February 12 – “Welcome back, Cortana”

Well, imagine my surprise this morning when I turned on my computer and was met with a blank screen and the message, “We are updating Microsoft Windows.”  And a very large circle indicated that the process was 3% completed.  Great.  The one morning I had hoped to get a few things done quickly before we left for our whirlwind trip to Waco to help out with the grandkids there.  Oh, well.  Now I’m typing in the car as my esteemed chauffer maneuvers her way through traffic. 

The download did complete before we left home.  Thank goodness we had Cailyn spending the night.  That meant we had to take her to school, so the computer had some time to finish its installation.  In fact I had time to play with it a little bit.  The Windows 10 start menu had completely stopped working.  Whenever I tried to access it, it kicked me completely out of the program and rebooted itself.  Thankfully I never deleted the menu from Windows 8.  The hot new search engine shut down as well.  That would be the copycat Siri woman.  She lurks near the bottom left corner of the screen and promises to do whatever you tell her.  Except she had gone on vacation for an undetermined period of time, so I completely ignored her advances. 

With the new download, however, those glitches have apparently been corrected.  Cortana spoke to me again, and even followed some basic commands.  She opened Word so I could type this, for example. However, when I asked her to provide me with the best route between Galveston and Waco, she insisted that I download an app that was specifically dedicated to her efforts.  It was free, so it did my part.  It was taking  a really long time for her to communicate with the new app, though, so I canceled.  Now I don’t know if she can do it or not.  Maybe I’ll give her another chance later on. In the meantime … Welcome back, Cortana.

1 John 4:9 says, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.”

Father, thank you for repaired glitches.  Reminds me of how you work to repair glitches in my life every day.  Amen.