First Post on a New Laptop

This is the first blog post on my new laptop.

This is the laptop that I bought during the tax free week-end in August.  Yes, August of 2017.  Don't judge.  I knew that my old laptop was on its last legs, and I took advantage of a tax free week-end and an awesome sale.

Then my old laptop's legs stabilized; they weren't so old after all.  Actually, that's not true.  It's in as bad a shape as ever, but by plugging a monitor into it, I bought it more months of life.  The screen on the old laptop has a shimmy, like an old TV where we'd say, "Hmm.  The picture tube is going."  But so far, it just shimmies and looks like it's trying to roll over. 

When the monitor is plugged in, the monitor display is fine.  I thought about getting the old laptop fixed, but I knew it would be cheaper to buy a new one.  So, I did.  We went to see family in Memphis, then we had a hurricane, then we had weeks to recover from the hurricane, then some Thanksgiving and Christmas travel . . .

But the real reason I haven't used the new laptop is a combination of fear, tiredness, laziness, and more trepidation.  I always worry I'll turn the laptop on and ruin it right away.  So far, that hasn't happened, so I don't know where I get that fear.  It's left over from the time when computers weren't as user friendly and cost a significantly larger chunk of my monthly income.

This laptop came with a free mouse and free McAfee Livesafe protection and a year of Microsoft Office for home use.  At first I thought I had blown it yesterday, that the time to register for the Office software had expired on August 30, 2017.  But now I think I had until August 30, 2018.

I still need to move everything from the old laptop to the new.  But I wanted to get this laptop into usability so I could take it with me to the AWP convention in Tampa this week.  I have done that.

And let me also note, for those of you who have always somehow had the luck to just plug in your laptops and be all set until you buy the next one, that it did take me several hours to get to this state, and I'm not finished.  The McAfee software was very recalcitrant, requiring several lengthy attempts to get set up, and the Microsoft Office software took some time to load too. 

Still, let me take a moment and sit in awe of where technology is these days.  I remember the early days, where you wouldn't buy much in the way of software--you'd be expected to be able to program your own computer to do what you wanted it to do.  I remember first seeing a Mac, and realizing what a quantum leap had been made in user friendliness.  I remember my first mouse.  I still use a mouse.  I'm not crazy about the imprecision of swiping at screens.

Now I no longer feel the terror I once did at the thought of something going wrong.  But I would so like to avoid the weariness that comes from hour after hour of technology troubleshooting.

So far, so good.