Battle Royale

I bought a TV tuner on Friday for my laptop in case I get the shakes from being without TV for too long! Now, I have installed many pieces of software and hardware in my time, but this gizmo was, without a doubt, the toughest!

It took at least 10 hours over 2 days before I slayed the beast! A lesser mortal would have chucked in the towel long before success eventually came. However, thanks to my famously extreme stubbornness, I persevered! At times, I was excited, expectant, frustrated, optimistic, even more frustrated, stressed, overjoyed, frustrated again, confused, optimistic again, annoyed, even more stressed, cautiously optimistic and finally euphoric!!!! Herself remarked on my stress at one point. She was also the victim of a spontaneous hug (and those that know me well, know I’m neither spontaneous or into hugging!!) during the short 'overjoyed' phase, when I finally got a picture (but no sound!).

The initial install hung my computer and the software didn’t work. Call this point A. So I un-installed the software and restored my computer to a previous safe point. It took me 6 hours to get back to point A, where it would simply install (and hang my machine!). It turned out that one component didn’t un-install itself properly and I had to download tools from Microsoft, edit the registry (dangerous!) and manually delete folders. All this to get back to point A. After that, another 30-60 minutes of head scratching, fiddling around and Googling to find out that the solution to the original problem was simply to plug the tuner into a different USB port! (no need to remind me that I could have saved 6 hours of rapidly greying hair time there!)

Sometimes I wish I was a plumber or something!! Anyhow, that worked and after about 7 hours, finally had my picture (cue hug!), but now no sound. Three hours of more head scratching, fiddling around and Googling, I found the solution to that problem. During these 3 hours, things became more urgent, because they started showing highlights of the Ireland-Sweden soccer match on the TV here for some reason. I didn’t have audio because the setup program thought I was in Ireland, not Singapore. Our TV systems are very similar, but the audio part is not the same. So, on changing to Singapore settings, what was the first thing I heard on my new notebook TV? Big Niall Quinn, summing up the match!!! The chances of hearing an Irish man on that channel are pretty slim, so it was a double delight to hear it (cue 'euphoria' phase!)!

The moral of the story is to never let the machine beat you (or stay away from the silicon spawn of Satan that is a computer!)!