My wife has been in need of a new computer for some time, hers was still running Windows XP. She has been receiving warnings about XP’s obsolescence for several years, but it continued to work. More or less, anyway. Now it seemed the time had come to replace the old clunker.

So we went around kicking tires at computer shops and found what we wanted at the shop closest to home. A little shop in a little town (pop. 2,200) not too far from us. They had a number of gently used computers, in good shape and with all the accessories we needed (especially Windows 10). For a modest sum they would transfer data, install programs and send it home ready to go. At least the sum seems modest if you average it out over its expected five year life span – then its only a few dollars a month.

We had to do a little more set up at home, like getting it to recognize our printer. Apparently a five year old printer is too old for a newer computer to recognize. By now the new jalopy is running smoothly, and a little faster than her old one.

On her old computer, she was using a pair of speakers that I bought at Dollarama. The sound quality was excellent and they had an on-off switch and a volume control. The new computer will not recognize those speakers, but it does have an internal speaker that is a lot better than most.

I bought the computer I am using a few years ago from a national office supplies retailer. I don’t think I’ll do that again. They are just too big, with too many people involved. The person who sold me the computer was not the one who set it up for me and that technician wasn’t available when I went to pick up my computer. I found that I had to transfer data and install programs myself. It would have been too much hassle to keep hauling the computer back and forth to the city. With a small town shop you always know who you are dealing with. And who to complain to if something isn’t right. I think that makes them feel a lot more accountable to the customer.

I told the young Nigerian lady at work that we had replaced my wife’s computer because it was still running Windows XP. “XP!” she said, “that’s what I used in junior high!” Let’s see now, XP first came out in the fall of 2001, and this lady is, well I’m not going to say but it sounds about right that XP would have come out just before she started junior high. So Nigeria was right up to date and my wife was using this ancient version until the day before yesterday. Nevertheless XP was pretty much problem free, which is more than can be said for most Windows versions between XP and 10.