My faithful old Radio Shack answering machine phone finally quit working for me a couple of days ago. The message tape refused to rewind, and all the lights on the little control panel lit up at once, instead of only one at a time, so I knew it was trying to tell me something... It wasn't unexpected. I bought it in March of 1990 at the nearby mall, so it's over 19 years old. It cost over $200.00 back then, and the recording system used miniature cassette tapes.
The new replacement I got today has a digital message storage and retrieval system that doesn't need replacement parts, and it also has several more features the old one lacked. And it cost only $67.19 with the taxes included. Technology really is improving. Now, if only we had a cure for those telemarketers.
Once again, I enjoyed reading your excellent writing, using modern technology in a Starbucks cafe in Central London. As you know, I'm also fond of modern technology.
ReplyDeleteYou're going to enjoy Windows 7, just as soon as you can convince the good wife to let you install that on her new laptop with the Vista (ugh!) on it....
ReplyDeleteAnd if you've been following my hints and reports on those freebies I like to dig up, then you know that already, there are quite a few tweaks available for improving it.
I think that's what I find most interesting about computers - it's a continual work-in-progress, and never finished. We just move on from one phase to the next, adding improvements as we go along. And I can already think of a couple of improvements for Windows 7, after just a few months of using it. Not that I'm complaining, because it is a very nice program, but just because I think it can be made even better yet - and it will be, sooner or later.
The thing is, she's using her laptop just for writing ducuments and, at a later time, surfing the Internet, and so far the machine plus Vista are running smoothly. So we're not putting this at risk and we'll be keeping Vista on her laptop until further notice. I'd surely go for Win7 if it were my machine.
ReplyDeleteEven so I'll be following your tweaks, for technology never stands still.
I'm not trying to twist your arm, but for whatever it's worth, I've found that Vista was very annoying with all those pop-ups asking me repeatedly if I'm sure I want to do this or that, or telling me I don't have authority to do this or that, and all because the paranoid son-of-a-bitch who designed that User Accounts Control was seeing bogey-men lurking everywhere, ready to make off with his Documents folder, or whatever.
ReplyDeleteAnd if I ever meet that guy, he'd better have steel balls!
On the other hand, I like Win-7 better, because they've toned down that annoyance a lot in this new version, and there's also an adjustment slider for choosing how much or how little nagging you really want to endure from the User Accounts Control, other than shutting it off completely and leaving yourself less well protected. Win-7 also has other well-thought-out improvements that make it friendlier and more intuitive to use, once you catch onto them. It's what Vista should have been but never was, and that's the whole idea behind Windows 7 - it was created to use the best parts of Vista without the most unpopular annoyances, and
it also includes some nice extras.
If you find yourself clenching your teeth or muttering to yourself while using Vista, then it's probably time for Windows 7.
It worked for me.
I hear you.
ReplyDelete