Technology Troubles

I will openly admit that I am a gadget man, a techno-freak, a person who loves the small bits of kit that make life that little bit easier.

I am on Twitter (see bottom right), Facebook and have a defunct MySpace page kicking around somewhere. I have a phone which connects to the internet, allows me to conduct video calls but hasn't got a touch activated screen. I love gadgets! I take after my dad who always had the latest toy so he had a Betamax video and flat screen tv and cable tv before anyone else in the street!

The one thing I had never possessed was a laptop. In fact I'd only ever used one on a couple of occasions and that was mainly to plug in a usb flash stick to run some PowerPoint presentations. With a successful nomination for the Licensed Instructors course, I asked Jamie if I would need a laptop and he gave me a knowing grin.

So having crashed and burned with 3, who happily take £60+ each month for my mobile phone contract (and my wife's phone) but wouldn't give me one of their "free laptop" deals where you pay over the odds for a mobile broadband contract, I resorted to my favourite source of second hand goods - EBAY!

The laptop arrived yesterday and having battled all last night, over a few beers admittedly, I eventually established the wireless connection using the inbuilt network card. It worked well ... up to a distance of 4 feet and then died. Despite frequent driver downloads, trips to Microsoft's Windows Update page and many hours of cursing, it still was very reluctant to stay connected. So I headed to PC World and got a new network and after a couple of hours of fiddling around with drivers an settings, I have a stable connection.

Now it's time to get the wireless mouse and Bluetooth working ...