Greetings and Salutations,

     -=> Andy Roberts wrote to Linda Proulx <=-

 AR> If it were me doing the work, then I would not use Partition Magic.  A

Actually something just came up.  Someone he knows needs another hard
drive & my 2.5 G will fit the need & he has an 8 G (which I drull over).
Than I will have BRAND NEW(er) hard drive to do the install on.  Of
course the trick will be the 3 primary partitions. (And wondering how
much extra it will cost & long he's willing to wait for the $.)  But
that's an option that's looking good.

Do I know your first group.  Well. Frustrating as all (well I'm sure you
know. 'Manual, what manual'.

 AR> The other side:

 AR> Those who see someone else do some new trick and eagerly try to learn

C'est moi!

 AR> how to do it too.  They don't have an unlimited budget to pay others to

Oh how I understand that.

 AR> do anything for them, so they eventually learn to do almost everything
 AR> for them self. They spend many months debating every detail of every

More like drulling.

 AR> spec, feature, price and source as they upgrade piece by piece.  They
 AR> almost never buy any device without a very good reason and plan for
 AR> it's use to perform something new that their present obsolete system

How about a 10 year old?

 AR> can't do without that upgrade.  They may never have a completely new
 AR> top of the line system, but that does not prevent them from getting the

Oh so true!

 AR> most out of what they have.  Their enthusiasm builds as they learn more
 AR> about computers and software until eventually it becomes almost an
 AR> obsession.  They become the "friend" that others rely on.  The only

And don't listen, either.

 AR> task or app.  They become a 'jack of all trades'.  Some of them do

And it's not easy being one.  Nothing on paper to prove the skill is
there.

 AR> become 'master' of several of those trades.  Unlike the first

My most favourite job ever was a contract in the computer support
department of Air Command.  All the toys I got to play with!  Especially
the day I helped to spend 3 mil.

AR> they also know about several versions of DOS, Linux, MAC and

Did a stab at Linux.  Sorry I just don't have that kind of patience & no
way to Inet for all the holes.  I'm waiting until a cleaner install
shows up.  Supposedly Corel's coming out with one in 2000.  Hope the
Unix Group here gets to show it.  Did I tell you my dream machine......
Well it entails PIII, humungous amouts of memory & VMware.....Sigh......

 AR> My sister-in-law falls between the cracks of those 2 groups.  She would
 AR> try to tell you that she is not technically orientated, but she is a

Bet she's mechanical.

 AR> perfectionist. IMO she is still a novice, but she learns very fast.
 AR> She got started with her own PC because she wanted to run Family Tree
 AR> for OS/2 which she saw I had.  I built her very 1st system this year

Hmm.  Is it shareware?  Thinking of doing that kind of project actually.
Didn't know there was an OS/2 version.

 AR> machine and 95% of its parts for many years to come. It is a P450i with
 AR> 256MB RAM on a Asus P2BL MoBo with the fastest Adaptec SCSI and a
 AR> Matrox AGP G200 with 32MB RAM and a 19" .22 Monitor.  I installed all

Oh drull again...

Oh have to tell a story.  When I was in the business had a client with a
carpentry business.  We set up a system for them with a low end cad &
accounting, etc.  The wife would be the one I dealt with for support.
Pass a few years, & low & behold she doing programming at the local
college.  I was not surprised as she was very good with the original
system.  Some just have the feel for it.

And I use to tell a novice the first 2 programs used will always be the
hardest.  That's usually the operating system & the program they really
wanted the computer for.

question to AR> attempt to install a new FixPak or video driver via
remote control.

Too true.

AR> Besides she is still trying to understand partition and subdirectory
AR> structures and file extensions.

I remember overhearing a word processing student wondering why in the H
she had to learn about directories, subdirectories & basic DOS.  All she
wants to know is how to use the wordprocessing program.  Sigh.

 AR> BTW, she did get a laugh out of my previous questions to you.  Which

I'm hope she enjoyed my answers. 8-)

 AR> means she knew they were leading questions.  By now it should be
 AR> obvious to you what those questions were an attempt to lead you to.

Yes & definately helps in the thinking process.  Everything adds to the
pool of knowlege.  Trying to do this properly without my normal 'damn
the torpedos & full speed ahead' style.  I want this one set up
properly.

Look forward to your next post.

Anon,

Linda

... Cat:  (n) An Unprogrammable Animal.
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