Dad and I have having a great time in Chicago so far, but man have I had a lot of technical glitches!
I don’t set out on a road trip any more without having my GPS plugged into my laptop. I can get lost in my own driveway; I feel a lot more secure with the computer telling me if I’m on the right track or not. Right off the bat, the GPS was acting wonky. The software wouldn’t allow me to search for addresses, which is kind of like the whole point of the program. Every time I tried to search I just got an error. So right off the bat I was off to a bad start. The map did come in handy … that is, when the GPS would work. Apparently it had a hard time seeing the satellites through the tinted back window of my truck. SO, I came up with the bright idea of running the GPS outside onto the back of the truck bed. Worked great … until last night’s freak rain storm. I’ve tried it multiple times this morning, and it’s completely dead.
Best Buy sells a package containing both the UPS unit and the software for $99, which is what I just purchased. Whee! Oh, and the search error I was encountering? My friend Johnny who owns the same model informed me that you need to download a patch from the company’s website to fix that. Sheesh.
Oh, and best of all … not only has my laptop’s battery COMPLETELY died, but it won’t even take a charge! Windows (and the BIOS) show the battery at 0% charged and “IDLE”, whatever that means. That means to work my laptop now has to be tethered to a power source at all times. Fun. For a really expensive Dell laptop, this thing sure doesn’t seem to be holding up very well. I’ve babied this thing to death and this’ll be the fourth time it has needed to be repaired.
Gotta run, can’t linger at any one wireless access point for long. More updates later.