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8 months ago
General
You have to keep a little crazy hidden away in your back pocket just to maintain your sanity.
Vixyy Fox
Vixyy Fox
Good Morning,
(At least it is morning here, and the coffee is good. The coffee is by Barnies Coffee, and named Santa's White Christmas. We've been drinking it for years.)
That's all an 'aside', but when you have something that's good, you tend wanting to share it... and that's what this is all about - sharing.
After nursing my old computer along for a few years now - superglue, new covers, stop drilling cracks, and no spring left in the cover so it sort of flopped around on my lap - I got a new laptop. You might laugh, but it's pretty much the same as my old laptop (Lenovo) just faster, thinner, and minus the things making me crazy for all of these years. Never fear, it has more than enough new things to make me crazy. I went from a Windows 10 to an 11. Getting my massive amount of data transferred was not easy, and took a good amount of time. Thankfully, I have a two terabyte external hard drive. For the record - DVD's would NOT NEVER CORRUPT, but of course those went out of style. This one has corrupted in the past, and but for the fact it was a backup, I might have been in real trouble. (wiped it - reformatted - now working fine)
Windows 11 - honestly, I use the product, but do not particularly care for the money sucking plots and ploys they have. For instance, I have never trusted 'the cloud', being you are putting all of your stuff out there for hackers and Microsoft to help themselves to at their leisure. So - the computer tells me I have never proceeded with the cloud and I have X amount of free memory to back up with - CLICK HERE.
click
YOU HAVE RUN OUT OF MEMORY - CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE MORE!
Oh hell no! It then took me a good amount of wasted time to figure out how to kill it.
After finally getting things settled to where I was sort of happy (like moving into a new house, and my garage is still full of boxes not gone through) I find out I can't transfer my Microsoft Office. I was using 2007 and totally happy with it. Bummer - the new laptop does not have a DVD drive. Long story short, Microsoft is a total sham. What you can buy is way overpriced, and then you have that cheap LEASE they offer - DO NOT CLICK ON THAT or you will be paying them forever.
Doing some research, I found a FREE open source office platform called LibreOffice, and it is wonderful.
https://www.libreoffice.org/donate/.....Win_x86-64.msi
All that stuff the other guy wants you to pay for is there, and IT IS COMPATIBLE; meaning all the files you have are usable.
Now then - I am still learning all of the new stuff. The one thing I am very happy about is the laptop will Bluetooth to my hearing aides.
OK - time to go and make the breakfast, so I'll leave it there. Forward to the future, and all of that. As a 'by the way' - I am so old that when I was a child, a key pounder typewriter was 'then' tech, and the NEW electric typewriters were just beginning to show up. Phones were rotary operated, and I could call anywhere in town by dialing just four numbers. My uncle still had a phone you picked up and asked the operator to dial the number for you... and Perry Mason was actually thin.
Vixyy
(At least it is morning here, and the coffee is good. The coffee is by Barnies Coffee, and named Santa's White Christmas. We've been drinking it for years.)
That's all an 'aside', but when you have something that's good, you tend wanting to share it... and that's what this is all about - sharing.
After nursing my old computer along for a few years now - superglue, new covers, stop drilling cracks, and no spring left in the cover so it sort of flopped around on my lap - I got a new laptop. You might laugh, but it's pretty much the same as my old laptop (Lenovo) just faster, thinner, and minus the things making me crazy for all of these years. Never fear, it has more than enough new things to make me crazy. I went from a Windows 10 to an 11. Getting my massive amount of data transferred was not easy, and took a good amount of time. Thankfully, I have a two terabyte external hard drive. For the record - DVD's would NOT NEVER CORRUPT, but of course those went out of style. This one has corrupted in the past, and but for the fact it was a backup, I might have been in real trouble. (wiped it - reformatted - now working fine)
Windows 11 - honestly, I use the product, but do not particularly care for the money sucking plots and ploys they have. For instance, I have never trusted 'the cloud', being you are putting all of your stuff out there for hackers and Microsoft to help themselves to at their leisure. So - the computer tells me I have never proceeded with the cloud and I have X amount of free memory to back up with - CLICK HERE.
click
YOU HAVE RUN OUT OF MEMORY - CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE MORE!
