Earlier this week I got a call from a friend. He told me he was so fed up with
his PC that he had bought a new laptop and was about to put the old system outside
to be taken away by the bin men! So, he said, if I wanted any of the stuff, I
should get myself around there immediately.
He wasn't joking... Five minutes later I arrived to find the 17 inch monitor,
keyboard and speakers already on the pavement and the tower about to follow. Gosh,
nothing annoys people quite like a PC that doesn't work!
Last September, another friend was threatening to throw his unco-operative
PC (which I was trying to fix at the time) out of the window. And he lives on
the thirteenth floor of a tower block.
In an ideal world I would offer to fix up all of these PCs. But, being self-employed,
and with so many friends with so many computer problems, so often, I just can't
do it. To be frank, it can be a minefield. Something you think will take an hour
can turn into an entire weekend. And occasionally people can get quite nasty when
things don't go the way they hope.
Some old PCs are simply not worth repairing. Especially when there are shops in
Manchester offering a completely new system (not including monitor) for £225
($340).
Back home I took a look at the PC. It needed a new power supply and I suspect
there's a fault with the motherboard as I can only get one hard drive working
with it. I reinstalled Windows and had to look on the 'net for drivers for the
various PCI cards inside. In all, it took about ten hours to get it all working
again.
It's about four years old. A Celeron processor. While at the computer store,
I also bought a router, so now I have my own home network! Pretty cool.
Meanwhile there's great news about Europride, which ended last weekend. It
turns out it has raised £124,000 for charities. This is the largest amount
ever raised in the thirteen-year history of the Manchester August Bank Holiday
event.
So, congratulations to everyone who was involved. I'm glad I was wrong! I still
hate the pledgeband system though ;-)
As I'll soon be heading away from Manchester for a few weeks, I've had a couple
of extra nights out. At Thompson's Arms (above) and Via Fossa (below). Needless
to say, everywhere is pretty quiet in the week after Mardi Gras!
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