Staying up to speed in a techno world

We grew up in the computer age.  I never remember not having a computer at home.  A majority of Arthur's job is programming computers.  However this summer it became clear that something needed to be done with our technology situation.  We were in denial so we ran off the the backwoods and went backpacking without any technology- no plug-ins to charge anything, no showers or flushing toilets, etc.  When we got back one night I saw Arthur sitting with his chair 3 feet from the TV.  I asked him what was going on and the wireless with his work computer is not working with our network any more so he has to plug into the internet.  Now we are use to working around minor technology issues.  My laptop I got my freshman year of college is now 9 years old.  It still works-- kind of.  I have learned that if I want to use the internet I need to turn my computer on 30 minutes ahead of time to let it warm up.  And sometimes it is just slow the entire evening.  I like to think of it as a good exercise in patience.  Technically I was going to replace my laptop when I finished grad school.  But then we got married and didn't really have any money plus I wasn't using it nearly as much any more.  And then we decided to pay off student loans before upgrading.  And then we decided a TV from this millennium might be nice so we replaced the TV that was 20 years old instead.  But finally we bit the bullet and ordered  new computer.
It's not quite a love-hate relationship right now but almost.  I love that it takes 5 seconds to boot up which is nice if I need to look up a recipe fore supper.  It can also download 5 audiobooks in the time it used to do 1 and without errors which is nice.  However I am still a Windows XP user and all of a sudden I get bumped to Windows 10 and I feel ancient and confused.  Since when is Word an app?  What happened to Media Player.  Outlook doesn't really exist anymore.  Suddenly all my skills from high school computer class are obsolete.  For those readers in an older generation I know this seems funny.  I know that you are thinking, "Take that you young whippersnapper, now you know how it feels for the world to suddenly move on and leave you in the dust."  I know, but this really is my first experience with becoming "outdated" and I am not handling it well.  I am beginning to sound like my mother, muttering under my breath, "You stupid thing" when I can seem to run the touch screen right, "Stop it, stop it" when programs keep popping up uninvited because I am inadvertently telling the computer to do it but I have no clue why., "Confound it you silly machine" when I can't find the program that I want to edit pictures in because the program I know and love is no longer used. (Even while writing this post my computer kept flipping to web cam mode and I kept making irate grunting noises-- Arthur was a little concerned) And then there is the world of the cloud and syncing devices.  Neither Arthur or I have smart phones.  Actually my little flip phone is over 5 years old as well and after this experience I think I just might stock up on 10 flip phones and hopefully that will hold me over so I never have to upgrade to a smart phone for the next 50 years of my life.  I have an iPod touch which has wifi capabilities.  However I try to avoid using the internet on it at all costs since anytime it connects to the internet it loses my place in my audiobook and we can't risk that in the middle of listening to 20 hours of Great Expectations.
I have also faced the struggle of 'moving' the past 9 years of my life from one location to another.  This is supposed to be relatively easy if you backup your computer regularly on an external hard drive.  The last time I backed up my computer was about a year ago but the process of checking all those files almost made it explode so I have stopped.  All through college and grad school I used Outlook for email and my calendar.  Now Windows has made it obsolete.  What am I going to do with all those digital memories?  Arthur and I sent emails back and forth for three years and I can't lose those.  I have emails from friends and family, like a quick note from my grandma who has now passed away.  My college schedule to remind me of terrible finals weeks, fun activities with friends, and the mundane college stuff that I have forgotten about until I flip back through the calendar and stroll down memory lane.  I will be the first to admit I can be sentimental about something that holds a memory.  While none of these things are necessary to keep I don't want those pieces to be lost in the cyberspace forever.

Since my computer decided to take these unflattering photos without permission I might as well use them as pictorial evidence of my frustration.

Okay, so I'll take a breath and stop ranting.  The new laptop also means a chance to learn new things which I am all about (if I don't have to learn too abruptly).  Now I can listen to podcasts about any subject I want while working in the kitchen, watch TED talks about cutting edge ideas without my computer freezing, and quickly swipe through Pinterest with the touchscreen to look for new ideas around the house.  Arthur has helped me rework our Excel spreadsheet for the budget to make it track expenses easily.  I'm working on learning to use Evernote to organize our digital lives (if only our real life was already organized).  I also even made some updates to this blog.  Now all of the posts are label by topics.  If someone is every extremely bored and wants to read all of our past posts about taking trips to Sonic it is now possible.  On the right hand of the screen there is a cluster of all the topics and by clicking on one it will pull up all those posts with that label.  I don't know if it will be at all useful for us but I do use the feature when reading other blogs quite a bit.  And now we might even blog more frequently since this computer will type at a speed much faster than chiseling into stone like my old, but well loved, computer did.  Omnia Vincit Amor.