March 25, 2004

A Geek at Heart

Very exciting day yesterday—my new computer arrived! Jonathan was excited too; guess there’s no hope for him growing up in a house with two techies for parents. At least he also knows how to drum.

Setup went fairly well until Dale convinced me to start messing around with stuff while I was copying files from my laptop to the new desktop over the network. I was too tired to tell him no, and of course at some point we digressed from the original mission (to set it up so that he can print from the iMac through my computer w/o having to unplug the printer cable from mine and into his), changed some settings on some folders . . . and the file copying stopped. Ooooh was I irritated! It took quite a while to get back to where we’d been (due to icky Windows settings), but eventually we did. I was more mad at myself for not standing up to him and saying that while he might be comfortable doing stuff while files were being copied, I wasn’t and he was going to have to wait. I’m not usually such a doormat.

Anyway, this afternoon I successfully transferred all my Netscape mail info and browser bookmarks (I have many genealogy sites that would be awful to have to reconstruct), which was a big milestone. All the additional software programs I use have now been installed, and I am fully in business with my lovely 19-inch flat panel monitor and my wireless keyboard/optical mouse. The additional screen real estate is completely wonderful in my genealogy program, and the speed with which everything happens is fantastic. I’m quite pleased!

Posted by elizabeth at March 25, 2004 11:34 PM
Comments

Oooh...I'm green with envy! I've been looking at the Dell computers online, especially since I've qualified for credit. Dell sent me the credit card about a month ago, but I'm not real certain I want to have another monthly bill right now. I've had my eye on the Dimension XPS. Maybe that is what is keeping me from doing the purchase...the PRICE!

Congratulations on your upgrade. By the way, do you have DSL or dial up?

Posted by: Theresa on March 26, 2004 01:46 AM

I got a flat panel a few months ago and I love it!!!

I ended up buying my computer from a computer show.

Posted by: mermu on March 26, 2004 09:49 AM

Theresa, we have neither--cable modem (RoadRunner). Haven't had dial-up for years and years and years, thank heavens.

You could always save up for the computer and then not have a monthly credit bill . . .

I felt quite virtuous last night when reading through the XP book I'd gotten and I saw that switching to a flat-panel monitor "saves as much as all the other 'green' power settings in Windows combined."

Posted by: Me on March 26, 2004 10:02 AM

Everybody badmouths dialups, but I have found at least one advantage: I can kill popups before anything is actually displayed in them, most of the time.

Does anyone ever use the CNN site? I have found lately that they issue a popup, and then raise all Netscape windows, including my mail reader. That really irks me. (Sorry for the topic drift.)

Posted by: Daddy on March 27, 2004 12:21 AM

Looking forward to seeing your new computer - gosh with 3 computers in the house, when we visit you'll almost have one for everyone. Also, looking forward to enjoying the delights of roadrunner altho' we here in the boonies still get by pretty well.

Posted by: Cynthia on March 27, 2004 07:13 AM

Hmmm--using Netscape (even version 7.02, which I think is the same as what you are using), I no longer get any pop-ups at all, including the CNN page. Have you set the right options in Preferences | Privacy and Security | Popup Windows? There is a place where you specify sites to accept pop-ups from, such as one's banking site, and then you can deny all others. You can even have it play a little sound when a pop-up window has been suppressed. I like that sound! Check this out and see if it helps.

I think you'll like my new computer. I'm pleased with it and have even cleaned out my desk so all looks lovely. I haven't let Jonathan play on it yet though--yesterday he had to play his computer games on my laptop.

Posted by: Me on March 27, 2004 08:52 AM
Post a comment