dragonlady
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Registered: 04-2003
Location: England
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Technical Hiccup
I haven't been posting much recently. I have been watching though, but I think I wasn't in forum-mode. I tend to go through phases where I feel like posting and phases where I feel more detached.
Anyway the reason for the title of this post is that my trusty laptop, which has been with me for 6 years, longer than I've known my fiance or indeed anyone on this board, has half died.
Only half because the monitor won't work, or at least won't work in a usable way. The laptop itself is fine and so we have plugged one of my fiance's spare monitors into it. Cureently I am perching on the edge of the spare bed and typing at a keyborad that is to the side of the monitor. This is not very comfortable and I'm going to have to change the set up.
This is only a temporary solution but it may be a while before I can get a new laptop as we are supposed to be saving money for our wedding next year.
I'm really glad that all my work is still safe. I usually back up quite carefully and will be even more careful now. Although I can't fit my music and pictures on my memeory stick so I hope that eventually I'll be able to transfer the stuff from harddisk. My fiance's the technical one in the house so he should be able to help, he has sveral external storage devices.
Ironically this happened at the point I was about to enter the tournament challenge. I'm going to have to figure out an ergonomic, or at least comfortable, way of setting this up before I can start writing again.
---
"Why sometimes I've believed as many as 6 impossible things before breakfast" -- Red Queen, Lewis Carrol
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8/6/2008, 11:46 am
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QS2
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Re: Technical Hiccup
That's to bad, getting it fixed would probably be to expensive as well by now... Still in positive news, you can get some really cheap laptops these days, probably in the 300-400 dollar range if it turns out you need to replace it after all.
Still, this makes me kind of curious what kind of really old laptop you might have.  And more importantly, who made such a long lasting laptop. 
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8/6/2008, 2:55 pm
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hadaad
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Registered: 08-2005
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Re: Technical Hiccup
I'm with you, Dragonlady. I lost my laptop in the middle of NaNoWriMo. I haven't been as "In To" writing since it died but I'm starting to get back there. Also, there's a $200 laptop waiting for me at a guy's house. All I need to do is actually go and get it. I think that will get me back into it even more.
Good luck in your quest to find a good ergo setup. Mine is an old kitchen chair at an Ikea Computer Table.
---
Reading: Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes
Writing: Resurrection edits
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8/6/2008, 3:58 pm
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dragonlady
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Re: Technical Hiccup
Yes Firle I'm still around, just being a bit quiet. Working more and wedding planning stuff doesn't help, that said the wedding prep so far hasn't been hard, but it's early days yet.
QS2 the make of the laptop is Sharp. There don't appear to be any obvious make/model numbers or names where I can easily see them. Thing is it was a dispaly model too (which made it cheaper) so it'd already had a little usage. The actual details of what it is are on the box which I believe I still have somewhere.
Hadaad I'm currently sitting up at the table on one of our folding chairs and the keyboard and monitor are sort of staggered in front of me. I still have to look slightly to the left to look directly at the monitor but it's easy to see what I'm typing.
My faince expects that a new laptop will cost about £500. Personally I reckon I could get a cheaper one but I think he wants me to have quality. He's encouraging me to start online gaming with him so that will require a reasonable amount of memory and there's only just room on my current system. .
If I really need to I can use some of my savings, although it'd probably be worth saving up a bit too in order to spread the cost.
Whatever happens I'll probably keep you guys posted.
---
"Why sometimes I've believed as many as 6 impossible things before breakfast" -- Red Queen, Lewis Carrol
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8/7/2008, 8:46 pm
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tryingtowrite
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Re: Technical Hiccup
Dragonlady, when I used a desktop computer I had the monitor and mouse on a desk to my right and put the keyboard in my lap. I found it much easier to write that way, it cut way down on the editing as you write, in fact I usually didn't even look at the screen until I was done writing for the day so no crick in the neck from looking sideways. I donno, it might help you be more comfortable.
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I'm not just staring out the window...I'm working!
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8/7/2008, 11:11 pm
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QS2
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Re: Technical Hiccup
True, you could. That's a fully legal no string attached office suite. 
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8/10/2008, 8:12 pm
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dragonlady
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Re: Technical Hiccup
I like MS Word, at least I like the old version of Word.
I already knew Office 2007 isn't compatible with older versions of Office, which causes problems at work. The laptop came with a trial version of 2007, I looked at Word and it was horrible, or at least unfamiliar. After a few seconds I still couldn't find Save as so we deleted it off the computer.
I did get a free download of Open Office with a Java plugin, not activated it yet but I may use it. It looks better than Word 2007.
There are a few issues with the laptop, things I don't know about it.
It didn't come with a manual, my fiance reckons PC World don't include it because they want you to rely on their tech services. I should see if I can find it online.
So far I've discovered that closing the lid puts it in standby, which is bad when shutting down. Also you have to tell it to connect to the internet.
The main issue is that sometimes it has trouble starting up and I have to turn it off and on before I can use it. But I should be able to sort all this stuff out.
---
"Why sometimes I've believed as many as 6 impossible things before breakfast" -- Red Queen, Lewis Carrol
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8/12/2008, 10:27 pm
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David Meadows
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Registered: 09-2003
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Re: Technical Hiccup
quote:
dragonlady wrote:
I already knew Office 2007 isn't compatible with older versions of Office, which causes problems at work.
It depends what you mean by compatible. It looks different but it will read and write documents in any format as far back as Word 97.
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8/13/2008, 7:48 am
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David Meadows
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Re: Technical Hiccup
quote:
dragonlady wrote:
So far I've discovered that closing the lid puts it in standby, which is bad when shutting down.
You can configure exactly what it does when you shut the lid. Look for something called "Power Options" in Control Panel and change the settings there -- it should be fairly obvious what each setting does.
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8/13/2008, 7:51 am
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dragonlady
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Registered: 04-2003
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Re: Technical Hiccup
quote:
David Meadows wrote:
it will read and write documents in any format as far back as Word 97.
Only if you tell it to save in .doc format rather than .docx. Or download the converter kit.
We've had this problem at work as our computers are (I think) 2003 and people with 2007 documents can't open their work unless they've converted the format. Which most people don't know to do.
For some reason our tech department wouldn't install the free-to-use converter kit for us. They did give us instructions on how to find and download it, but we aren't technicians and so the computers won't let us.
Thanks for the advice on Power Options. It's something I hadn't thought to explore yet. I should spend some more time fiddling about with it.
---
"Why sometimes I've believed as many as 6 impossible things before breakfast" -- Red Queen, Lewis Carrol
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8/14/2008, 5:23 pm
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