All About Kimberly

Sailing Along the Life of Single Parenthood

Tag Archives: computer

The “Other” Favorites

Since I shared a video of Cameron with her favorites I thought I’d share mine and Becka’s favorite too.  Becka’s not here right now, but I feel comfortable with saying that her favorite gift was her new laptop (THANK YOU SANTA!).  In fact she was so excited that her desktop was donated by the end of the day yesterday (and I threw her desk out the front door to be hauled away by my dad).

laptop

And while I got several nice gifts, my favorite is easy to pick.  It brought tears to my eyes.  This was from my mom and dad:

flag

Yes. It’s a flag, but even better, it came with this:

certificate

If you can’t read it, it says:

On behalf of a grateful district, state, and nation, this flag was flown over the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. on May 30, 2007 is hereby presented to

Kimberly

To commemorate the date her brother, Tommie, began serving his country in the United States Armed Forces.

Yes…this is easily my favorite and will be in a display case proudly out for show in my house soon.

Still Searching for Computer Protection

With my current protection soon to expire, I’m still searching (remember I mentioned this yesterday?).  Today I found another site for discount software that I’m considering called Software Supply Group.  They have great deals on not only virus protection, but I also need to purchase Office for Cameron’s computer and they have a pretty good deal on Microsoft Office 2003 Pro.    I thought one intestesting thing with Software Supply Group besides their prices was that they have a software blog.  How many companies can say that?  I’ve not noticed any lately.  I’m still undecided on what virus protection I want, but if I go with something that Software Supply Group sales, I will probably buy from them so that I can go ahead and pick up some other software too while I’m at it.  I’ve never heard of them though and would love to hear opinions from past customers if you are out there.

NO INTERNET?! Lessons Learned

Today my Internet went out for several hours – actually the entire afternoon and into the evening tonight.  Can you say aggravation? Oh yes! I was VERY annoyed for a while. I was right in the middle of multiple projects and for it to die was VERY frustrating. Now I should say that I didn’t immediately call tech support, and that is probably to blame for the hours of downtime, but I absolutely hate calling my tech support. I hoped it was a temporary thing that they would solve on their own time. I also just thought maybe my computer was acting stupid. It’s so out of date and probably needs to be replaced; however, I’m holding out on buying a new computer and even thinking of maybe just doing a cleanup/restore on my current machine and adding more laptop memory. But I’m a positive person, and I try to look for the positive in everything. So what did I gain from today.

First I gained super duper quality time with Cameron. I think sometimes my projects get too numerous. I come up with all these great ideas. I have all these great plans, but then the consume me, and I forget what’s around.  Well I don’t forget, I Just don’t take advantage of time I could be spending with my girls. I frequently bring dinner to the computer, but not tonight. Today Cameron and I played crazy eights, cooked dinner together, read Sweet Valley kids, and watched The Food Challenge on the Food Network tonight where they were making Disney/Pixar cakes. This was after going and spending a couple hours with my grandmother and swimming. It was a great afternoon and evening. I feel pleasantly surprised. So today, I made a summer resolution. I will designate two back to back hours every day that the computer will be turned off (this will not be cooking time or shower time, it will be FAMILY time). So there was my silver lining today – a reminder of a lesson I already knew – that I LOVE spending time with my girls.

With that I was also reminded of another lesson I learned years ago (warning: going off on a tangent! I need to rant and rave!) that if I provide a service in the United States, my support team would be based in America and speaking English would be the first language of at least 90% of my employees!!  This is why I put off calling tech support for hours. I always have a headache after dealing with the HughesNet technical support. I’m really not sure where they are based, but I assume they are not in the United States as I’ve NEVER called once in 8 years and had someone pick up the phone that did not have a foreign accent to their English.  This is so frustrating!  Every question he/she asks and every set of instructions, I have to ask them to repeat usually MULTIPLE times. Typically I have to repeat myself a couple of times too each time they do ask me a question. Is it too much to ask for a positive experience when you call for tech support?  Apparently when it comes to my Internet service provider, Hughesnet, yes it is.  But after this headache, I do have Internet service again so though it was a horrible experience, it did have a positive ending.