By Slanted Light

I have a post half-written that is not this post, but it occurs to me that this might be a good place to ask something, before my world implodes just a little bit further.

So - there were a shedload of Windows updates on Friday and Saturday, and suddenly I don't have any wireless connectivity on my laptop. This is a bit of a disaster, cos it means it won't talk to my printer for printing (although I think I do have my cable with me here) or talk to my phone for Dropbox/camera transfers (although again I could stop Dropbox and work out the cable, I suspect), but most importantly I can't work anywhere but at home where I have an ethernet cable connection available. Which is a the real disaster, because I'll need to use it for various exam meetings which all kick off next weekend...

I tried reinstalling various drivers from the Vaio website, but no luck. It occurs to me this morning that I could do a system restore - but when I scanned the possibly affected programmes that might not restore, one of them was my MS Office (2010, not the online-based 365). Now this, having gone back to proofeading, I cannot live without - and not tomorrow, when I have proofreading deadlines. And I can't use Libre/Open Office for it, it just doesn't work consistently with the great variety of document/types I'm sent.

I checked online, and MS assured someone that reinstalling Office won't use up another registration key, which is fine - but of course my Office box with the key is somewhere in my storage. It might be easy to find, but it might not...

Before I start all this - has anyone ever done a system restore? Did it wipe out any of your programmes/MS Office if you had it/anything else? It's not supposed to affect documents and files and photos and so on, but it'd be a bugger if my mouse stopped working (especially since I've disabled the trackpad!), or my keyboard or anything else basic... but also good to know that MS Office won't necessarily be wiped out!

Any experience/advice/wisdom would be gratefully received!

I know, two posts in a row - I'm giddy with the freedom of being on holiday, and being on a boat where I have time (and the ability!) to go online... *g* This is my second experimental post actually, because I'm again posting from another new device - and it's all tied up with why I didn't drive from MK to west Wales yesterday at a relaxed pace, didn't stay the night comfortably nearby and then have a wander before catching the boat, and why I had to drive for almost four hours straight to get here this morning. The best laid plans of mice and Jen and all that struck again!

( See, what happened was... )

(Maybe bribery will help)

...a Pros pic or article posted or drabble written (your choice which) for anyone who'll tell me their opinion/thoughts/feelings about Windows 10 compared to Windows 7!

As soon as I decide one way, I change my mind and decide the other way instead.

Who's used Windows 10? Do you like it better or worse than Windows 7? Has it slowed your computer/laptop down? Sped it up? Neither, but you like it anyway? Neither but you hate it anyway?

I know some of you have found yourselves with Windows 10 unexpectedly - now that you've used it for a while, what d'you think?

Please tell meeeeeee!

Hmmn, I seem to have lost the ability to upload pictures from my device to LJ - is that just me, or just cos I'm on a device at the moment, I wonder... There does seem to be a handy way to do it from Dropbox now, but no control over size etc from this end, so I'm sorry if the pic has turned out huge in your flist... Let me know if it mucks anything up and I'll delete or cut or summat. (Actually it turned out to be huge, so I mucked about with phone and this and drop box and finally managed to sort it...)

But that wasn't what I meant to say this gorgeous spring morning! The sky is blue here, the sun is all new-risen and golden, and when I went out first thing (the trouble with going to bed early is that I'm awake before 6am) there was the crescent moon and Venus just above it - so very beautiful and totally worth being up at that time! Apparently I'm not the only person to think so, but I haven't figured out how to paste from the clipboard on this thing yet...

"This thing" being an Advent Tetra Note 7, which has good reviews for speed, which I liked for something just about in my budget - because my laptop is in the repair shop - waaah! Worst of all it's playing havoc with my work, when I've only just had 4 days off work, but also I miss its lovely keyboard and screen! This tablet is actually for tutoring, so I'm practising now...

Apart from all that though, happy spring! There's even a touch of frost out there this morning - one of my favourite weathers!

