Computer

Ailing Big Box Stores

March 29, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake

I’ve heard a lot of retail stores are ailing, and as I was doing research on purchasing a Mac, I decided to stop at Best Buy to do some of my shopping there.

monitor-1307227_640 — Okay, maybe not this grand.

In our house, I’m the researcher. I peruse websites, look up reviews, and otherwise try to figure out the best way to spend our hard earned dollars.

As such, I’ve been responsible for over 90% of the electronics purchases over the last fifteen years.

I haven’t shopped at Best Buy in a couple of years. We bought our plasma TV there, but I bought our last TV and laptop directly from Dell.

My husband decided to stay home with the kids instead of dragging them an electronics store and trying to make them behave, so I was on my own.

Taking what I’d already learned about a Mac and my small list of questions, I drove to the nearest Best Buy.

I was somewhat surprised at how empty the parking lot was. Last time I was there, I had to park in Famous Footwear’s lot to get a spot. But, I was in the front ¼ of the parking lot, and that was just pulling in. Granted, this was on a Sunday afternoon, but even Sundays used to be so packed you had to walk far enough that your Fitbit thought you were exercising.

Shrugging, I enter the store, get my bearings, and head back to the computer section. There are two couples in the entire computer section. Two. No one else is there.

The first couple appears to be in their twenties, and they’re shopping gaming keyboards.

gamerkeyboard — It’s going to look like this no matter what keyboard you get. I know from experience.

The other couple is probably in their sixties, and they have two salesmen helping them with a third watching the other two salesmen help them. There are two other Best Buy associates strolling through the computer area.

Interestingly, no one offers to help me or asks what brought me to the store.

I eventually find the Macs, and I take a few minutes lifting them (3 pounds in really light, by the way), and trying to decide how they’ll fit on my actual lap. As I’ve mentioned, my Alienware is a powerhouse, but it’s heavy. More of a portable desktop than a laptop.

After a few minutes perusing the stock, I still haven’t had a salesman help me, and I can’t figure out how to buy one. Is there a slip I take to the front? How do I get the configuration I want?

Finally, I chase down a salesman to ask the few questions I have. Like will Word documents play nicely between a Mac and Windows if both machines are running Word.

The salesman, who is literally doing nothing else, acts like he’s super busy and says he’ll see if he can get someone to help me.

I let him go and left the store.

I called Apple, asked them my three questions, then proceeded to order a computer and have it delivered to my home.

Not entirely sure what happened at Best Buy. Maybe the guy was genuinely busy. Maybe he didn’t know Mac products. Or maybe he was on his way to break, and I was interrupting him. Not sure, but if I can’t get a better experience in person, I’m going to enjoy the convenience of online shopping and buy stuff that way.

Just an FYI Best Buy. And based on your parking lot, someone needed to tell you that.

How about you? Ever had a frustrating experience at a retailer? What happened? How’d you handle it?

And So I Joined a Cult

March 27, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake

Or am thinking about it, anyway. At least, that’s how the Mac users I’ve talked to describe themselves. They’ve all told me once I buy my first Mac, I won’t ever buy another Windows machine.

MacBook — Looks innocuous enough, and no purple Kool-Aid anywhere.

I’m skeptical, as is my nature, but I’ve never known anyone who has a Mac that hates it.

Ever.

Yeah, they’re more expensive, but everyone I talked to who owns one was more than willing to fork over their hard earned dollars to get another one.

And this includes some very frugal finance professionals.

So, I started to research more about operating specs, performance, etc. You need to know all of this on a Windows machine. When I bought my Alienware, I had an array of processors to choose from, video cards, hard drive space, RAM, screen size etc.

It’s less daunting to order your computer from Dell than to build your own, as I did on my last machine (where then you have to worry about motherboards, cases, power supply, etc.), but there’s still a lot to sort out to make good decisions.

Not so on the Mac. You have desktop or laptop. Once you choose laptop, there are only three options. A bit of research showed me the MacBook Air was probably the best choice for me in terms of functionality. I am not a high end user, and using Pages and maybe some ebook creating software is not a big deal to a Mac.

Once I chose MacBook Air, I basically had three choices left to make. Which of the two processors did I want, 8MB or 16MB of RAM, and 128GB, 256GB or 512GB for the solid state hard drive. That’s it.

I should be in awe of the simplicity. Instead, I’m wary. Can it really be this easy? Can it really work as well as the Alienware?

We need to replace my husband’s computer so we can each have a machine to work on at the same time. But this is a commitment. A big one.

Am I ready for it?

How about you? Ever make a big change like this from one system to another? How’d it go? Any tips or advice?

