Thanks to Alison, our family was enhanced five years ago by a gift beyond measure: our son-in-law, Mike. That sweet guy had yesterday off and spent 5 hours of it down here working on this infuriating computer.
He said it doesn't have a virus, as Don throught, but is the victim of "system clutter," along with "hiccups" that prevent, for instance, the spell check on this blog from working. Also, in Outlook Express, Comcast just arbitrarily switched the standard of "25" to "597"--for their own Machavellian purposes, I guess--and I had to resort to Comcast's own. That's what caused my Outlook Express to first, stop receiving messages, then stop sending. Anyway, he took care of that, but there are some other problems and he wants to bring the machine (yes, that's all it is, a machine, and it isn't really looking out at me and taking notes, I fervently hope) up to his house because it needs more extensive doctoring. I can live with the other stuff for now, because it's just annoying, rather than crucial. One is that the thing refuses to "remember" me, so I have to sign in with I.D. and password each time I open e-mail or write in this blog. That's not too big a deal.
All this, of course, is a very simplified version of what MIke discovered; I'm simply parroting a few pieces of his remarks, and out of context, too. I find it very hard to follow and understand the workings of the computer. Guess I'm more the dreamy romantic than the analytical type (oh, what a surprise!).
Mike is a programmer analyst for N.J., so doesn't do this for a living, but he's very, very bright and knowledgeable. He has a whole "doctor kit" of disks that he runs for various problems, and he knows all the inner workings as throughly as I do my BP level.* He has built several computers entirely by himself, including the ones at his and Alison's home. (One reason for the addition is the fact that their second bedroom is his office cum workshop cum command center, and so on.)
Anyway, for all this, he just got lunch.
* Which, incidentally, was 110/76 yesterday. Took Pat to the endocrinologist later in the day and asked the nurse to do me when she did him (tee-hee).