Oh hell no! It then took me a good amount of wasted time to figure out how to kill it.
After finally getting things settled to where I was sort of happy (like moving into a new house, and my garage is still full of boxes not gone through) I find out I can't transfer my Microsoft Office. I was using 2007 and totally happy with it. Bummer - the new laptop does not have a DVD drive. Long story short, Microsoft is a total sham. What you can buy is way overpriced, and then you have that cheap LEASE they offer - DO NOT CLICK ON THAT or you will be paying them forever.
Doing some research, I found a FREE open source office platform called LibreOffice, and it is wonderful.
https://www.libreoffice.org/donate/.....Win_x86-64.msi
All that stuff the other guy wants you to pay for is there, and IT IS COMPATIBLE; meaning all the files you have are usable.
Now then - I am still learning all of the new stuff. The one thing I am very happy about is the laptop will Bluetooth to my hearing aides.
OK - time to go and make the breakfast, so I'll leave it there. Forward to the future, and all of that. As a 'by the way' - I am so old that when I was a child, a key pounder typewriter was 'then' tech, and the NEW electric typewriters were just beginning to show up. Phones were rotary operated, and I could call anywhere in town by dialing just four numbers. My uncle still had a phone you picked up and asked the operator to dial the number for you... and Perry Mason was actually thin.
Vixyy
Vix
About the DVD drive, you can look into USB options like Deored mentioned. I recently purchased this model here:
https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-Ext...../dp/B01FUIYMDC (not from amazon but the link shows the product well)
It reads CD, DVD and Blueray, it is been super convenient to me, and made me use physical media more often =3
Vix
When coupled with Linux Mint on my old Lenovo Thinkpad, I've got a fully open source writing platform with great performance.
Vix
My favorite version is Windows 7. They didn't come up with anything better, but unfortunately there is no more support, and I, like everyone else, was forced to upgrade to version 10 at the time. In any case, the cost of subscriptions even for Windows Office is insane, so choosing from any free analogues it is great.
Vix
Vix
THIS.
SO VERY MUCH THIS!
It blows my mind when I come across things like "For extra security, would you like to have all your passwords managed by The Cloud?"
How STUPID do they think people are?!
Writing your password on a piece of paper on the desk next to your home PC is orders of magnitude safer and more reliable than putting it in an imaginary playground where someone on the other side of the planet can dip in and take it at will, AND YOU'D NEVER KNOW ABOUT IT. If somebody is sitting in your house, and can get your password off the piece of paper next to your computer, you've got WAY more problems than having your password to FA stolen!
I need an exit plan.
Vix
Vix
Yeah, the Microsoft scam is real, ESPECIALLY after they moved stuff to a subscription based model for "renting" their programs. What a crock.
(I'm still very much annoyed at Adobe who own Photoshop/Illustrator for doing the same thing).
Glad you were able to upgrade your workstation and did not loose any archives.
Vix
Vix
Still, my first computers were the Timex-Sinclair, Vic 20, and the Trash 80 (TSR-80, Radio Shack). Yeah, I'm older than dirt, but at least when God said, "Let there be light," I was there to flip the switch. That might be considered an accomplishment.
^5!
Vix
Vix
Rochndil, who hates the latest version of Office...
Vix
I dunno if you're into the command-line, but there's a little program called Wordgrinder for those don't like button-hunting.
Vix
Vix
This one has corrupted in the past, and but for the fact it was a backup, I might have been in real trouble. (wiped it - reformatted - now working fine)
The #1 hard drive killer with that footprint (format to fix) is spikes and dropouts on your power line. Guilty! I had that happen with my server and it turned out the culprit was a failed Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) that was supposed to prevent glitches. Replaced and no more badness.
I back up regularly. On my desk there's a little box we geeks call a 'toaster'. It holds two internal notebook-size SSDs up to 8TB each; I use a pair of 4TB. The 'two-slice' configuration gives it its nickname. The first box I bought had a weird connection that was super-unreliable. I ditched it and bought a different one that just works. As fast as an internal hard drive and ready (* snaps claws *) that fast.
