Post by Veritee on Jun 26, 2004 10:07:38 GMT
Hi Everyone
Sorry I have not been around for a while – but I think I am back now and I am very pleased to see that you have all been doing a good job of supporting each other while I have been off line.
I hope no one has felt let down by my absence, but hopefully not as one of the positives about an internet support site is that no one person is essential as others should be online who can help support others?
The reason for my being off line started with my upgrading my computer which, as I am on it so much, I do every couple of years. However due to my accident in 2003 I missed a year so it was badly in need of it.
At first my computer was out of action for a week while I installed all the new bits – I had other things to do so I was slow at this.
I have a laptop for emergencies but because of where I live, up an unmade track on a moor over 8 miles from the exchange I am one of the few households in the country who can not get any sort of reliable internet down my phone lines. The line noise is too great so I am disconnected constantly and no data comes down so I can not see any web pages.
Just using a dial up modem e-mail can sometimes be sent as the phone connection does work better to upload stuff and I do get some e mail, but not much and it is unreliable
( If you have sent me anything and I have not got it yet – do not worry as I will get it now everything is working as I have my e mail set to store it for 60 days on the server, just in case this happens - as it has before).
Because of this I use a DIY satellite internet connection for down traffic which solves most of my problems so I can go online and run the site.
Unhappily the people who supply the service www.cpsat.co.uk/index.htm only let me use it on one PC and their software will detect if I try to use it on my laptop and block it.
I can take the laptop out to friends with a better line and I have done this once or twice but quite honestly, I have been to busy fixing my PC and with other things to do this.
Anyway amongst other things I bought a really expensive graphics card which when I put it in just made my computer impossible to use. Because I had done a few other things like put my whole PC in a new case and bought a new 550 watt power supply to future proof the amount and kinds of peripherals I can use and some new memory and a bigger hard disk - I was not sure it was the graphics card that was causing the trouble.
After many days of frustration, fiddling and re installing and phone calls to Germany where the card was made, I finally realised that the card was faulty and put back the old card and returned the new one to Germany (I am still waiting for it to come back)
I thought this was the end of my problems, but had about one afternoon of everything working fine and sent a few e mails etc when the computer kept switching itself off!
This has led to another week of a computer which did not work until I realised that my new power supply was also faulty. Unlucky or what, I am just praying the hard disk does not go!
The power supply also has gone back to the manufactures and the old one is back in so the computer was working again.
I then installed Norton Internet Security which I had also bought at the same time as I get so much rubbish and spam on my computer I just had to do something – installing this trashed my operating system!
Having worked out that for some reason this Norton software does not like one of my external hard disks; I have now, just this morning, got everything up and running properly and back on the internet. However I still have a bit of a problem as Norton is interfering with my satellite proxy server so I do not have the speed I should.
I have lost some data and amongst this some Pni information, but it has not been too much.
In addition to the computer problems I have been very busy in addition with filling in funding applications and writing a constitution and also my husband Barry and I have just applied to be foster parents.
This has taken up some time due to a couple of lengthy home visits, needing to discuss the implications between us and Caja our 15 year old daughter, having to construct a time line of our life for both of us, our family tree and details of out past and our opinions and attitudes. This had to be done now as Barry goes back to sea for 8 weeks on Monday and it was something we had to do together.
We start the fostering training when Barry gets back so in 8 weeks I may again not be on the site much.
Has anyone else any experience of fostering – it would be useful to chat to someone about it?
Anyway this is why I have not been around, but I should be back for a while now and hopefully when my graphics card and power supply come back they will work OK.
All the best
Veritee
PS. I have received this morning and a few last week many e mail support partner forms which I have not been able to process or send to anyone else to process due to my computer problems.
I will today get on to this – so it you have been waiting for contact I am sorry – but I will try to do them now.
Sorry I have not been around for a while – but I think I am back now and I am very pleased to see that you have all been doing a good job of supporting each other while I have been off line.
I hope no one has felt let down by my absence, but hopefully not as one of the positives about an internet support site is that no one person is essential as others should be online who can help support others?
The reason for my being off line started with my upgrading my computer which, as I am on it so much, I do every couple of years. However due to my accident in 2003 I missed a year so it was badly in need of it.
At first my computer was out of action for a week while I installed all the new bits – I had other things to do so I was slow at this.
I have a laptop for emergencies but because of where I live, up an unmade track on a moor over 8 miles from the exchange I am one of the few households in the country who can not get any sort of reliable internet down my phone lines. The line noise is too great so I am disconnected constantly and no data comes down so I can not see any web pages.
Just using a dial up modem e-mail can sometimes be sent as the phone connection does work better to upload stuff and I do get some e mail, but not much and it is unreliable
( If you have sent me anything and I have not got it yet – do not worry as I will get it now everything is working as I have my e mail set to store it for 60 days on the server, just in case this happens - as it has before).
Because of this I use a DIY satellite internet connection for down traffic which solves most of my problems so I can go online and run the site.
Unhappily the people who supply the service www.cpsat.co.uk/index.htm only let me use it on one PC and their software will detect if I try to use it on my laptop and block it.
I can take the laptop out to friends with a better line and I have done this once or twice but quite honestly, I have been to busy fixing my PC and with other things to do this.
Anyway amongst other things I bought a really expensive graphics card which when I put it in just made my computer impossible to use. Because I had done a few other things like put my whole PC in a new case and bought a new 550 watt power supply to future proof the amount and kinds of peripherals I can use and some new memory and a bigger hard disk - I was not sure it was the graphics card that was causing the trouble.
After many days of frustration, fiddling and re installing and phone calls to Germany where the card was made, I finally realised that the card was faulty and put back the old card and returned the new one to Germany (I am still waiting for it to come back)
I thought this was the end of my problems, but had about one afternoon of everything working fine and sent a few e mails etc when the computer kept switching itself off!
This has led to another week of a computer which did not work until I realised that my new power supply was also faulty. Unlucky or what, I am just praying the hard disk does not go!
The power supply also has gone back to the manufactures and the old one is back in so the computer was working again.
I then installed Norton Internet Security which I had also bought at the same time as I get so much rubbish and spam on my computer I just had to do something – installing this trashed my operating system!
Having worked out that for some reason this Norton software does not like one of my external hard disks; I have now, just this morning, got everything up and running properly and back on the internet. However I still have a bit of a problem as Norton is interfering with my satellite proxy server so I do not have the speed I should.
I have lost some data and amongst this some Pni information, but it has not been too much.
In addition to the computer problems I have been very busy in addition with filling in funding applications and writing a constitution and also my husband Barry and I have just applied to be foster parents.
This has taken up some time due to a couple of lengthy home visits, needing to discuss the implications between us and Caja our 15 year old daughter, having to construct a time line of our life for both of us, our family tree and details of out past and our opinions and attitudes. This had to be done now as Barry goes back to sea for 8 weeks on Monday and it was something we had to do together.
We start the fostering training when Barry gets back so in 8 weeks I may again not be on the site much.
Has anyone else any experience of fostering – it would be useful to chat to someone about it?
Anyway this is why I have not been around, but I should be back for a while now and hopefully when my graphics card and power supply come back they will work OK.
All the best
Veritee
PS. I have received this morning and a few last week many e mail support partner forms which I have not been able to process or send to anyone else to process due to my computer problems.
I will today get on to this – so it you have been waiting for contact I am sorry – but I will try to do them now.
