Frustressed !

That's right...I am very frustressed lately! Yeah--that's a real word--"frustressed".

Look it up if you don't believe me. OK, Ok, I just made it up, but it should be a real word ! It's a combination of frustrated & depressed. These stupid computers are driving me nuts ! As my last post (which I sent as a text message from my phone) said, my laptop quit working and I'm stuck using an old desktop that runs really, really slooow....

Not sure what caused the laptop, which is only little over a year old, to stop working. I kept getting the "blue screen of death", as it's called. Meaning Windows kept crashing, so I decided to just re-install a fresh copy of Windows on it to try to correct the problem. Unfortunatly the re-install didn't work--in fact, it would not even complete the installation process. But it did format the hard drive, leaving the computer with NO operating system at all ! I think it may be a hardware problem, either the hard drive itself or something on the motherboard. But I don't have the money right now to take it in to be repaired.

So I got out an old desktop computer and set it up. It had problems as well, I got a lot of error messages saying "Delayed write failed", whatever that means. It got so bad you couldn't run anything because these error message popped up so often. So again I tried to re-install Windows on that machine.
And guess what--it would not install Windows--it would just get partway through and stop. I thought maybe the hard drive was bad because of all those "write errors".

After giving up on the whole thing for a few days, I ended up buying a book at Borders called "Moving To Ubuntu Linux" which came with a DVD containing a complete Linux installation. I tried installing this "Ubuntu Linux" operating system on the laptop, but it wouldn't install, just as Windows had failed to work. So I installed it on the old desktop, and that WORKED !!

Finally, I had a computer again! Even though it is an old and very slow machine. In fact, even as I type this, each letter slowly appears on screen a few seconds after I type it. And I have no sound coming from my USB speakers! So I can't watch videos , play games or do anything that requires audio. I haven't been able to figure out why the audio doesn't work as the Linux operating system recognizes all my other USB devices, including the USB audio (as well as the built-in motherboard audio and sound card). But--still NO SOUND. I've checked various Linux forums and help sites but still am unable to get sound. Well-that's not entirely true. I can get sound through just one program-the XMMS music player. But that only works for audio files that are stored on the computer. Not with CD's, DVD's or any online video or audio files. It's strange...since this one program works I know the speakers work and Linux is recognizing the USB audio, but it's a mystery why no other sound files work. ???
Any Linux experts out there who might have an answer?

Needless to say, it has been a extremely frustrating and depressing time trying to get this stupid machines to work! So that's why I am so FRUSTRESSED !

It has made me want to give up on computers and the internet entirely, but being an internet junkie, that's hard to do. So I guess I'll have to struggle along until I can get the laptop fixed or find a way to speed up this old machine.

Or go back to using my old Commodore 128 or Commodore Amiga !

My laptop has died and my old desktop is not working either so i guess no internet or blogging for me for awhile :-( Martin

No End In Sight

When will the American people wake up and DEMAND the impeachment of Bush and Cheney?