New Laptop

The new budget laptop is in my hands - and on my lap - and one of my first strong impressions of it has to do with the latter.  I looked at several options, though did not do the sort of exhaustive research ignorance of technology has sometimes led me to in the past.  The final deciding factor in going with the one I have now was this:  It weighs about four and two thirds pounds, where the other one in final consideration was five and a third.

All other factors, very nearly literally, being equal to me, I found the prospect of a significant weight reduction (*and*, indeed, the fact that this also does not run hot) almost irresistibly worthwhile.

And, with less than an hour's experience to date (I went out to supper tonight with my oldest friend, The Elfin One! hurrah!), so far, I have to say, so good.  A very light laptop feels like a significant improvement.

The second thing I notice is that Windows 8.1 isn't so bad.  I have contemplated new hardware over the past few years, and word on 8 was so awful I am pleased so far not to find this OS entirely distracting.  New hardware does always have something of the overexcited puppy about it, and I've already customized some of its more unnecessary "personality" away, but the experience doesn't come across as either dauntingly (even wantonly, if some of the first reactions against 8 were at the beginning) unfamiliar.

I'm a Virginian* and a half about change, but I can also live with improvement.  And, right now, a 15.6" screen with beautiful resolution, as compared to a 5-year-old one running on Safe Mode, doesn't look too much like a step down.

More posts to come as I get configured into something more comfortable.  Hope you will stay tuned!


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The test song for the speakers (my Broads will know why ...):





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*How many Virginians does it take to change a light bulb?

Five.

One to do the actual changing of the bulb.  Two more to stand off to one side tsk-tsk-ing and reminiscing about how much better the old bulb was, and how things will never be lit the same.  And two more to write the history of the original bulb with Civil War site maps of its illumination range and citations of events under its light.