What Really Goes on Inside Your Computer?

This week's technology lesson starts with a simple tip: Never power-wash your Blackberry. I left mine in a golf cart at my club this week and the back shop boys inadvertently did just that, leaving me scrambling to replace my phone.

I have a problem with the Blackberry, as I receive my faxes to my email account, but Blackberry doesn't allow one to actually read PDF files. They do show up, but are displayed in a nano-font that is unreadable without a microscope.

Once upon a time I owned a Treo smart phone and it did about a million things, but it didn't do any of them particularly well. Besides, it required me to install the Palm Desktop which, while very nice, isn't the one that I prefer. I also prefer not to have to have stern chats with it every ten minutes or so, in an effort to convince it that I am really quite happy with Outlook and that, no, I do not want it to dominate my computer system, thank you very much.

All of which left me with a phone powered by Windows Mobile 5.0. Which, unbeknownst to me, required that I upgrade to Outlook 2007. A trial version was included on the disc that came with the phone.

My story picks up on about my fourth attempt to install the software. The previous attempts had ended with error messages like "That's an ugly shirt", "What a wiener!", and "Phhhtt".

The fourth time's a charm, and it went something like this:

"Aw, fer Gawd's sake, Verna, he's going to try again!"

"What a moron. Hasn't he got something productive to do?"

"Like what? Talk on his cell phone?"

(At this point I distinctly heard high-pitched, maniacal cackling from my computer).

"Well, have you tried making him reboot a few dozen times?"

"Jeez, Verna, what do you take me for, a rookie?"

"What are you going to do?"

"I've got it. I'll hand the install over to Berniece."

"Berniece? That idiot who does the Visio installs? She hasn't worked in, what, three years? She'll never...oh, never mind, I get it."

(More maniacal cackling)

"Verna, when a user starts talking about bare leads and a high-voltage power supply, is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

(At this point, I was certain that I heard a WAV file of a submarine going to battle stations)

"Madge, we only have two choices here. You can give him what he wants, or activate the blue screen of death, but you've got to decide now. Right now, Madge!"

"Aw, fer Crissakes Verna, it's only Wednesday. I'll load the damned software. Do me a favour, hon. Activate the "43 critical updates a day for the next ten days" module, and make sure that the "full reboot after install" is checked off for all of them. Thanks. You're a doll."