Why doesn’t Microsoft keep things simple and just continue to support Windows 7? They can do whatever they want with Windows 8. If they support Win 7 AND Win 8, everybody’s happy. And it’s not like they haven’t supported more than one version of their OS before. NT? And so many others?
They could thus solve a great many problems all around. We aren’t whining technophobes. We are the people that keep MS in business. They call us customers.
There is a reason by the iPad and the iMac do not have the same operating system. There is a reason why my Kindle is a playpen, but my desktop and laptops are workhorses. Fingers? Really? I write. I’m a photographer. I edit graphics. I write articles. I’m not a kindergartener using fingerpaints.
Unlike most people, I actually have experience trying to use a desktop with a full-size 24″ HD touchscreen monitor. I hated it until after I turned off the touch functionality. There’s no valid use for it in my world and the upright touchscreen put a serious strain on my already worn out wrists, hands and shoulders.
When I say no valid use, I mean that literally. There was not a single activity for which I use my computer for which my fingers were a better input device than a mouse. Or a stylus. Or a trackball. Not a single one.
That Win8 produces a desktop-hostile environment is stupid and self-defeating. More to the point: touchscreens are not new technology any more. They’ve been around quite a while and I’ve had mine for years. It is not catching on, not spreading like wildfire. Quite the opposite. After the curiosity factor disappeared, most of the people I know who tried it, abandoned it. It has no real use in the work or home environment. I do not know a single person who uses a touch screen other than as part of a tablet designed for touch input.
I went to see old friends at work a couple of weeks ago. All their office computers are now Macs. I never in my wildest imaginings expected to see these people who had been married to MS for office use (UNIX and other stuff for development) would ever switch. I asked why and my old boss (co-proprietor/head of development) said “We wouldn’t touch Windows 8 with a long pole. Not going near that monstrosity.”
He wasn’t buying into the “we’ve made it better” because he’s one of the guys who looks under the sheets and say Microsoft has NEVER cleaned up their code, never fixed underlying problems throughout their history and isn’t likely to start now.
Microsoft just doesn’t get it. They should out into the real world. They’d discover touchscreens are not the next big thing. Most people will soon own regular and tablet computers. Many already do. They are different paths, serve different needs.
Commonsense should have told them that from the first.
When Windows 8 was initially released, my first thought was “You’re kidding. Surely they don’t expect me to use that!” Yes, they really did. They seemed to be of the opinion that the future of computers would be touchscreens all the way. Which made me wonder if anyone at Microsoft had actually tried using a vertical touchscreen. Not a tablet or a tiny laptop, but a real, full-size 24″ high-definition touchscreen on a desktop. Because I sure had and it was not a happy experience.
Touch screen is for tablets, not desktops — or even laptops.
I actually bought a big touchscreen PC more than two years ago. What a waste of money! Forget software issues. Software was not an issue. The concept itself is hopelessly flawed.
I bet you need a real world example, just so you know I’m not making this up or displaying uninformed prejudice against new technology. If you know me at all, you know I love new technology. I embrace technology. But I abhor “upgrades” that make things that were easy difficult. It’s just a way to grab more money from our already depleted wallets. More exercise for the credit card.
Following are a few good reasons and a possibly entertaining anecdote to explain why, if the future is going to be all touchscreen, I’m saying “no thanks.”
Upon installing and activating my exciting new 24″ touchscreen all-in-one desktop computer, I discovered:
1) Every time a mosquito landed on the screen, it reconfigured my computer. What a MESS. And a little spider crawling across? Oh my god! We live in the country. Yes, Virginia. There are ants, spiders, mosquitoes and other icky things. No avoiding them, not out here in the woods.
Sidebar: Huh?
As the shades of the evening drew on, I retired from my office and went to the living room to join my husband on the reclining love seat. There, with our smelly hounds and our popcorn, we settled down to watch a movie or a few TV shows. Eventually we noticed there was extremely loud heavy metal music playing. I thought my granddaughter, who lives downstairs, had friends over and I didn’t want to rain on her parade, so we patiently waited for the noise to subside. When she appeared at the top of the stairs asking us to turn down the music, I said … huh?
My computer had found a music channel. A heavy metal music channel. It had, apparently with the help of a music-loving insect friend, selected the channel, turned it up to full volume and was blasting it through the house.