Technology is Awesome. Except When It Isn’t.

March 7, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake

I have been struggling with technology lately. I told you about new laptop frustrations. And my ongoing saga with my “easy to use” website developer. And Windows 10.

Then, there’s my Fitbit.

I was dealing with health issues this past fall, and the doctor wanted me to get a heart rate monitor that I could use while exercising. He wanted me to track my heart rate and make sure I didn’t exceed a certain level, so I bought a Fitbit Charge 2.

About a month ago, the Fitbit just stopped resetting each day. At one point, it thought I’d taken 95,000 steps in a single day. Yeah, about that.

I tried rebooting it. I tried letting the battery run down to nothing. Not only wouldn’t it restart each day, it stopped syncing to my phone or computer, even if I directly connected it. So it wasn’t a Bluetooth issue.

Yes, the heart rate monitor still works. And yes, I can put together an Excel spreadsheet to see what my steps were. For $150 and less than six months of use, I shouldn’t have to do that.

So, I chatted with Fitbit support. They tried everything I’d tried, and several more things. After over an hour, they diagnosed it as a firmware issue, but the Fitbit would NOT accept a firmware update. And we tried. Both through my phone, and through a direct dongle connection to the computer. For an hour.

ITHelpDesk — It was probably more than three.

Finally, the support technician was out of ideas, and he checked to see if the Fitbit was still under warranty. He offered to have Fitbit send me another one, and I agreed.

It’s currently on its way to me. I was pleasantly surprised that they stood by their product.

Still, I’m leery now. I haven’t tried to format my book into an ebook yet. I haven’t tried to load it to Createspace.

I feel like there’s this vortex of bad tech energy surrounding me, and anything I touch is going to go wrong.

Clearly, I have to get over myself. But I’m still nervous.

How about you? Ever fell like technology has turned against you? Or maybe this is the law of threes and my three bad things have happened?

Six Things I’m Still Struggling with on Windows 10

February 22, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake

As you know, I have a new Windows 10 machine. There have been few systems in my life I haven’t been able to open up and mostly figure out. For those things that did stymie me, a quick Google search once Google became a thing was usually able to fix them.

I admit, I have less time and less patience these days, and Windows 10 has been a steeper learning curve than I would like.

Six Things I’m Still Struggling with on Windows 10

1. Shutting It Up

This thing cries more than newborn. It’s constantly beeping at me. I have no idea why other than it misses me. I have turned off notifications, but it still feels chatty. I have “solved” this by plugging speakers into the laptop and then turning those speakers off. But really? Who would want to be beeped at for every new e-mail, Facebook post, Twitter notification or whatever other reason it is that it won’t shut up?

2. Making It Less Needy

It needs me. It misses me. The moment I look away from it, the screen dims in sadness. If I walk away for a minute or two to stir something in the kitchen and come back, it’s already locked itself down. Seriously, WTF? Do you know how hard it is to make supper off Allrecipes when I can’t look away for even a moment? Yes, I’ve changed the time for when it “goes to sleep” to 30 minutes. Apparently, this control is hiding somewhere else.

3. Making It Work Without Supervision

Going along with the second point, the darn thing stops working if I walk away from it. So while I’m loading the 120 GB of data from my other computer on to this one, I had to sit in front of Windows 10 for it to allow the loading process to continue. I spent this time surfing Google to try to figure out how to make it work without supervision, but apparently Windows 10 is like the AR clerk we had a few years ago. If you weren’t watching him, he wasn’t working.

Windows10ruined — Okay, overly dramatic, I know. But frustration that turns to anger is seldom reasonable.

4. Finding What Used to Be in the Control Panel

I searched for the control panel. It’s gone. There’s a settings option now, but you have to hunt for some of the stuff that was in the control panel.

5. Easing It’s Jealousy

Windows 10 says it’s compatible with files you made in earlier versions, but it’s quite jealous of them and doesn’t make compatibility easy. There are several programs I’m still struggling to get to work, like iTunes. Because that’s such an uncommon program *eye roll*

It’s not even kind to all Microsoft software. For example, the Microsoft Money file would NOT import into the new machine. I saved it down a couple of different times and tried to import it. It kept erroring out. I finally had to create a new file in the Windows 10 version and hand-key in all of the information I wanted from the old Money file. Because that was a hour well spent.

6. Figuring Out Its Facial Recognition Software

I get that this is where security is going. I understand that. I don’t have to like it, but I understand it. Still, the facial recognition seems to work about 10% of the time. The rest of the time, I have to input my pin code. Thank goodness it at least allows for a pin code.