So... having a lovely shiny new laptop, and having my files and photos etc safely stored and moved across, the next thing I have to do is re-download the various programmes I've been using. That's fine, except for the programme I use for my palelyloitering website, which was a very old and naughty version of DreamWeaver... Really I needed to deal with the fact that some aspects of it weren't functional any more, so this is perhaps a good kick for doing that, but... waaah - I can't afford to buy a shiny new version of DreamWeaver at all! Which brings me to my question... *g*

Does anyone use a DreamWeaver equivalent for organising and uploading and all their website? One that's nice and free and user-friendly? I do want to be able to access the code and so on, so that I can see what it's doing when I need to, but I liked being able to write pages without the code too (is that called the WYSIWYG function?) I've googled and found things like Aptana and KompoZer and BlueGriffon - two of those seem to me Firefox-oriented, which I don't use by choice, and the other doesn't have WYSIWYG, but perhaps the former shouldn't matter? Anyway - if anyone's got any suggestions, they'd be greatly appreciated, cos I'm slow enough at getting the poor old website updated and all as it is... (I wish I was clever enough to be able to make it searchable, too, but I think that's an entirely different thing, from poking around about it a year or so ago...)

Help? *g*

I did it - I went out and bought a new laptop today, and the only thing I'm not keen on about it so far (apart from Windows 7 *sighs*) is that the up-down-sideways keys are the teeniest ones on the keyboard, and it's going to take some practice until I stop missing them... Oh, and they always take away programmes that you've just got used to using, too... It's very shiny though, and long (as they mostly seem to be these days), and... and I was a very good girl, and did my research, and bought a Which Laptop Shall I Buy type mag to read over coffee this morning, and then I went around shops and I read and I fiddled and I tapped at keyboards, and I compared specs and compared them with what it'd said in the mag, and... I bought another Sony Vaio. *g* It was in my price range, it had pretty much all the specs I'd wanted, and the keyboard felt good to type on. And the touchpad is in the middle of it. Though the teeny weeny need-to-reach-for-them up-down-sideways keys are a bit of a bugger, I'll grant you... Anyway - I've spent the best part of the day transferring my security and stuff over, and it's beginning to feel a bit more like home now - though I'm still sad for my old Vaio, sleeping the sleep of the cannot-turn-on-any-more...

Now I get to catch up on all the stuff I've fallen hugely behind on - eep! And to wonder about things for 2012, and Pros in 2012, and...oh, stuff, as you do at this time of year. There's lots of Pros-y stuff I should be getting on with - palelyloitering (if I can find a Dreamweaver equivalent to use), and lots of Prosfic I haven't read yet, and wondering whether to carry on with discoveredinalj after the Christmas challenge, and/or my own writings, and/or... oh, you know. Stuff... And there's non-Pros stuff, of course...

...and by the time I've faffed around more with getting things into order on this laptop (have I mentioned the lovely keypad, by the way? *g*), it's time for bed! So here instead of my potential rambling, is the solstice sunset...


And for now, goodnight... until work again tomorrow morning - yuck! I'd much rather stay at home and organise my new laptop... *g*

Oh and I nearly forgot - I liked Sherlock very much, last night, I think they did a great job! Anyone else see it?

Well, I had started out like this...

Today was the traditional Boxing Day Visit to Bodmin Gaol - the old old one which is now all shiny with Christmas decorations around the Execution shed, and where foxcat74 and I spent the night last year (no - the year before!) in the hunt for ghosties... *g*

And there were gonna be pics, but...

Christmas disaster - my gorgeous laptop has died! It has the black screen of death, and cannot even restore back to an earlier version... My poor baby... So I might be off-line-ish for a while, though at least I have Whizzy Phone...

But - pictures! And we're going to visit my favourite James Brooke today... And Dartmoor, and... Just.... I was going to sort all my photos and do palelyloitering, and... and... and I can't even try to fix poor babe until I get home, but then it's New Year, and... and... *sobs a wee bit*...

Eeeep and sorry - I've not replied to lots of people but it's cos a) I'm in London - Scarsdale weekend, wheeee! and b) my laptop does in fact appear to be dying and c) Norton appears to be dying with it and I'm currently without protection - eeeep!

But I'll try and fix these things tomorrow and write back then... promise!

My laptop is ticking. That's probably not a good thing, is it? (And no, I didn't leave a clock underneath it...) Actually ticking, as regularly as a clock... It never has before... I wonder how worried I should be...

*gulps*

Google Buzz - gargh! How many different "social networks" are we supposed to be able to cope with?!

But on the bright side - in case there's other people as slow as I am to pick up on things - I tried using Google Calendar to remind me about something via my email, and it's just worked beautifully! And since I have googlemail open all the time, it might even turn out to be more useful than my mobile for that sort of thing - hmmn!