uh-oh

My mission today was to find two drivers: a monitor/display driver for my laptop, and a freeware driver for my digital voice recorder. Circumstances have conspired to stop me in my tracks.

I found a Q&A site that walks you through the procedure for finding and downloading Dell laptop monitor software. I then went to the Dell site, and after a lot of searching, I found what appeared to be the correct driver for my laptop and went through the download/setup procedure. Of course, you have to restart the computer to lock in the changes, and I did this.

Result: the startup begins (with the normal graphics), then the monitor conks out.

Frustrating, to say the least. The disk drive keeps whirring as though it's actually doing something, but even after several minutes, nothing changes. Dead monitor, whirring drive, but nothing else. Even CTRL-ALT-DEL doesn't work-- but strangely enough, the keystrokes for the "eject disk" command produce results: the CD drive obediently pops open. Go figure.

I'm typing this entry on the BlackBerry, as you can imagine. There, too, we have problems: the study carrel where I normally sit used to have a satisfactory signal for online work on the handheld, but over the past two days, that signal has been too weak, so to type this entry and do any surfing, I have to leave the library. With the weather this gorgeous, that's not a bad proposition, but it's a pain to have to leave camp instead of being able to do everything in one place.

If the laptop remains unresponsive, I may have to drop it off at a repair shop tomorrow. Damn. Not looking forward to that bill.


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