Almost Entirely Back!

It is funny now, after all the problems are solved.  But it wasn't before that.

I was frustrated when I first hooked up the new Mac Mini.  No monitor picture...  And that was the same problem I had a week ago.  Not knowing the cable lingo made it hard.  The old Mac Mini had two ports labeled with a "monitor" symbol.  The new one didn't.  Just one labeled HDMI (which I understand, having an HDMI TV) and one I didn't labeled "Thunderbolt".  Thunderbolt did match the plug I had on the VGA-to-monitor cable, so I tried it.  Nothing. 

Why does this sort of thing only happen after business hours when I can't call anyone?  And please don't say just go online; the monitor wasn't working, LOL!  So I struggled with things all night.  And I mean "all night"  I went to bed at 9 am.

Who knew that the FOURTH time I re-plugged the monitor cable in it would work just fine?  I try things over and over again because I really don't know what else to do.  And sometimes it works.

So there I was at 4 am with a working computer.  I tried to play a game of cribbage at pogo.com.  No luck, just endless "loading".  After that, I did what any annoyed and frustrated person would do who smokes and drinks.  I went out ant bought a pack of cigs from the all-night 7-11 and poured myself a glass of wine when I got back.  Surely the problems would resolve themselves after my punishing myself with drugs...

No.

This morning, I called the computer repair shop and asked for help.  The guy who answered the phone seemed knowledgeable.  He directed me to the "About The Mac" click and asked me to read what it said.  When I got to memory (not RAM) it said 512 MB.  Yes, "512 MB".  He said, "well there's your problem, you didn't get enough storage".  I said the Mac Mini ONLY comes in 512 GB or 1 TB.  He said I should have gotten the 512 GB drive and I could come in for an upgrade.

I was annoyed by that, but thought for a minute and decided that was preposterous.  NOBODY offers a 512 MB drive any more!  So I told him so and asked if there was someone more knowledgeable I could speak to.  He got all huffy about THAT and said he would have someone call me back.

Two hours later, I got a call back.  The guy said the 512 MB was just the graphics memory and I had a full 512 GB hard drive.  So we proceeded to go through the system to prove it.  I really DO have 512GBs.  Which is fine because I had only used 100GB on the old computer.

It turned out that I didn't have the new Java script needed.  I HAD downloaded that at the computer's request the night before, but nothing had happened.  OK, usually, you have to download those files and then install them.  But since there was no file to open in the downloads folder, I assumed it self-opened (which seemed a process improvement).

No.

It saved to my documents folder for some reason.  With the computer guys help, I found it and installed it.  Problem solved.  I asked who the previous guy (the idiot) was and the person I was talking to wouldn't say.  But, as the problems were solved I let it go.  I assume the first guy is a relative of the owner of the shop, LOL!

I had 200 emails to read...  I think I'll go watch TV for an hour (Rachel Maddow on MSNBC) and come back later to start visiting the cats' friends...

Computers are maddening.  I know enough to use them and figure out some problems, but not enough to solve the weird problems.