A week of ups and downs

This past week has been a bit of a weird one.  We had three days where we were out most of the day for various hospital appointments.  Two days were totally taken up with hospital things for my husband, the other day was for me for a routine mammogram screening (which was negative for abnormalities, thankfully).  I had to go to the bank to move some money to pay bills while in town that day and my husband suggested we pop into the pawn shop opposite to see if they had an old 32 bit XP computer so I could download and run the Knitware program.

Amazingly, they did have an old XP computer.  The guy was very helpful, he set it up to check it was working.  It did start up but we couldn't ascertain if it was 32 bit or not.  It was marked at $95 which was way too much for an out of date computer.  I offered him $40 and said I would take a chance that it was 32 bit.  He accepted so I carried it out of the store.  That was one of the ups.

I had chance in the afternoon to set it up in my knitting room to test it, it didn't have a wireless card in it so I had to trail a long chord through the bedroom and bathroom, down the stairs into the living room to connect to the router.  It connected to the internet just fine but it didn't have an antivirus program installed.  In fact, it only had the operating system installed so I suspect that someone had reloaded the operating system to clear off what was on the computer.  That was fine as it was a nice clean computer for me to use.  Another up.  I also ascertained it was a 32 bit, an up for sure!!

I tried to download an antivirus program.  It downloaded OK but I couldn't open it.  The first down.

It seems some components of the operating system are missing.  Second down.

I downloaded all the system updates but I still couldn't install the antivirus program.  Third down.

I found the Knitware program and it's instructions on the internet on the 32 bit.  I came downstairs to my regular computer and pulled up the program and printed the instructions.  I went back to the 32 bit and downloaded the program onto it.  I tried the program and it worked.  Holy rumoli!  A definite up!!!

To start I am running the trial version.  I made a pattern and wanted to print it. Our internet is complicated, we have two internet providers and two routers. (We live in the middle of nowhere so only get limited highspeed dsl so we have a satellite dish to get internet too to supplement the other.  The printer is connected to the other system.  No problem thinks I, I can cut and paste it into a document.

I tried to install our very old Office software from disk but the DVD door wouldn't open on the 32 bit.  A down for sure!

The computer did have Notepad as part of the operating system so I was able to paste it into that, copy it onto a flash drive and bring it down and print it up on my original computer.  An up.

So at the very least I can make a pattern on the 32 bit and transfer it to my other computer and print it.  So all in all a worthwhile endeavour.

Next on the agenda is to try and get it to run on my Windows 7 Home premium computer.  The instructions state that it can be done if it has first been downloaded onto a 32 bit computer.  That will be next week's challenge.

During all of this we have been making a belt for one of the son's birthdays this coming week.  We have just about got it done, just need to put on the buckle and make the holes tomorrow when the staining and finishing has completely dried. It was not with out it's ups and downs either.

The down was I couldn't find a set of stamps I wanted to use.  I am meticulous about putting up my leather tools so I couldn't understand why I couldn't find them.  I searched all the obvious places and then the silly ones.  Still couldn't find it and  was beginning to think I was getting senile.  A definite down!!!

I kept going back to the tool chest drawers as that is where it should have been. Eventually, common sense prevailed and I knew they had to be there so the obvious thing was that they had fallen down the back of the drawer.  I got my flashlight , pulled out the bottom drawer and lo and behold, there they were. Phew!  An up for sure.

Another up is that when I did the tooling for the belt it came out really well.  I was very happy with it.

There have been a few more ups and downs this week too but that is enough for one post.

Will update on the progress of getting Knitware onto the Windows 7 64 bit computer.  I intend to pay for the program regardless of whether or not I can get it to run on Windows 7 64 bit as I think it is a wonderful program.  Once you have a key to enter it opens up features like saving patterns and people's details.

For anyone who doesn't know about the Knitware program here is a link.  I have been trying on and off for nearly two years to get this progam working. The secret is the 32 bit machine and I never had access to one until now.  They have also updated the instructions to make it much easier to understand.  It is an old program written for old computers and they have found various ways to get it to run on newer computers.

http://www.greatknitdesigns.com/