Tag Archives: computers

anchoa revived!

10 Monday Sep 2018

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In other home computer news… about two years after buying La Anchoa as a travel notebook option back in 2014 (instead of lugging my big 17″ guy around on trips) I began having problems with her screen. It starting flickering on one trip to Málaga, and in the end it got so bad I had to give up and just use my iphone. Then one day it went flickery-flickery-flickery and totally died. Damn. At the time I thought that it probably wouldn’t be worth taking her in to be fixed, but I also didn’t want to fork out for another small travel option. So oh well. It was adiós Anchoa and back to either taking massive laptop with me or working from the iPhone (NOT ideal) on trips.

Then the other day, while reading the specs on El Boquerón (shit, I’ve already named him!) I noticed that he has a touch screen, something I hadn’t noticed at the store. And then I thought… hey, Anchoa has a touch screen too. Hmmm, I wonder…

So after not having used her since 2016 I took my little Anchoa out of hibernation, revved her up, saw the old flickery-flickery thing start up… and then I TOUCHED THE SCREEN. And hey – problem solved! I mean, fucking DUH or what? Why hadn’t I thought of that before??

And the best thing? Picasa works just fine on her! I can upload my photos and they all show up, ready to be edited and sorted. Yay! There was a tense moment when suddenly Windows starting doing updates (well, it had been two years…) and I thought I might lose Picasa like I did on Sterling. But so far so good! Of course, editing photos is primarily why I want to have a nice big 17.3″ screen at home, so now having to do it on a tiny 11.6″ screen kind of defeats that purpose. But at least I can do it. So for now my little Anchoa is set up next to my desk, propped up on a stack of books, acting as my photo editing assistant.

Now I just have to decide if I’m keeping El Boquerón…

accidental upgrade

08 Saturday Sep 2018

Posted by in computers, devices, geekiness

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Oops, I did it again. Well sort of. Maybe. Before I went away to the Basque Country I was having some “issues” with Sterling, mostly to do with things bogging down and running slow, including frustrating totally unresponsive moments, requiring me to reboot, sometimes 2-3 times. So I started thinking about upgrading, then saw that Sterling is only 3 years old. I mean, shouldn’t these things last longer?? Mind you, The Greyhound was also 3 years old when I replaced him with Sterling. But Peter inherited The Greyhound, so that was okay, and he worked with him for another three years, glitches and all, until he died a sudden death in July, requiring the emergency purchase of Silver. But it also meant Peter lost everything, something that strikes a note of terror inside me, even though I do make backups frequently(ish).

This is all to say that, if Peter hadn’t already bought a new laptop, then at this point I would be happy to pass Sterling on to him, as he doesn’t spend as much time on his computer as I do. He also has much less content stored, etc. And then I would feel justified upgrading. But now I’m not sure what to do, especially as I actually purchased this new fabulous beast the other day as “insurance” while it was on sale at 15% off. It’s still in the box, so I can return it any time… but do I want to?

It’s weird because I have no qualms about updating my iPhones every three years or so. Then again I usually have someone who wants my old ones. But what to do with Sterling? I mean, he mostly works well. And perhaps if I stripped him back to factory settings, removing all my shit, he would be much friskier. Having said that, he has been behaving much better since I got home (figures).

How often do you upgrade your laptop?

Below you can see the specs …

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silver

13 Friday Jul 2018

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Not the way I thought Friday was going to turn out. And nope, this isn’t mine. Got a message from Peter in the morning saying that his laptop (the venerable Greyhound that he inherited from me a few years ago) seemed to have died. So he brought the beast over and we tried to resuscitate, but to no avail. And so there was nothing left to do but go shopping!

Luckily the summer sales are on now and so, after a bit of comparison shopping at FNAC and Corte Inglés, Peter settled on this guy and we spent the afternoon/evening at my place getting it set up. As nothing was retrievable from the Greyhound it meant starting from scratch, and losing some photos, but Peter doesn’t have as much crap on his computer as I do, so it was relatively easy. And fun! I love doing this stuff (and Peter doesn’t) and even after he left I stayed up doing a bit more fine-tuning. Now it’s all ready for Peter to take home.

Checking back, I got the Greyhound in July 2012, and my present laptop Sterling in September 2015. So I hope there are still a few good years left for Sterling. How long do your laptops usually last? Also, what can I do with the old dead ones?

tools of the trade

18 Saturday Jun 2016

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mk330

When I bought Sterling – less than a year ago – I also splashed out on a new HP wireless keyboard and mouse. Well, the keyboard started sticking not long after, though it still actually worked, so I just put up with it. Then the mouse stopped scrolling, which I tried to live with but it was just too frustrating. So for awhile I had two mice on the desk… one that scrolled (but was also “sticky” so not good for general use) and the HP one. Then yesterday I thought – what the hell am I doing? – and went out and bought this baby. Which already feels better than the HP one ever did. But I mean honestly, I know I use my keyboard a lot, but I also have a light touch, so what’s with products that seemingly self-destruct after a short time? At least for now it’s actually a pleasure to be typing (and scrolling) again.

windows 10

15 Friday Apr 2016

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windows 10

So there I was working on a blog post this morning when suddenly Sterling started updating to Windows 10 all on his own with the screen warning NOT to turn off the computer. There had been a pop-up window earlier about scheduling it, but I didn’t want to schedule it, so I just closed the window. Oops. And so now I have Windows 10. After all the horror stories it seems to working okay. Anyhow, so far so good…

Any of you guys using Windows 10?