I’m sure there will be more issues as I continue to work through this new system. Things have changed a lot in the almost eight years since I bought my last computer. I will say, however, that given the troubles I’ve had, my next computer may very well be a Mac.

I thought I was doing a quick upgrade. Until it destroyed 2 years of work.

February 21, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake

As you may have noticed over the weekend, my website was under construction. You may have also noticed that there are no discernible changes this week. At least I didn’t lose everything. Which at one point, I thought I had.

frustratedcomputer — Actual footage of a writer working on a website.

How’d I get to the point of making up new curse words about a WordPress theme?

It started with me reading up about how to make an author website look more professional. I learned there are a variety of “author themes” you’re supposed to be able buy, load into WordPress, and they make the site look better while being easy to use.

Stop laughing.

I then read a well-respected website that had video tutorials to show you how to upgrade your website in 30 minutes.

Seriously, stop laughing.

I set aside two hours for the process, thinking it would take a normal person twice as long as promised, so I’d need to double that.

After five hours of work, I shelved it. When I couldn’t figure out how to get the blog page set-up, I knew it was time. I was lucky that switching back to the original theme brought back all of my blog posts.

Seriously, for about an hour or so, I thought I’d lost the whole blog.

Every single aspect of the web page these was a fight. None of it was intuitive.

When the video failed me, I downloaded the user manual and tried to read that.

Yeah.

If you’ve ever read a user manual, you’ll know they were written in Chinese and translated into English by people who speak Swahili.

instructionmanual — It basically reads like this to me.

So much for ideal for the novice user.

Another day when I wish would’ve studied computers instead of finance.

I’ve sunk too much money into this theme to give up without a fight. My game plan now is to pick one thing to add to the in-progress website, focus on that, then start another.

I also need to see if these new themes are compatible with some of the other things I did to the blog, like creating a mailing list. Which you can totally sign up for! (hint, hint)

Please bear with me. I think it’ll all be worth it when I’m done, but in the meantime, if you stop by and the site looks wonky, you’ll know why!

How about you? Any project you took on that you thought you’d budgeted plenty of time for, only to learn you were woefully wrong?

A “New” Laptop Computer

February 20, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake

Once upon a time, my desktop computer was a monster gaming system. It could power through Stormwind without so much as a flutter of lag. But that was more than two children ago, and one of those children is now in kindergarten.

Electronics simply don’t have that long of a life-cycle. So, I knew it was time to upgrade the computer over a year ago when it was running slow while I was browsing for winter coats for my daughters.

I don’t want a new computer. Not really.

I saved up and bought a really nice Alienware laptop. I figured this would last me another seven years or so.

When it arrived, it was huge. Much bigger than I expected. My husband teased me a little, asking me what I did expect when I bought the largest screen they had available. Well of course I bought the largest. I want to be able to see it, don’t I? Especially as I’m spoiled at work with not one but two massive monitors that take up most of my desk.

But along with the large monitor came a lot of weight.

Not the best thing in a laptop, but this computer was never leaving my house, so not a big deal.

The track screen was also inconveniently located and quite large. My hand kept accidentally swiping it, and I’d end up typing hallway across the screen typing where I didn’t want to be typing. I solved that by purchasing a wireless mouse and keyboard for when I write as that’s the only time it bothers me.

The big hang-up was any new laptop had to come with Windows 10 installed on the machine, and I struggled with the operating system. I just wanted to open the new computer, load my files, and go. But I couldn’t. It wasn’t that easy, especially on this new operating system.

So, I did what any writer with a full time day job would do. I stuck the new laptop in a corner, used it only when I had to, and kept using the old machine.

Not ideal, I know. But I was much more interested in writing and editing than I was in messing with a new operating system. And, I figured we’d eventually get it at work, and I’d have to learn it anyway.

Only, we didn’t.

Then, my desktop’s main fan stopped working.

We tinkered with it, but it was dead.

A few days later, it started making strange noises.

Yeah, it was time to put aside my writing, move the desktop computer to an out-of-the-way location, and give the laptop the spot on my desk. Then I had to transfer files. And try to remember all my passwords for all the websites I frequent. And reinstall basic software like iTunes.

So, yeah, that took a whole day, and the laptop and I are still figuring each other out.

Combine all of this with how hectic things are at my day job, and I’ve not been nearly as productive as I would like.

But things should get back to normal here soon, and I should still be on track to get Crown Prince released this year.

How about you? Ever do a computer switch-over that didn’t go well? Or at least didn’t go as planned? What happened? How did you handle it?

Computer

Ailing Big Box Stores

And So I Joined a Cult

Technology is Awesome. Except When It Isn’t.

Six Things I’m Still Struggling with on Windows 10