There's Always More Than One Way To Do Things

Wednesday morning I came downstairs and noticed that the computer monitor on the kitchen desk was dark.  As in not working.  Thinking that maybe there had been a quick power outage that turned the computer off, I pressed the On button a few times.  Nothing.  Next I tried resetting the surge protector, and heard the motor inside the tower make some noises.  After a few seconds it stopped.  Not good!

Those were all the solutions I could think of before coffee, so after breakfast I took up the project again.  I pulled the tower out from its spot underneath the desk and dislodged a large cat hair dust bunny.   Thinking the problem might be dust inside the case, I took off the cover and cleaned everything out with compressed air.  When that didn't do anything I admitted defeat.

Our computer guy is a personal friend, so I emailed him with an SOS.  Fifteen minutes later I got a text telling me to bring it by his house so he could take a look at it.  As he took the tower out of my car, he told me that based on my description of the symptoms it sounded like an easily fixable power issue.  He could probably have it fixed by time he and Hubby Tony got together on Saturday night.

Between my laptop, tablet, and phone it's not like I have a lack of ways to access the Internet, but as I drove away I realized there was a slight problem. You may remember that each week I put together a weekly slide show for electronic bulletin boards at my church.  I change them on Thursday night or Friday afternoon, and everything I needed to do the update was on my now non-working computer!

At first I thought that perhaps I could just leave the old set of slides in place, but my records indicated that one of them would be out of date after Saturday. I needed to come up with a creative solution.

I use the Microsoft Paint program to produce the slides.  I can navigate the program on the kitchen computer easily, but the laptop I bought several months ago uses a newer version.  Each time I work with it I figure out a little bit more, but this week I didn't have the time to wrestle with its complexities.  Instead, I made a generic "Welcome" slide and saved it on the laptop. 

On a normal week all I carry with me on the trip to the church are three flash drives.  Today I brought the laptop, which I used to remove the slide for the obsolete event and add the new one. Problem solved.

Simple background.  One word.  Done!

Five years ago today: Happy First Day Of Autumn