miracle, but I also have experience that they can and do happen. The very next day, the Neighbourhood Centre Manager, out of the blue, asked me what exactly I wanted in the way of a laptop.

The Centre has an amount for special purchases, tied up in such a way that it isn't available to go into general running costs. She thought part of it could be used for a new laptop, and that as I'm the person who, almost exclusively, used the old one, it had better meet my needs. Such a large sum needed authorisation by two members of the Finance Committee. Fortunately they too could see that the Centre would benefit from the increase in my efficiency.      

I said I would like a 13-inch MacBook Pro. After having a look at them, she said, "They're VERY tiny" and suggested that the 15-inch model would be more efficient, and that it would be good to get one of the just-released aluminium ones which would be stronger than the polycarbon. We were able to source one of those. This was a piece of luck; most suppliers around here are still selling off the polycarbon models before getting the aluminium ones in stock. We'd have had to decide whether to wait some weeks or settle for less than what we wanted, except that we found one shop where a customer had ordered in a 15-inch aluminium one, customised to a faster read speed than usual, and then decided not to take it after all.

So off we went and got it! With three years of Apple Care into the bargain. I feel very valued.

The Neighbourhood Centre owns it and I am the custodian user. (The fact that it's not exactly mine –only to all intents and purposes – means that I'll be taking VERY good care of it.)  I'm an enthusiastic supporter of the Centre, not planning to sever relations until I'm really decrepit – which of course will be never. If some unforeseen reason to leave should arise, I guess I'd have to try and buy "my" computer from them, but will cross that bridge when I come to it.

Oh the joy of being able to operate smoothly at last! This is in fact the very first brand new computer I have ever had to work with. I'm getting used to it, and the Centre Manger was quite right about the 15 inches. Sometimes bigger is better, lol.

Bonus – the computer fund can now  go towards a "previous generation" laptop for the beloved Spouse.

Computer - Developments

People have been so kind with their good wishes and helpful suggestions! My friend Letitia phoned up and said she had a friend who worked at a computer refurbisher much closer to home than the Sydney mob and could get me one that had just come in, for $550. She put her name on it while waiting for them to strip it down and do it up.

Then she happened to mention this in a phone conversation with her brother - who is a Mac computer engineer. He said, "Why are you getting her that model? She won't be able to upgrade." He suggested that it would be affordable to go for the "previous generation" i.e. not the latest model but the one before that, and to look on eBay. He also said I'd have more luck if I would consider a laptop.

Would I? A laptop is my preference! In my role as Secretary of the Neighbourhood Association, I get to use their laptop to take the minutes. It has Windows. I hate Windows! I can find my way around it, usually with some help from the more experienced, but after using Macs all these years I find Windows operations incredibly indirect, circuitous and time-consuming. It would be heaven to just take my own MacBook laptop along to meetings ... and many other places too.

Letitia is a whizz on eBay. She has put a watch on what I want, to see what they're going for. Around $800 it seems. When I get the money together, she will refer any likely-looking models to her brother to assess.

I have emailed close friends and family members with a shameless begging letter, to see if they'd like to give me an early present for my 70th birthday later this year, by chipping in for my laptop. Meanwhile am doing what I can to amass the funds myself, and have the first $100 set aside.

It's wonderful that what had seemed out of reach has suddenly become possible!

And incidentally, my Tarot student who "saw" that I would get a new machine via people who cared about me, actually thought it would be a couple. Letitia and her brother, perhaps?

Magickal Assistance

I mean business about the new computer! So I asked all my witchy friends to please do some magicks to help me manifest it. I know that, with these people, I only need ask and it will be done. Have also done my own working, of course, in conjunction with the full moon.

And yesterday, when teaching a Tarot class, I asked a student to do a reading for me on the matter.

She got that I shouldn't be hung up on getting the latest model but to look at getting an earlier one that would meet my needs and be affordable. She also got a strong message that it would come to me through the help of someone who cares about me.

I went on MySpace last night and there was a message from one of the witchy friends, a lady who lives in America, sending me a link. When I followed that, it was to an Australian mob who refurbish ex-Government and ex-lease computers, with a 12-month warranty on the hardware. (Well researched, eh?) And amongst all the variety of PCs, there was a 17-inch Apple intel for $899, with an operating system that'll work for me. I phoned this morning and learned they have a good supply of this model, so I have time to get the money together, don't have to grab it now (which would not be possible).

