I have no tatting to share because I have been very busy - my in-laws are up from Florida for a visit, I started school again, and I bought a new laptop. My Dell laptop turned 4 years old this month and it was time to lay it to rest. It has served me well but got quite cranky over the last six months or so and I was trying to decide whether I wanted to just wipe the whole thing by reinstalling Windows again (for the forth time), or go ahead and upgrade. Plus the battery gave out about a year ago and so it has to be plugged in all the time. Kind of a pain for a laptop.
I shopped around and decided to go with an Acer Aspire. I had some specific items I was looking for - namely, a keypad as part of the keyboard (for my bookkeeping and accounting), a power plug that doesn't stick out of the laptop by 3 inches (I will never understand why all laptops are not equipped with an elbow power cord. I killed my previous Dell because the thing stuck out so far it kept getting bumped. I mean, isn't the point of a laptop it gets moved around a lot and so you don't want things sticking out in all directions?? - but I digress.), and a nice large screen and good sound system because I watch a lot of movies and TV shows on my laptop while I am tatting. The Acer has Dolby Virtual Surround Sound (really, really nice) and a 17.3" screen. The Acer had all the things I wanted at a really good price.
I shopped around and decided to go with an Acer Aspire. I had some specific items I was looking for - namely, a keypad as part of the keyboard (for my bookkeeping and accounting), a power plug that doesn't stick out of the laptop by 3 inches (I will never understand why all laptops are not equipped with an elbow power cord. I killed my previous Dell because the thing stuck out so far it kept getting bumped. I mean, isn't the point of a laptop it gets moved around a lot and so you don't want things sticking out in all directions?? - but I digress.), and a nice large screen and good sound system because I watch a lot of movies and TV shows on my laptop while I am tatting. The Acer has Dolby Virtual Surround Sound (really, really nice) and a 17.3" screen. The Acer had all the things I wanted at a really good price.
So I spent this past week moving things over from my Dell. I did manage to disable the Acer's DVD player twice, once because I installed a software program that was not compatible with Windows 7, and again when I tried to install my 7-year-old scanner - also not Windows 7 compatible. Why it chooses to disable the DVD player I have no idea. With the software glitch I was able to use a system restore point to go back, but the scanner killed the system restore too and I spent three hours surfing the web trying to find a solution that didn't involve resetting the entire computer back to factory standards - after I'd already moved over all of my data - and I finally found it on Microsoft's own website. I had to go in a edit the registry but it's all working again now and I'm in the market for a new scanner.
I love the laptop so far; Windows 7 of course has given me some trouble but changing operating systems after four years always involves a learning curve. Once I get a new scanner then I will be back up and running and able to scan some more of my tatting to share.
2 comments:
You are going to love the new laptop I am sure! There were just a few bumps in the road. I had to buy one a couple of months ago and I had the same trouble. There are some really great all in one (printer, copier, scanner) out there and they are wireless. I have an HP that works great. Only draw back is that it has to be connected when I want to scan but I wouldn't trade it for the world it works great. I know you use your scanner a lot so check it out.
Good luck with your new toy/s.
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