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Showing posts with the label computers

Borrowed knowledge is better than none

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O ver the past couple of days I’ve built a new computer. That was the easy part. Now it’s a matter of getting everything to work as it should — not just all the speedy new hardware, but the new operating system known as Windows 8. So far I don’t like the OS much, but my wife does and I’ve heard that most people eventually warm to it. So I’m still learning and mostly restraining the urge to bitch and moan. Fortunately, I had the foresight to keep my old computer running and online throughout the process. Without it, I’d still be staring at a scene similar to the picture above. It’s true what they say: With Google and YouTube, there’s almost nothing you can’t learn. I sometimes wonder if all that “cloud” memory isn’t slowly replacing organic memory, and if the process won’t someday exact a dear price on the human race. We’ll forget all the important stuff and then the technology will go away. We’ll want to know how to build a fire or bring down a deer with a stone-tipped spear, and there...

Mac vs. PC? A pox on both their houses

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I've never gotten sucked into the hoary Mac vs. PC debate. As far as I'm concerned, they both suck. They both keep us perpetually off balance, technologically speaking, and both leave a trail of obsolete peripherals in their wake. This morning my wife got on the laptop I'd just loaded with Windows 7 and reported (I'm paraphrasing here): "This *&$^% printer doesn't work." I checked it out and was able to confirm her findings. Microsoft's own support site tells me that my little printer, about two years old, is not compatible with their latest and greatest OS. No apology, no hints on how to make it work. Basically, if I want to print anything from Windows 7, I'm going to have to take that 2-year-old printer to the curb and get a new one. Just for fun, I checked on Apple's site, to see if a Mac running Snow Leopard might have better luck. Maybe it was time to switch. But nope. My printer's dead to Apple, too. But they'd be happy to...