Lauries machine goes VISTA!
I mentioned in my last post that I was rebuilding Laurie’s machine – a good friend and a flight trainer in Perranporth flying club. Laurie frequently does Radio Telephony exams as part of the private pilot’s license. This entails linking two machines in separate rooms and having the student use headphones and a mic to simulate the radio calls. The current setup was running Windows ME and Windows 98 and the RT exam program was not working. It was definitely time for an upgrade. I was also desperate to redeem myself for flying the Cessna 172 all the way to the Scilly Isles and back with the seatbelt hanging out the door. This had seriously banged up the side of the plane just behind the door and cracked the window. So yes, I would be delighted to help.
In any case, as a flying instructor in Cornwall there are many days with nothing much to do because of low cloud, wind, or other bad weather so a nice fast machine to browse the web or write documents is a good idea.
I had planned on using the same case and power supply that he had in the old machine but when I opened it up the power supply was woefully inadequate and the good folks at http://www.puterz.co.uk had recommended a slight upsell to the original motherboard that did not fit in the case – and anyway a new case is only twenty quid.
After a trip or two to PC World in Truro I had a new case, 350 Watt power supply, Geforce 6200 graphics card, new motherboard, AMD Sempron Processor 160Gb EIDE disk, I used my son Andrews DVD-RW drive (I’ll tell him when he notices) and also 1Gb of RAM I had after upgrading J9s machine. I kept Laurie’s old sound card and wireless card. I also kept the old disk to preserve the files and favourites.
I installed Windows Vista Ultimate, Office 2007, MSN IM, and the Radio Telephony app. The performance score was pretty good, about 3.5 and incredibly better than he had before. Then it was time to take the box to Laurie.
I explained how to start the machine using the power button, how to login, search for files, and a bit about how to run Office 2007. I created links to his old files and IE tab groups for the met office aviation weather, NOTAMs (Notices To Airmen) and his hotmail. Then I changed the default file format in Office to the old format so he could share files with the rest of the instructors. I was very pleased with myself.
Laurie was terrified.
One of the problems we have as Geeks is that we don’t tell people when to pay attention and when to stop. So as I am customizing his environment poor Laurie is trying to remember what I am doing even though it is only a one time operation. Now Laurie is 78 years old and has a wealth of experience flying DC10s in the Middle East. He can teach a new pilot to land a single engine Cessna in cloud and at night and he does not break a sweat but now he is completely freaked out by what I have done to his computer – I have even change the case.
So I went through things again slowly put links to his favourites on the desktop and then left… for Switzerland.
That was last weekend. Tomorrow lunchtime I will call in with the other machine for the Radio Telephony exam app, set it up and see how he is doing.
I’ll keep ya posted.
