Newcomers beware, when I have a slow day I tend to talk about computers. So stick around, sometimes you learn something. A new event today for me. Remember that for all the years I have taught computers, I have not repaired them very long at all. A customer came in with a computer I worked on and sold him six months ago, and sold it back to me. No room for it in his new apartment. Yet I’ll bet you there is a TV.
I’m not grossing any more than Dickens at the Thrift, but I am moving a lot of the higher priced items. Some of the customers are getting used to me being there already and know I don’t sell anything for less than $2.00 so don’t ask. One new guy, Mike came in and he is an air conditioning mechanic. We have a working arrangement already. He knows his stuff.
For example, all the trouble I have with that AC unit in the Florida room may be over in an instant. Several people have pronounced it dead because a pipe is bent and it is missing the remote control. Mike said, “Let me look at it once. If it is the remote, give me five minutes to rip out the receiver and install a mechanical switch.”
You can tell a man who knows what he is doing. Then, I downloaded a ton of CSS material and have discovered a variation. It is called CSS-P for “positioning” and refers to the coding that replaces tables. It makes sense, as tables were beginning to make the code appallingly cumbersome. Even reading my earlier work was slow and I am a heavy documenter, often commenting 30% of everything.
Then I went over to a new client on A1A, the major coast road in S. Florida. Two ladies who called to say their computer had “quit talking Italian”. I got it going. Avanti means Next and Salvo means Save. These two ladies have an incredible computer from Europe but they don’t know how to use it. First of all, it was suffocating on 427 ad-ware and spy viruses. (Don’t quibble with me, anything on a computer installed without your knowledge is a virus in my book, and it is my book.)
It was fun over there for two hours, since they had no idea the thing could play movies and burn CDs. They are intensely interested in how to surf anonymously. Both are single and one just got out of the hospital with a wrist operation. She is pretty but zonked out today so the picture does not do her justice. The other lady wants to take some lessons, she is they type I can really make progress with because she knows this is a rare opportunity.
By the way, yes, the operating system was entirely in Italian, which amazed them because although I could not read the words, I was able to correctly guess everything from the position of the screen messages. Somehow, the new printer driver had installed itself twice and was confusing the hell out of everyone. Another Epson C92. I decided to take it in to the shop, for although it works fine, unless somebody learns to speak Italian around here, leaving it that way is asking for trouble.