When I looked at the monitor, there were (literally) dozens of windows open. Such a busy little bug. And all my preferences had been changed. AND SAVED! Who knew our six or eight-legged friends were so computer savvy? I sprayed the office for things that crawl, fly and scurry, and grumped off to watch something on television, which is where I had begun. It happened again the following day, only this time, I knew from whence the problem originated and promptly went to deal with it.
The offending crawler, a small flying thing smaller than a mosquito, but bigger than a fruit fly, was sitting on my monitor, laughing at me. I swear he was laughing. I sought in vain for some way to reduce the sensitivity of the monitor or better, turn it off completely. It wouldn’t have mattered what software was being used. It was the touch sensitivity that was the issue, not the software. A very big strike against touch screens. Actually, I think it was a foul ball, double play, side out sort of strike if you catch my drift.
More Good Reasons to Not Get a Touchscreen on Your Next Computer
2) The physical position required to use a vertically positioned touch screen is total hell on wrists already suffering from carpal tunnel. We are talking SERIOUS pain, nothing minor. Every time I made any attempt to use it, I had to grit my teeth. I had to cut my fingernails all the way to the quick because I didn’t want scratches all over my monitor. I got the scratches anyhow.
3) Nothing I want to do works well with fingers. It is slow, imprecise, essentially useless. I am not going to use my fingers to work in Photoshop. I’m not going to finger edit a manuscript. If I wanted to draw, I’d use a precision tablet, not my index finger thank you. I couldn’t figure out under what circumstances touch sensitivity would be an advantage. There was not one single computer activity that could be done better with my fingers than a mouse. Not one. So exactly why was this “the way of the future?” Whose future? Not mine!
4) FINGERPRINTS. It’s taken me a very LONG time to get the screen clean again. It’s amazing how determined fingerprints can be. I still haven’t gotten it completely clean, but it’s closer each time I find a new lens cleaning formula and give it a try.
5) Fingers are much slower than a mouse. I can scroll. I can move all around, up down and sideways with a mouse quickly and precisely. About the ONLY thing I could do precisely with my finger was close a window. Press X. THAT I could do.
6) I finally disabled the touch input functionality. I spent an entire day searching for the menu until finally, at long last, I found it. After it stopped being a touch screen, life improved.
Then out came Windows 8. I almost broke a tooth I was so aggravated.
I do have a Kindle. Touch works fine on it, though I yearn for a way to scroll that doesn’t involve a finger and a real keyboard rather than poking one key at a time. Some of us actually know how to touch-type. We don’t type with our thumbs or index fingers. Ponder that.
So now I hear that “Windows Blue” (not its real name) is going to replace Windows 8 and will address issues we ignorant clods (AKA “users”) have with Windows 8. I do hope, among many other things, that they make it less ugly. I know usability is the big issue, but aesthetics matter when this dreadful, inelegant block of crayon colors is in my face day after day. If this isn’t the least attractive design ever put on a computer monitor, I don’t know what is. It would offend a first grader and I’m assured they like primary colors.
I live in hope of a better Windows operating system, a system designed for actually getting tasks done and the ability to do it all without having to relearn how to use my 4 computers. I live in hope.
Over the past week, I’ve been surprised how many armchair pundits have lambasted Microsoft forits still not officially-admitted but largely expected decisions to add an optional Start Button and boot-to-desktop capability to Windows Blue.
There’ve been reports claiming everything from Microsoft is doing a 180-degree reversal with Windows Blue, to others advising the Redmondians to dig in their heels and stay the current UI course with its coming Blue update.
Windows Blue, from all leaks and tips I’ve received, is not a do-over. (If it were, it would take Microsoft a lot longer than nine or ten months to deliver it.) And ignoring customer confusion isn’t a virtue; it’s stupidity.
This armchair pundit finds it refreshing to hear Windows honchos admit that Windows 8 isn’t selling as well as they hoped and that they want to make its successor more comfortable, familiar and usable for the Windows installed base.
In addition to the optional Start Button and boot-to-desktop options, there may be other interface adjustments in the works, according to one of my Blue tipsters. I hear the Windows team may also be tweaking the Charms to make them a bit easier to use with a mouse. There might be new built-in tutorials and in-context help coming to Blue. And word is there may be adjustments to the Start Screen designed to make Blue easier to use for Desktop users. One of my sources said some of these tweaks may not be in the Windows Blue preview release coming at the end of June, but that they still could make it into the final product.
If any or all of these tweaks make it into the final version of Blue, it’s nothing but goodness. If you’re a user who likes Windows 8 already, great. Just ignore new options and keep on keepin’ on. If you’re someone like me — who is still running Windows 7 on two of my three Windows devices (with Windows RT running on my Surface RT) — maybe Blue will make you reconsider whether you might find the new Metro-centric Windows a little more palatable because of these changes.
