Lynda and Dell...

Part 1: The Dell Dimension...

Oh God! Where do I start?...The begining, I suppose;)

In the beggining there was Lynda, a pile of boxes (the contents of which, if assembled properly, would become a brand new Dell Dimension PC...further reading which may prove useful at this point is an older entry entitled 'Computer Peripherals'), an idiot proof colour co-ordinated diagram and, what seemed at the time, an awful lot of software:(

Skip to several hours into the future...You really DO NOT want a step by step, curse by curse narrative on the assembly of a PC by a total technophobe (the printer cartridges proved to be the most difficult bit, btw...)

My PC was there, all lovingly assembled and awaiting it's first ever switching on...(We wont go into detail about minor things that I did wrong and bits I forgot to do at all:)...

It started up and I messed about with the settings a bit, then had to decide which internet service to use. I relied totally on my brother's recomendation and chose AOL. Was easy to install and up and running in a few minutes:)

I was 'on-line':)

What I was going to do on-line, I had no idea. Had a little look at some of the categories listed on my home page, but quickly got bored of these...

Was about to turn the thing off when I spotted the chat thingies...Had heard of these from a mate who'd become a 'chat' widow...

Now, AOL does the 'chat' thing rather well. They have loads of different 'rooms' which are catogorised. They even have a 'new members lobby' which is for complete beginners such as myself...

Here ends part one of the Saga of Lynda and Dell...

Part two: Lost in (Cyber) Space...to follow shortly;)