Kay Hudson

I’m at work, and my computer is working (here I am typing on it!), but for reasons as yet undiagnosed, the office network isn’t working.  So I’m not, either.

Most of our work here is done on a massive bookkeeping program called Quickbooks.  The program is installed on the individual computers, but the files are on only one, Jo Anne’s.  Normally they can be accessed from any of the three computers on the office network.

We were expecting down time today, because Jo Anne’s computer was overdue for replacement, and the new one arrived, along with our favorite computer tech, at nine o’clock this morning.  After a couple of hours of copying files, moving equipment, reloading software, etc., everything seemed to be in order.  I even managed to open a couple of Quickbooks files from my computer.

Then so–

Well, that’s where I lost my Internet connection, dreaded fate, but now I’m back.

Whatever happened, after that update download my computer can no longer open the Quickbooks files.  Can’t even find them.  None of the computers can see each other, although apparently they can all find their way into cyberspace.  I heard someone mumbling about a “bad network port on the new machine,” which doesn’t sound like a quick fix.  Lucky this is a fairly quiet week, although we have to get all our clients settled for the rest of the month before we go off to the RWA conference in New York next Monday morning.

Not so many years ago–okay, not so many decades–bookkeeping was all done on paper.  Somewhere in my attic I have business records from the 1980s, done by a fully qualified CPA on ledger paper.  Thirty years ago even banks were keeping records on paper.  I’d hate to go back to that.

But computers are only wonderful when they work.  When they don’t, they’re about as useful as a pile of concrete blocks.