I've been having "fun" with technology lately. It all began when my old internet security suite needed completely upgrading as the software was about to be made obsolete. Therefore the old one had to be completely deleted and the new version installed. All seemed to go well until I tried to log-on to my internet service provider (ISP) when I discovered that apparently I no longer existed.

So, I called my ISP's telephone help line. The polite technician tried for an hour to talk me through various solutions which did not work. He also managed to accidentally delete all but one of my email addresses (which are all linked to the same account). He ended the conversation by declaring that if I now rebooted the computer, it would work fine. It didn't.

I then tried my ISP's on-line help. Oh, yes, I could get on-line but not open my ISP's homepage where all my (remaining) emails are located. Four different technicians tried and failed to offer a solution, despite being told the ISP's own error code number which is supposed to identify the problem.

Meanwhile, three days had gone by.

In the end, I called out a local computer expert and he had the problem isolated fairly quickly. There was either a fault with the programming of the new Firewall, or else it was simply incompatible with my ISP - annoying, as it had been them who had sold it to me. Remove the internet security, and my computer worked just fine.

I've now got a different system installed, and there seems to be no problems. So far!