Last summer, before Windows 8 launched, I said I thought the operating system would face a rough road. My reasoning at the time was there were few PCs or tablets that made Windows 8 usable. And for those of us who might be interested in putting Windows 8 on existing non-touch hardware, the usability was questionable. Now that Windows 8′s been out for about six months, I feel like my early inklings were true. I wouldn’t call Windows 8 a disaster (with 100 million licenses sold), but I also wouldn’t call it a barn-burner success.
My biggest criticism for Microsoft in all this isn’t that the company is trying to make some adjustments to improve usability with Blue. Instead, I can’t but help wonder why Microsoft — with all its telemetry information, customer satisfaction data, and beta-testing input — still went ahead with what its Windows execs must have known full well would be a confusing and less-than-optimal experience for many Windows users.
It’s possible to project a bit by reading one of the recent blog posts of former Windows President Steven Sinofsky, who spearheaded Windows 8′s development, for some insights into that question. In a May 8 post (a day after Microsoft’s latest Blue disclosures), Sinofsky blogged about the damned-if-they-do/damned-if-they-don’t choice that companies face when launching a disruptive technology:
“If you listen to customers (and vector back to the previous path in some way: undo, product modes, multiple products/SKUs, etc.) you will probably cede the market to the new entrants or at least give them more precious time. If technology product history is any guide, pundits will declare you will be roadkill in fairly short order as you lack a strategic response. There’s a good chance your influential customers will rejoice as they can go back and do what they always did. You will then be left without an answer for what comes next for your declining usage patterns.
“If you don’t listen to customers (and stick to your guns) you are going to ‘alienate’ folks and cede the market to someone who listens. If technology product history is any guide, pundits will declare that your new product is not resonating with the core audience. Pundits will also declare that you are stubborn and not listening to customers.”
The Windows organization that Sinofsky left behind in November is facing this very choice right now, and seems to be heading toward Option A (after already trying Option B under Sinofsky).
Given Microsoft’s installed base of 1.4 billion and the reticence of some of its key partners to back Microsoft’s claim that the whole device world is going touch (something else I have to say I’m relieved to hear), I am liking Microsoft’s new direction here.
I believe Microsoft can stay its Metro-centric, touch-centric course with Windows Blue, while still making some changes that will make the OS more usable and comfortable for a bigger pool of users. While it would have been great if Windows 8 debuted this way last October, I say better late than never.
Just when I thought it was safe, that I have every camera I could ever want, out comes the new Olympus E-P5. There’s some kind of law that as soon as I buy the camera I’ve finally saved up for, out comes the next generation that’s got all the nifty features I hoped to see.
Actually it isn’t coincidental. I wait until the price on the equipment I want drops before I buy it. The price drop nearly always signals the imminent release of a new generation of equipment, or at least a new model. So I’m likely to remain at least a generation behind in camera technology.
That’s what happens when one lusts for the coolest newest stuff, but don’t really have the money to buy it. Moreover, I have nothing more than the flimsiest excuse to get another camera, even with my rationalization engine turned up to full. Lucky for me there isn’t much the P5 is offering that I don’t (more or less) have with the P3/PM2 combo. So it’s lovely, but I can resist it.
On the other hand (trumpets and a drumroll) … the new Panasonic (Leica in all but name) LUMIX DMC-LF1 was announced this afternoon. She’s lovely, scheduled for delivery in June. Just a few short weeks from now.
Lumix DMC LF-1
It’s got a built-in (be still my heart!) optical viewfinder, shoots in JPG or RAW, has a fast Summicron F/2.0 medium-long telephoto lens. At $499, it is almost affordable. Could this be the perfect do-it-all camera for which my soul yearns?
I have a longstanding policy of never buying a new model of anything (cars, cameras, computers, software) until I’ve heard from regular users, not the PR spinners. I want to feel the love before I start hoarding my pennies and quarters.
Since it won’t even be available to regular users until next month, I figure it will be a while before feedback starts coming in. There’s a strong possibility by the time I might be able to afford it — assuming I hear really good things about it — my computer will stop having intermittent seizures and quit working entirely, ending any chance of getting another camera no matter how wonderful.
Somehow, I think I’ll manage anyhow.
It’s new, better, exciting, cool. But if I miss it, there will be another — and another after that.
Because there’s always something new on the way. Trust me.
