An old man and a computer

Last week, my friend Jake decided to upgrade to a new computer.  Both of us had experience as computer users and implementers.  So, how hard could it be?  Both of us figured that we could get that thing up and running in a couple of hours, at the most.  Of course, we were both in our early seventies and hadn’t quite kept up with the technological innovations that are running rampant today.  But, hey, any hard problem can turn into an easy solution if we put our minds to it, or so we thought.

I walked into the room where Jake had laid out all of the piece parts for the computer.  I tackled the easiest part of the puzzle first.  I quickly put the monitor parts together and hooked the VGA cable up to the computer.  Then, I looked at the mouse and keyboard.  Uh oh…wireless.  I’d never personally used that type of hardware.  So, I looked both parts over and found that both units had a little button labeled connect.  Okay, I thought, just put the parts close to the computer and hold the button down.  I surmised that they should automatically connect to a wireless receiver inside the computer via Bluetooth after I turned on the computer.

After turning on the computer and listening to the hard drive spin for a few seconds, a message came on the monitor screen telling me to accept some disclaimer.  I immediately started moving the mouse to click on that box, but quickly realized that the mouse wasn’t working.  Of course… it hadn’t been connected yet.  Now, this was a quandary to me.  I need the computer up and running to connect the mouse wirelessly, but I also need the computer to have booted up to the point that the wireless connection to the mouse and keyboard can be completed.  Of course, I could have read some instructions applicable to this process, but that would make it too easy, I thought.  If I can’t solve this problem without reading the instructions, then it’s not worth solving.

I sat back and thought about the problem for a few minutes.  I pressed the connect button on the mouse and keyboard a few times.  I contemplated my navel for another few minutes.  Nothing…nada…zilch.  I took the batteries out of both units and inspected them.  Then, I decided to just look over the piece parts that were lying around to see if something might inspire me.  There was one tiny box that had contained the VGA cable.  I looked inside and discovered a tiny USB dongle which was hidden away inside the cardboard creases.  A USB dongle.  That’s it!!!  That’s what I was missing.  I quickly extracted the dongle, hooked it up to the back of the computer, moved the mouse close to the dongle and pressed connect.  Voila.  Victory.  I did the same for the keyboard.  Now, we were rolling.  The computer booted up and Windows 8 was finally being activated.

So, we had been working for an hour and had only gotten to the point where the operating system was starting to work.  I began to contemplate a long, long day.  We took a break while the computer was activating itself.   Our casual conversation tilted toward the time the first PC’s arrived at work.  The one I got in my group was a clunker.  It had no hard drive, just two floppy drives.  The operating system was MS-DOS.  It was incapable of doing much more than word processing.  But, in my mind’s eye, it was one of the greatest pieces of technology that I had ever seen.  I was dumbfounded by the potential that was obviously there in that nondescript looking box that could convert millions of ones and zeroes into one unique and magical experience.

After a half hour respite and a deep contemplation of past glories, our project continued flawlessly until we decided that it was time to transfer the old computer files to the new computer.  That seemed like an easy job.  What could possibly go wrong?  We decided to use a 1G flash drive to transfer the files.  I got into windows explorer and selected the files I needed to transfer and then used the copy/paste routine to get the files onto the flash drive and then transferred to the hard drive of the new computer.  Everything worked perfectly, or at least I thought it did.  Jake decided to make a quick check to make sure that all of the files that he needed to transfer had indeed been transferred successfully.

I took another break, secure in the assumption that I had masterfully completed the transfer.  However, after only a few seconds of perusing, Jake said, “All of the files aren’t on the hard drive.  They seem to be on the flash drive but not on the hard drive.  My response was an incredulous, “What???  No way.”  My first thought was that the copy/paste process had skipped some of the lower level subfolders.  So, I decided to run through the process again after opening all of the folders for view.  That didn’t work.  I tried using a DVD disk for the transfer.  No change.

So, I decided that I needed to look at the properties of the files and folders themselves.  Was there something different about the files that weren’t getting copied?  I right clicked on one of the offending folders and then clicked properties.  Whoa!!!   The folder had been declared hidden by someone.  Even though the folders appeared on the screen of the old computer, they had been declared hidden and thus not able to be copied to the hard drive on the new computer.  So, I went through all of the folders and removed the hidden designation.  Then, after copying and pasting again, all of the files and folders appeared.  Success.

Finally, after hours of finding and fixing other problems which popped up incessently, the computer came alive and was ready for use.  There was this intriguing issue about activating the wireless capability of the e-printer, but that story is for another day.  I was proud of the fact that it only took me nine hours to complete the job.  Heck, I usually can’t stay awake for that many consecutive hours.

As a result of this humbling experience, I came up with this bit of folk wisdom:  As one’s age approaches eighty, the time required to solve complex problems approaches infinity.  I still believe that there is no problem that cannot be solved.  Grand solutions will come, but time will be the governing construct.

After we had finished the job and I was heading toward Jake’s front door, he offhandedly said, “You know, I’m thinking about buying a Roku to stream Netflix movies to my big screen TV.”  I responded with, “That sounds great.  We should be able to get that to work in less than an hour.  No problem.  Meanwhile, I’m going to be at the golf course tomorrow.  Do you want to join me?   Playing eighteen holes of golf is ten times better than jockeying technology for nine hours.”