Kristin Janz

For a moment, I was afraid that those responsible for the latest version of WordPress didn’t want those of us who aren’t so good with computers to be able to insert links into our posts.  I tried doing the usual thing where you highlight the bit of text that you’d like the reader to be able to click on, to go to the link, and then clicking on the “link” link.  That used to give you a window where you could paste in the link that you wanted to insert.  However, the first time I tried it in the new WordPress, it gave me a DIFFERENT-looking pop-up window!  (Those of us where aren’t good with computers would prefer that all the programs we use maintain exactly the same appearance for their entire lifetime, or we get really confused.)  Worse, when I pasted in the link I wanted, it put the path to the link right at the beginning of my post, not over the portion of text I’d selected.

Fortunately, before I had to start calling out “Donald!  Donald!” in increasingly desperate tones, I noticed that I now had a choice of “Visual” and “HTML” editor for creating a post, and that the default was set on “HTML”.  Hmm, I thought, maybe “Visual” is what I want here.

So I clicked on the “Visual” tab.  I got the same new-looking window pop-up when I clicked on the Link icon (they replaced the word “link” with a little picture of some links of chain, which would have confused me except that the administrator of another website had already explained to me what that icon meant).  That made me a little nervous, but fortunately, this time it put the link over the selected text (right where I wanted it), not at the beginning of my post.

I guess I shouldn’t complain too much about free software.  Fortunately, my husband Donald knows a lot more about computers and programming than I do.  Otherwise this blog would be a lot more work for me.

I post all this just in case anyone who reads my blog is even more computer-inept than I am (this is unlikely, but you never know).

Today I got absolutely no writing done, because my desktop computer is so ridiculously slow.

My plan was to submit a story that had recently been rejected to another magazine, to see if they were interested, then spend the rest of the hour that I can devote to writing each weekday working on the story I’m writing. Unfortunately, it took me half an hour to submit the story, when it should have taken less than 10 minutes, because my computer kept freezing. Then it took me another half hour to attempt to open the file for the story I’m working on. Including a restart. I just kept thinking, “It can’t possibly be this slow for the entire evening! I’m sure whatever problem it’s experiencing will correct itself momentarily. Any minute now!”

I’m using my laptop right now. At least I have a back-up computer. My laptop used to be just as slow as my 6-year old desktop currently is, but then Donald helped me to buy and install additional memory and, while not exactly speedy, it now works pretty well, and doesn’t crash if I have more than 4 windows open.

Why don’t I buy a new computer? Well, I’m lazy. And busy. And a Luddite. This may sound odd, seeing as I have my own website. But I don’t even have a cell phone yet.

Here are the issues:

1. I have an even older computer in the basement (so old that it runs Windows 95), and I promised myself I wouldn’t buy a new desktop until I figured out how to dispose of that one. Unlike some people, I don’t plan to haul all my old computers around with me each time I move, for the rest of my life. But it’s kind of a pain to get rid of an old computer. Especially the monitor (nope, it’s not a flat screen). You can’t just stick it out on the curb, after all.

2. Computers are expensive. Enough said.

3. It always takes hours to set up a new computer, even if you’re lazy (like me), and buy one with all the software you need pre-installed. There are too many other things clamoring for my attention.

4. I already had to learn how to use Vista when I got this laptop, after I’d just figured out XP. Now I have to learn a brand-new operating system. Worse – I have to learn a new version of Office! That’s the really scary part. I rely on being able to use Word 2003 without having to think about it too much. I can put a story I’ve written in standard manuscript format for submission to magazines, pretty much in my sleep. And people have told me that, although Office 2007 is actually a better program than the earlier versions, there’s a steep learning curve, and everything works differently. Aagh! Why are you doing this to me, Microsoft? I don’t WANT to learn a new and better version of Word. I don’t want to have to waste time learning how to use a word processer program, instead of writing. Not to mention having to remember to consciously save all my documents in .doc format instead of the default .docx. Because not a lot of magazines will accept .docx. I guess I’m not the only Luddite out there in the science fiction world.

But the situation is becoming rather urgent. It’s becoming harder and harder to justify not being able to spare any of my writing time to set up a new desktop computer and learn how to use new programs, when it takes me an entire hour to submit one story.

On the other hand, my laptop is working really well! Maybe I can postpone the new computer purchase another year. Or two. Or three….