Feb 16, 2017 3 min read

This column is the maiden voyage of my new laptop computer. I brought it home on Valentine’s Day, a present to myself that would finally free me from weeks of tech trouble that had me missing deadlines by day and grinding my teeth by night.

Since 2011, every sentence I wrote had been typed on that computer, a Mac laptop. It traveled to Argentina and back three times, made the trip into the university classroom for dozens of classes, and held and stored all the words I’d generated and photos I’d taken. It was dented on one corner from when I’d dropped it, and was covered with the sticky residue of a hundred Post It notes.

And then came the virus that kidnapped my computer. Sometime last month a box popped onto my screen and, without paying attention, I clicked OK, and unlocked the gate to my hard drive and welcomed the sickness aboard.

The virus flooded my poor Mac’s bloodstream, jamming my internet and slowing everything to a crawl. Even when I could log onto the web, messages would pop up every few seconds, warning me that I’d caught a virus. I would delete them all. Eventually, the people at Mac joined the fun, polluting my screen with constant messages saying “How may I help you?”

“You can help by not badgering me anymore,” I would type into the dialogue box. But the nagging would persist.

I am lucky: the farmer is smart about computers. He spent a long morning stalking the virus and eventually untangled the mess. By inadvertently clicking that box, I had downloaded one of the more currently prevalent viruses, one that not only screws with my computer but also prompts messages from a security company that is in business to get rid of it.

In other words, the virus is an upselling tool. In order to remove the virus, I would have to pay $250 – to a security company that is in a position to make money off my misfortune.

“That is evil,” I said.

“Diabolical,” the farmer said.

Better to buy a new laptop than to pay the ransom. And that’s what we did. This new computer is much less expensive, because it’s not a Mac. The switchover comes with a sharp learning curve. I’m still not sure how to move my fingers across the mouse pad, and the keyboard is wider than I’m used to. It has a grouping of numbers on the right-hand side of the keyboard. When my hands are on the letter keys, they are skewed off to the left, giving me the feeling that I’m playing piano notes in the bass clef.

I’m slowly getting used to it. I do like the touch of the keys, and it’s a nice, wide screen. The internet is much speedier, allowing me to zip around between Facebook and Google and my email more easily now. I will even be able to watch a movie on Netflix without the lady at the Mac helpdesk popping in to chat.

The old computer’s in a desk drawer now, awaiting the day when I take it in to have all the photos and columns removed and put on my new computer. Or, I could just keep it as a kind of album of my life from the past six years. Oh, the stories it can tell, the pictures it can show. It’s all still on there.

Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.