New Computer

Computers are supposed to make our life easier -- right? Wrong!!

 I have an 8 year old desktop computer at home, and finally upgraded to a fairly high end laptop. So, unlike my $300 (which was actually free) laptop which I had decided to basically use for travel, I decided to load everything onto this one.

Problem number one -- trying to get my ipod to synch and move my songs to the new computer. I got so far and then got stuck -- didn't help that the instructions were written for both a mac and a windows computer -- interspersing the two. Finally got my dear husband to help me with it and he approached in a different manor, and finally done.

It was a little easier to move Quicken that I use for personal finances, I bought an upgraded copy and the move went fairly easy last week. The biggest problem was setting up a disk (formatting) to do the backups.

The hardest part, was moving my contacts. I am one of those few homeowners that was still using Outlook. So, first I went through and deleted about 100 contacts that were obsolete. And, I had created a gmail account that all my charter e-mail goes to. But, to actually move the contacts, also involved my dear husbands help. But, the good news -- I can now easily contact all my friends and relatives when I am traveling, as prior to this my only cloud e-mail account was my work account. Yeah, I have moved up in the world.

I have a couple of things left to do such as backing up photos and word docs and figuring out which if any saved e-mails I want to print, or move their "important" information into my new world.


You will be happy to know I did manage to set up my new wi-fi printer all by myself, although I haven't quite learned all the ins and outs. For instance, I can print to it from anywhere as it has its own e-mail address. Hmmmm. printer seems smarter than me.

So, I am happy, have started to clean up my disaster of an office, and I know how reasonably fast internet access from anywhere in my house!!

PS -- I am trying to figure out the concept of ecologically sound. For instance, the cords for the printer were packed in a nice reusable nylon case -- and they made a big point of it being reusable -- but the cords were still also packed in plastic bags. Ditto for the printer -- in a really nice nylon bag, but it was surrounded in the box with Styrofoam. Go figure!

Computer Updates

I hate computer updates. I have two computers I use at home. An older one that I mostly use for keeping track of my finances, and doing my email because I have been too lazy to move it over, and a newer laptop. And, they both demanded updates tonight that needed to reboot my computer. They are running on different windows operating systems. I understand we want things better, faster, brighter, and so forth, but it just burns me up. I am all ready to do something or other on my computer... and it says update me, update me, you didn't really want to do anything else!!

Oh well, now I am tired, but they are both updated. Maybe tomorrow they won't need anything from me and we will get along better. Oh, and of course, laptops always decide on needing updates when you are in the airport, with only a limited amount of time and or battery life. But, I have learned to check for as many updates as possible before a trip (if I have time in between packing, paying bills, watering plants, and leaving instructions for the dog sitter).