My bran-spankin-new laptop arrived yesterday (complete with mandatory install of Vista). I’m loving the wide screen WAY more than I thought I would. Who knew an extra inch would make such a difference?
I’d been prepared for the set-up to take some time. I remembered getting my laptop 4 years ago and how I spent hours tinkering with settings, installing, uninstalling, and generally having a grand old time. But I’d forgotten just how long this could take. Still, I’m having a generally good time wiling away my Saturday finding and installing little applications and fiddling with settings. (BTW, the thing I’m most grateful for is that someone last year recommended I keep a text document somewhere in which I simply list all the little programs I install. Now I’m just going down the list and finding and installing all those little programs.)
Fortunately, the programs I was most worried about managed the transition absolutely beautifully. Unfortunately, a couple of key things I hadn’t worried about have turned into major, major pains. For one, I can’t get the stupid thing to recognize my wireless connection! EEEEK!!!! Iris – wireless = crippled. Last night I called tech support (something I almost never do because it’s just such a pain), was put on hold while she “found a setting she would need,” stayed on hold for 74 minutes, and then was disconnected. This morning I called and the guy was very nice, didn’t leave me hanging on hold (I’d already warned him I didn’t want to do that after last night) but couldn’t help me. He gave me two other numbers I can call, but both of them are only Monday-Friday types, and they will cost me money. So sad. I’m kind of at my wit’s end because my computer keeps recognizing my neighbors’ wireless networks but not mine, and my neighbors’ networks are either secured or too weak to even support the Google search page.
The other major problem is almost entirely my own fault, and I feel SO stupid. When I was choosing my Office suit, I tried to figure out which one had the programs I actually used but somehow missed out on finding an actual list of programs, so I ended up getting one level down from what I should have. I have no MS Access! Eeek. Now, Access is more of a hobby for me. I don’t use it very often at all. But my dad and I made a pretty cool little program using it, and I have some other records and stuff in database form (music from when I was a bell choir director, complete with search interfaces for “not played since” and designations for how each piece fits into the church year, etc.). Now I’m trying to figure out if I can buy only Access somehow, but it doesn’t look hopeful, and I don’t want to play for Work, Excel, and PowerPoint because I just paid for them. So now I have to decide if it’s ok with me if I can only access those things from my work computer… Ghaaa! I’m stupid.
Oh, and I can’t find out how to make Adobe Flash work with Vista, so some web pages aren’t working well.
Why do I still enjoy this process? Who knows, but even with all the problems so far MOST of the installations and settings-up have gone really well, and I do like this new computer. Well, all but those troublesome things.
I’ve never named a computer before, but I’m thinking this one should be called “Hodge.” Who can guess why? :)