You can probably tell from the paucity of posts that life has been busy lately. Last night I was triple booked. Reluctantly, I had to miss hosting an excellent Devon Family History Society Zoom talk. This at least was one that I could leave in the hands of my competent colleagues. Next, to work out how to host the Zoom element of our hybrid local history group meeting and be giving a talk elsewhere myself. This is something I have accomplished before. I open the meeting pass the hosting to an able assistant and go off and give my talk. Simple. Until yesterday morning my laptop flashes up a message reading ‘Locked’ and turns itself off. Said laptop turns back on but I spot that the battery is perilously low and although it reads ‘plugged in’, ominously it does not say ‘plugged in charging’. That would be because it wasn’t charging. Result one dead battery and a laptop that won’t turn on.
The computer shop can get me a new battery – hurrah – but it will take a few days. The current non-battery is only three months old so hopefully under warranty, which means I don’t have the option of trying to source one elsewhere. In any case ‘elsewhere’ is at least 16 miles away.
As 9% battery life became 8% I rapidly pulled off the things on the desk top that I might need and hadn’t quite got round to backing up and watched the gradual demise of the remaining battery. Good news, I have a plan B option in the form of the laptop of the fisherman of my acquaintance. Better news, this machine is in my house ready for being in two places at once later in the day. Not all good news though, it has different versions of the key programmes that I use.
I spend a while tweaking the presentation I am due to give in the evening his free version of powerpoint has different fonts, which has messed up my text. I then realise that I can’t access all my emails on this machine without possibly making life difficult for its owner and the link to join tonight’s meeting is inaccessible. This year however is the year I learnt to use my phone. I use the phone to email the link to the borrowed laptop’s owner – sorted. Next to access the software for the job we must not mention. My own element of this is over for now but I still have to supervise others. This is not an easy process and involves several levels of security, passwords etc.. passwords that are stored …… on the other computer. I manage to use the guest facility to convince the borrow laptop to remember some saved passwords. I even manage to convince the dying battery on my own machine to yield a document I had forgotten to copy that helps me with other passwords. I do have this backed up elsewhere but didn’t want to have to faff about with external hard drives on a day that was already rapidly slipping away.
After about two and a half hours of trying to set the borrowed machine up so I could actually do something, I tell the tale of woe to my daughter. She informs me that if I remove the dead battery from my own machine and plug it in it will stop trying to charge the unchargeable and – work. It seems this is so – yipee. By this time I have totally lost the will to do anything I should be doing – life seems to have been a bit like that lately.
Come the evening. My companion is ready and waiting to host the hybrid local history meeting. I click to join the meeting where I am the speaker. It turns out that I am not the only person whose day has not gone to plan. The host’s modem had died. The substitute host was in the midst of a powercut and running the meeting using her phone as a hotspot. Good job I am not required to do this, my newfound phone proficiency would not extend that far, not to mention my meagre data allowance. Though I do confess to having recently upped the allowance in order to rush round the country catching Pokémon. I am still claiming that this is solely to interact with the grandchildren. My story, I’m sticking to it.
The saga is not yet over. While waiting to start my talk there is a knock on the door. It is the host of the physical element of the hybrid meeting, which takes place next door, to whom I have errrr somehow neglected to send the link. Fortunately there is still time to email this before I have to start speaking.
Well despite the technology gods being against us, somehow three meetings seems to take place without further incident. I would say today can only get better but I am not willing to tempt fate.
The History Interpreter - Janet Few 