Three laptops, two Kindles, two cellphones, six cameras, four mouses (mice have fur and make squeaky noises, mouses attach to your computer), wireless keyboards, GPS, various clocks, flashlights, who-knows-how-many remote controls, electric razors, tooth cleaning machines, and a mind-numbing array of miscellaneous devices I can’t remember off-hand. To keep the world running, Other than those things that run on AAA and AA rechargeable batteries, everything else uses some kind of proprietary battery. I do not understand why camera makers feel obliged to use a different battery for each camera model. Surely they could design at least all cameras of one type to use the same battery.
I don’t always realize how dependent we are on batteries and chargers until I’m packing for vacation. Half a carry-on bag is entirely allocated to chargers and wires. And that’s just for items we use while traveling: laptop accessories, Kindles, cell phones, mouses, portable speakers, cameras and accessories. Laptops and cameras have their own cases … but there’s never enough room for the chargers.
I used to pack all the chargers and wires carefully, all coiled and tied to avoid tangling. One day, I gave up. Now I shove the chargers and wires in a bag and untangle as needed.
At home, I have to keep track of what needs charging and which chargers they use. There are so many I finally was unable to remember which batteries went with which gadget. I really had to address the mess.
The floor of my office is covered with wires and power strips. I’m afraid to walk anywhere because I might step on something fragile.
I did what I do best: research. There are solutions. Not all power strips are the same, and there’s a whole new generation designed to address exactly the problems we all have with too many chargers and power supplies. Some of them are quite pricey, some more affordable. It’s still cheaper to buy a generic strip at Walmart or Target. But you may actually wind up with more usable space if you pay a bit more and get a strip designed to accommodate various sizes and shapes.
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These deal with the problem of oddly shaped and variously sized chargers and power supplies, both strips and as wall sockets.
Let’s start with the Belkin Pivot Surge Protectors. These are available in a 3 versions: a 6-outlet wall mounted version, plus 2 corded versions (6 and 8 foot).
There is extra space between sockets and most also pivot and rotate to let you use all the outlets without waste. Belkin products are usually high quality and they are well-known for their surge protectors. Of course, you may or may not actually need surge protection, but most of these units include it.
I put surge protectors on computers and printers. Battery chargers are cheap and easy to replace and anyway, surges aren’t my problem. Power outages are more likely to be the problem, but a surge protector is no help with that.
Lightning is a problem. Surge protectors are useless against lightning.
We’ve been hit by lightning on three occasions. The first strike was on a utility pole in front of the house. It took out two computers and a printer. The second took down a tree, but no equipment. The third strike killed the well pump which is more than 450 feet underground. That’s how I learned that lightning can strike underground. Apparently the combination of electricity, metal, and water is very attractive to lightning. Well pumps are expensive and not necessarily covered by home insurance.
Lightening is incredibly powerful. Anything plugged in when lightning strikes will get fried. The only thing that will protect against lightning is having your equipment physically unplugged when it strikes. Just a bit of advice from someone who has learned her lesson the hard way.
Insurance will replace equipment, but no one will replace lost data. For that you need a backup on a separate drive.
Prices for the Belkin surge protectors (on Amazon) range from about $18 for the wall-mounted unit, to $25 for the 12-outlet unit with an 8-foot cord, to $27 for the 8-outlet surge protector with a 6-foot cord. The 8-outlet is a very different design and lets you rotate the outlets so that you can use all of the outlets regardless of the size or shape of the chargers or power supplies you want to plug in.
The design of the 8-outlet unit spreads the outlets along a round, wand-like strip that lets you configure the sockets to fit a wide variety of variously sized and shaped chargers and power supplies.
Quite a bit of creativity has gone into some of the designs. By the way, all of these are available on Amazon.
The creative solutions don’t end here. The Kensington 62634 SmartSockets 6-Outlet 16 Foot Cord Table Top Circular Color Coded Power Stripand Surge Protector looks like an electrified lazy Susan. Designed to put in the middle of a conference table so participants can all plug their laptops in at the same time, you could as easily use it on the floor.
It’s rather pricey at more than $40, but it is very cool and if you need a table top strip, this is probably a good choice.
For 25% less, Quirky makes something similar. The white Quirky Pivot Power 6 Outlet FlexibleSurge Protector Power Strip costs a couple of dollars less than the identical unit in black. I have no idea why.
