My PC died a death a week ago, taking with it all my emails and email addresses from the last year and a half, plus half of my client notes (yes, I hadn't backed up ). I called in an engineer who gave me the choice of either ordering new parts from Dell, which would cost a bomb, or else getting him to build me a new machine. I chose the second, partly because it's cheaper and partly because the old machine has been nothing but trouble from day one.

Anyway, the parts for the new one arrived and he put it together, only to find that they'd sent me a dud motherboard. So I've sent it back asking for a replacement, but they won't send one until they've tested the original one they sent. This could mean I have to wait till next Wednesday. In the meantime I'm struggling on my ancient laptop which has a tiny screen and won't run most of my software because it's sodding Vista   I is not a happy bunny!