Up in the Air, Depending on Prayer

Herein the author begins by first introducing himself; then describing the adventures encountered after writing a book for his children recounting his Vietnam exploits to the decision to make the whole thing available to the general public as an eBook. Future ramblings will hover (pun intended) around his experiences as a helicopter pilot, while extending out to whatever suits his fancy as time goes by.

Name:
Location: Abilene, Kansas, United States

Friday, February 8, 2008

Problems

It is now mid-February. What happened to my News Year Resolution to post more frequently, you may ask? Well, I have had a series of severe computer problems. First, my computer refused to let me on the internet, saying I had local access only. This was soon followed by the laptop refusing to perform on wireless (although fine on direct wire hookup). Kaye's desktop worked fine.

Suspecting the ISP was to blame, I contacted them. 'Not their problem' was their answer. Linksys (router) helped in a desultory way, but stated the problem did not lie with them. Gateway also at first refused to consider the problem might lie in the computer.

So, I bought a new back-up hard drive, saved what I could, reformatted the C drive and reinstalled the factory settings. The fool thing still didn't work!

After 2-3 more calls and hours on the line with tech support, Gateway finally announced there was a problem and to send the thing back for repair as the modem for internet hookup was hard-wired into the motherboard.

Off went my computer into never, never land. In the meantime, Kaye began having internet connection problems too. Linksys was consulted again. After considerable checking and attempts to reprogram, they determined my router was bad and offered to replace it, so the router also went into never, never land.

Finally, everything came back, but, of course, all of my software programs now had to be re-installed. This has proven to be interesting, as several of the programs were of the download type. Naturally, I have the unlock codes, but those are now inop since they had been used.

I am slowly contacting various program tech supports, attempting to convince them I really did have a computer problem which wiped out their program and I should be allowed to reinstall the program in question.

Most have been quite helpful. Spyware Doctor, alas, has thus far refused to even answer my telephone and email requests.

So, here I am, back on the internet. www.vietnam-air-rescues.com has continued to work, despite my inablility to monitor it.

New options have arisen, but I will leave them for another day.

Dave