Though not cheap, it is not as expensive as the Kensington or Belkin units, nor as fancy. The sockets rotate, but don’t swivel. If you can live without swiveling and color coding, you can get one of these for just under $30. Exactly what will work for you, whether or not any of these will be right for you, depends on the shape of the space you have and how many devices and chargers you have.
If, like me, your charger problem extends into your kitchen and bathroom, there are wall-mounted units for that let you rotate outlets.
You can keep your electric razor and water pic plugged in and still have somewhere to attach the hair dryer or curling iron. And if, like my husband, you want to play the radio while you do your daily ablutions, you have a plug for that too. At about $15, it’s a real problem-solver. There are other versions made for kitchen appliances that come with more outlets in some fascinating shapes.
My personal favorite and what consider the most power strip for the least money is Ideative’s Socket Sense 6-Outlet Expandable Surge Protector, 3-Foot Cord. It’s simple and costs just $15. You can set the spacing as needed. Since the equipment in our life keeps changing, I’m attracted by a strip that I can adapt to changing requirements. I have two of them and need one more.
Ideative Socket Sense 6-Outlet Expandable Surge Protector, 3-foot Cord
Ideative’s strips are comparatively simple. No rotating or color coding outlets, but you can make the space between outlets larger or smaller, so most things should fit easily. The sockets are angled to make it easier to plug stuff in.
There are more. Tripp Lite makes a series of high voltage surge protecting traditional strips that have as many as 24 outlets.
They are expensive and much higher tech than I need, but it depends on what you need … and the size of your budget, because those babies cost upwards of $50 apiece.
Below is a cord splitter, one alternative to a strip. I have one in my office and it has the advantage that any size device will fit into any plug. These are also sometimes called hubs and may include special sockets for charging USB devices, or hooking up phone lines. I also have a hub like this on my desk that gives me an extra five USB outlets. Just be aware that not every device operates properly through a hub; some devices need to be plugged directly into the computer.
Civilization probably wouldn’t survive the loss of electricity, but until the world as we know it comes to an end, at the very least we can make life a little easier. All you need is willingness to do the research … and a credit card. With some credit on it.
Like so many problems in life, if you throw money at it, you can make it to go away. More or less.
Four years ago, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts decided they could save a few bucks if they stopped reminding people to renew their drivers licenses. We are all supposed to remember what year our license expires. Since drivers licenses are good for five years, pretty much no one remembers, thus no one can renew on-line: an expired license can only be renewed in person. Because anyone who has an expired license needs an eye test.
It doesn’t matter if it’s one day or 3 years 364 days. If the license has expired, you must come to the RMV in person to get an eye test. According to the RMV, there is a direct, if somewhat obscure and mystical connection between an expired license and failing eyesight.
Note: After 4 years, you have to start over as if you never had a license at all, including written and road tests.
To save us even more money, the Commonwealth decided to close down all the kiosk RMV (Registry of Motor Vehicle) mini offices at malls where you could get simple tasks completed quickly and conveniently. But that was not enough. They then closed more than half the local RMV branches, keeping only the main offices open.
Between one thing and another, the result is a guaranteed daily pile-up of disgruntled Massachusetts motorists at the Registry of Motor Vehicles.
Garry discovered his license had expired and came home upset. I tried to renew it on-line, but though it had expired less than two weeks earlier, he had to renew in person because he needed an eye test. This makes sense to someone. A punitive eye test. It is your punishment for not noticing that your license was expiring.
He wondered if he could defer it. No one ever wants to go to the RMV, but there’s no reprieve. Driving around with an expired license is not an option. Should something happen, even a minor fender bender, you would end up getting hit with a fine that would make your head spin.
We headed up to Worcester, which according to the RMV office locater was the nearest branch. That turned out to be untrue, but we needed to get it done and had barely enough time. Away we went. It was a trip backwards in time.
I remember saying if revolution comes to this country, it will start at the motor vehicle bureau where frustrated, tired, aggravated citizens get bounced from place to place in pursuit of accomplishing a simple goal in a reasonable length of time. That we were at the RMV at all was because some moron thought sending a postcard to licensed drivers every 5 years was costing too much money. I’d like to see a cost analysis on this brilliant piece of legislation.
There used to be dozens of queues at the RMV. In the bad old days, you waited on whichever line you thought was the right one until you got to the front, discovered you had waiting on the wrong line, were directed to some other place to start over.
After several hours of bouncing from line to line, with the queues getting longer and angrier as the day wore on, at 5 o’clock sharp, they’d close and tell you to come back another day. The new method eliminates lines. Not a queue in sight. The Powers That Be have used chaos theory and a non-linear approach to eliminate lines and logic simultaneously. It’s a new world, a science fiction world, a completely incomprehensible world.