Andrew needs a new machine too, though not quite as urgently; this is also do-able in reasonable time, at that price.

Magick works in very practical ways, as all witches know ... and my student is shaping up as a most accurate Tarot reader!

Meanwhile, people both online and local have been booking psychic readings with me, so the computer fund has been started. Whoopee – and thank you, Universe! My thanks, too, to those who responded to my previous post with prayers and well-wishing – it's all powerful.

Why am I soliciting money?

What I love to do is writing, teaching, mentoring, counselling, networking: all the things I do online. Now I have an opportunity to do exactly this in a bigger way and earn some money at it too. I’ll be working with people I already know personally, who are close to me, so I know their integrity and also their skills. I don’t want to say more at this stage as it’s a bit confidential until we get it up and running. It’s a long-term plan, and we’ll be putting the preliminaries in place any minute.

Only, I have a problem. I’ll need much more efficient internet capability than I’ve got.

My computer is old – so old that I can’t upgrade my operating system. This is to do with the hardware, not the software. The hard drive simply will not accommodate anything beyond Mac OS X.3.9 – it doesn’t matter how often I empty my trash, move files on to a back-up disc, etc.

This means I can’t upgrade my browsers either. There are several versions more recent than mine, but they only work for OS X.4 and later. The earlier versions, moreover, are no longer being supported. So even though I can use them, this is fraught with increasing difficulties.

My computer is agonisingly slow. It can literally take hours to complete a few simple operations – by the time the machine thinks laboriously for a long while, the browser jumps unbidden to a different page or to a different location on the same page, and I find I’ve clicked something I wasn’t aiming for because the page has shifted, so I must undo that, or I have to return to the page I was on a minute ago and didn’t mean to shift from, or the cursor freezes and I try a reboot…. There are times I’ve been in tears. And as you can imagine, there are a lot of other things in my life that just aren’t getting done because of the inordinate amount of time my computer operations take.

Can you help me manifest a new computer?

Perhaps you’d like to buy a copy of my latest poetry book, “Secret Leopard” if you don’t already own a copy?

Or would you like to buy a psychic reading or an aura drawing?

Maybe a simple donation? (See Paypal "Donate" button above.)

If you are a praying person, would you be willing to pray hard for me to get the computer I need?

Perhaps you could send energy and intention towards that goal? Or visualise its attainment?

If you can work magick, will you please help by doing a working for me to get the right computer?

And if you are a healer, please send healing vibes to the situation.

Or just wish me luck. ☺

Many thanks!

Slight change of plan

So I'm not getting a new computer - yet. (See previous post.)

The finance company wouldn't do a deal on Andrew's and my combined income, and even with augmenting the Age Pension to the degree we're allowed to, neither of us earns enough singly to be eligible. Damn! The store was very happy to sell to us if we could find a way, and we know it's doable, in fact they were willing to offer us an even better deal on the basis of us buying two ... but, no go.

Meanwhile I have gazed upon the face of heaven! Er, I mean I have had a test-drive of the 24-inch iMac, and nearly fainted with sheer lust. Gotta find a way!

The only option I can see now is to find someone willing and able to buy one for us, either outright or on hp, and have us pay them back bit by bit, as we were prepared to do for the shop if we could have got the finance sorted.

We've started a computer fund already!

I'm getting a new computer!

I mean brand new, not another secondhand one. Our mate James, newly returned from a few years in America, and looking where to settle, came to visit for a few days. Then he promptly had a heart attack, had stents put into closed arteries, and after leaving hospital has come back to us for a few weeks. Which has been good in all sorts of ways. he has made a wonderful recovery, and it's great to have so much time to hang out with him after some years of phone calls and emails only.

He noticed our constant frustration with our slow, antiquated equipment, and being a Mac expert was able to see that for our needs the new 24-inch iMac would be ideal for each of us. Then he found that a place nearby is offering a good deal on hire purchase, and I realise I only need one extra client a month to be able to do this. So James - who is a much better negotiator than me - is taking me up in a minute to look at them and hopefully bring two home.

I might be offline a few days getting the new one set up. Depends on the fine print etc,, whether this actually happens, but I'm just tellin' ya.