I have a server down cellar I've been planning to upgrade as long as I've been buying parts for it (November?). I took it from Win 8 to 10; it's 10 years old so it won't do Windows 11. I already have a fresh copy of Win 11 and Office to install ASAP. Yes, I can log into it remotely and do 'stuff' that bogs down my teeny desktop.
Vix
Vix
As much as these nefarious, diabolical evil things (ie, computers!) are and have become in our modern life?
I HATE THE DAMNED THING(s)!!!
Our shared desktop is dying. Taking its damned sweet time doing so, usually as I'm trying to read something, WATCH something, or (And boy will I be surprised if it doesn't happen right here and NOW?!), trying to reply to folks' posts, suddenly, *POOF* 'No Signal,' auto-reboot...
I'm looking forward to hauling the damned thing out to our range, and ventilating it with as much small caliber ordinance as I want!!!
'Lenovo'? We're eying getting one'a those! 'HP' is utter SHIT, and we'll never (3rd times the charm) put another penny into 'em! 'Dell'? Too many bad things about it. 'Apple'? pfffft. I/We ain't that rich, nor do we support slave/child labor!
'Lenovo' good? We lost our GREAT PC Tech/Builder during the COVID fiasco, and there is literally no one within 1 1/2 drive ONE WAY (Portland, ick! Who wants to go there, anyway?!) we can talk to and get another PC built by. Hate using Amazon for $$$ I/We'd rather keep local, but we've no choice, now.
Just asking, 'cause I/We don't know HOW these devices actually work. We just mouse/type a lot!
Also- coffee... That, and Dark Chocolate are truly Divine Gifts that must be consumed at every opportunity, and enjoyed!
:-D
I went to lenovo as my wife used one for work, and it seemed pretty reliable. I've had my old one for at least five years and the only real problems were self-sustained. I dropped it once and a bunch of stuff broke. That left me doing repairs and the screen became very floppy and began cracking. I stop drilled those and dosed it liberally with superglue. Computer wise I really didn't have any complaints but for the slowness. Something was running a lot and I never could figure out what.
This one seems to be doing better.
Vix
My new computer guy installed it when my win 10 hard drive gave up. along with a copy of Win11 Home.
As you said you have to make Micro Soft learn its place, and wear it down by refusing to go along with anything it has it offers subscription wise to Office or online storage or an even an XBox pass.
I was fortunate and had my removable drive with current backups and the restore was pretty painless.
I also have my old Win 7/10 machine; it's my second backup with stuff from 2014 til 2020, and i could do office related tasks on the old machine. I still have a DVD drive and all my backups from the 2000s to 2010s on DVDs on zip files.
Also, It seems like all the software now-- operating system and apps alike -- have "schillware" built in: On startup I'm prompted to buy the newer, better services at "only" X Dollars a month.
One of the reason I never got a laptop: too many cables on my tower to spontaneously launch it like a frisbee out the back door.
Of course, if I still had one of those old Bakelite phones, I could pound my computer into a paper weight and the phone would still work. It might not have had apps, but it took a licking.
Vix
Cloud and rented SW means it may go away at any time, leaving you with no data - or no way to get to it ...
Vix
Vix
Vix
I've been using LibreOffice (and its predecessor OpenOffice) since 2009, the same year I started using Ubuntu. And I have never regretted moving to either of those things. I would definitely suggest giving that operating system a shot too (although I know someone has also mentioned Linux Mint) - just like LibreOffice, it's fully open source, so it won't cost you a penny. :3
These days, I use Windows 11 only for video games that I can't get working in Linux - it's solely on my desktop as part of a dual boot system. And even then, it's a modified version that bypasses the stiff hardware requirements and blocks the many invasive adverts.
Where hardware is concerned, I prefer to use older laptops for my writings, despite good quality monitors for some models being hard to come by. And this is largely due to one, wanting the ability to run it without having a battery connected, and two, due to them being all but guaranteed to have SATA ports. Many modern laptops enclose their batteries inside the casing instead of it being easily removable as they used to be, plus some have no means of using internal SATA devices at all.
I don't need to have the latest and greatest hardware for a computer used in this way - what I've got will get the job done without a problem. My main laptop was built in 2011, and since buying it from my friend in 2017, I've been able to keep it maintained and obtain any parts it has needed.
Vix
Vix
Vix