To get you oriented, everyone starts on a single information line where you get a little deli counter paper ticket. On it is printed a 3-digit number preceded by a letter. We were I-256.
There are letter codes A, B, C, D, F, G, I and Z. I do not know what any of them mean or if they mean anything. I don’t know why those letters were chosen as opposed to other letters. It’s all part of the non-linear thing. In the front lobby, there is a single, rather small illuminated sign that flashes the next number up. There is no order to what combinations of numbers and letter might be next.
Any combination can be called any time to any window. There were about 24 queues, though not all were open. If you got lucky, you could hear a sotto voce announcement I’m sure Garry couldn’t hear at all and I could only hear parts of and only sometimes. There were words to the effect that “We are now serving A-132 at window 14″ and that number would flash on the screen. Sometimes they would flash the number for a couple of minutes, sometimes for just a few seconds.
They might be serving Z-542 at window 2, followed by D-234 at window 17. Everyone hovered near the screen because the noise level precluded being able to hear anything. When finally your number was up, you had to dash madly to whatever line you were called, which could be a long run (in my case, hobble) to the other side of the building. No way to know how soon you would be waiting. You didn’t dare leave, not even to go the bathroom.
Garry was baffled. I said that the RMV had eliminated bourgeois linearity and gone to a non-linear chaos-based formula.
“What?” he said.
“Completely random,” I assured him. We were both having flashbacks to the near riots of the 1960s as the lines in the motor vehicle bureau would stretch into the street and around the block. There were just as many people waiting now as then, but there were no lines, just folks sitting on hard benches with dull, blank faces or milling around wondering what happened to order and logic, and why don’t they simply send a postcard reminding you to renew your license? It took three and a half hours.
I took some pictures. Security concluded I was a terrorist. It had been a bad week for Boston and even on a good week, bureaucrats always assume anyone with a camera has evil intentions. I took the pictures quickly, so by the time they told me to put the camera away because “this is a State building!” (what that had to do with anything I don’t know), my camera was out of sight and I was standing around looking bored, annoyed and out of sorts like everyone else.
Finally, they called us. Garry got a new picture which is nominally less horrible than the one he had for the past 10 years. He passed his eye test, signed an autograph for the lady who served us (who became much less rude helpful after recognizing Garry), and we finally got out of there.
I took pictures of the flag being raised again because it was exactly a week since the bombings at the Marathon which was also weird.
So I ask you: are they really saving money? Or is this just another way to make our lives more difficult?
Because I don’t believe for a moment that the savings are not more than offset by needing many more people working at the RMV instead of the rest of us being able to renew our licenses on our computers at home.
Why is my computer freezing and sending me blue screens? I guess I should run some system diagnostics. I ran them a month ago and it said everything is hunky dory. If it’s so hunky and dory, why does it keep freezing?
(FREEZE!!)
NO, Marilyn! You cannot run diagnostics while surfing. Bad Marilyn.
(FREEZE!!)
NO you cannot check email. Okay, check, but don’t send anything. Ow. Frozen again.
(PUZZLEMENT)
Why is it prompting me to update the drivers I just updated? Should I do it again? Nah. Waste of time.
(BAFFLED CONFUSION)
Why is Dell installing the software again? This is the fifth time. It’s installed. Geez. It’s just doing this to aggravate me.
(HEADACHE, POUND, POUND, THUD)
I need lunch. Afraid to leave the computer. Who knows what mischief it might get into?
(STOMACH GURGLING)
Bathroom, I don’t care what’s going on. I gotta go NOW. Computer? Sit! Stay! Don’t do anything while I’m gone.
(FREEZE!!)
I guess no matter how boring it is, I should NOT play Scrabble while running diagnostics.
(FREEZE!!)
I suppose this means running diagnostics is not a perfect opportunity to thoroughly clean the keyboard.
(HUH??)
My system is fine. Absolutely nothing wrong. So what’s with all those Blue Screens of Death referencing my video card? Huh? Let’s stress test the video card.
(ZZ)
This is more boring than watching paint dry. Are we there yet?
(RESULTS!)
Everything is freaking fine. I’ll tell myself that the next time it locks up. Thanks for nothing. Another afternoon I can never get back.
With camera in hand, exploring European lands, cultures, food, and drink...mostly with a plan, but sometimes enjoying the adventure of just getting lost.
