Dear Friends, Thank you for following my story. If you have been you are definitely as confused as I am. The cast of characters gets longer and longer and the series of events is unfathomable.

When I >>last posted<< on March 5, 2012, I was in a state of suspension. I am still hanging. Still trying to get clarity. Still waiting another computer exchange.

The XPS15 remains pretty stable except for an occasional refusal to recognize my Bluetooth mouse.  I had some video and audio drivers I had to install when there were some bugouts. I emailed my now “friend” in Dell-top-technician-Texas and he sent me the links. So far so good, but I have been burned so many times by these laptops that I cringe at the thought of moving the tons of stuff from my old desktop over. The question in the back of my mind is: how long can I trust this guy? The laptop, I mean.

Yeah, he’s got a few flaws, we ironed them out–for now, he seems to be pretty cool, he’s attractive, but what lurks in the works? All his relatives have copped out on me and left me in the techno-dating lurch. Digital-betrayal is inexcusable and it hurts every time. You think you know the machine, it seems to be responsive, reliable, cooperative, and then all of a sudden you are shocked by some wackiness that blew in from nowhere. Or the honeymoon ends and suddenly, you see there is a mar on the shiny case, your external hard drive isn’t recognized, an audio component isn’t working properly. The smoke of illusion fades away and illusion becomes disillusion. The suave, cool digital guy that used to take you out for champagne is now treating you to an occasional beer in front of Tuesday night wrestling. And you ask yourself, “how did I not notice all this before?”

Where are we now? Hoping that the so-far-so-good fifteen incher XPS 15, keeps on chugging. Now, mind you, in the past every computer started out looking good until about a year later when poltergeist set in. < Dell XPS 15 He’s a handsome aluminum guy and he tries to pull my attention from my gleaming new, shinier aluminum Macbook Pro. Let’s face it, I’ve always been “a PC,” but after so many bouts of technical insanity I decided to open my mind to digital-dating outside my religion. < Macbook Pro The only reason why I bought the Mac is because my two Dell laptops,(both replacements for previous Dell breakdowns), the full size and mini, were going through parallel dementia. And so was I. There’s just so much a person can take.

Then there is the issue of the mini laptop replacement that is still not working properly. When did I get it–in January?? I remain in touch with the technicians at corporate. The plan is that they are going to obtain still another, new Inspiron 14″ and inspect it and and install all the drivers themselves. It will be shipped to me and I will return the one that is sitting here. Maybe then all the audio, visual, Bluetooth and USB ports will work. It’s more than two weeks and I am still waiting.

After all the hours I put in to set the thing up, I had to undo the steps and deconstruct it to get it ready to ship back.

What I should do is fish out the new Mac that has been waiting patiently for me, and fire it up, marvel at the screen resolution, scratch my head at some of the incompatibilities between my software and its operating system, book a few classes which have already been paid for at the apple store, and make the transition.

It all comes down to trust…if a date or a computer shows its true colors over and over again, how many chances do you give it?

Or is it just like life: a day to day process of hoping for the best?