For those who haven’t been very interested in the continuing saga of Doc’s trials and tribulations with computers, I have the quad core 64-bit PC running and have (somewhat) tamed the Vista Home Premium with which it came pre-loaded.  I set as many functions, Icons, shortcuts, and the like to act as much as possible as XP-
Pro.  I was not completely successful, but I have time.  Just a few minutes ago I decided to print some forms, and the printer doesn’t even light up or whirr when it is turned on.  I suspect this is a difference in the drivers between 64-bit and 32-bit devices, but they’re both HP, so I should be able to locate a compatible driver.

After all the work I had done on Leonard the laptop, gotten the new keyboard installed, a new extended power battery, rented a geek, etc., he died a rather sudden death.  I suspect a post surgical complication and infection got him.  It seemed useless to throw good money after bad and our economy needed the boost, so I ordered the laptop from *ell.  I made a mistake at that time, though I didn’t realize it until I received the computer on Monday, nearly six weeks after I placed the order.  The mistake was having a sturdy, business model Vostro 2510 built to my specifications.  I didn’t even change it that much.  I only asked for the double life battery and a faster CPU.  Six weeks.  Had I known, I would have purchased the next stock model up and ordered a spare battery.  That one even had a fingerprint reader security device built in.

I was delighted when it arrived but had a few surprises awaiting me when I opened the box.  The first thing I noticed was that it was not the plain black color I had ordered, but a brilliant metallic candy apple red; a marvelous color for a Little Deuce Coupe hot rod, but not at all what I had in mind for a laptop.  I decided that this was OK because it could be more easily described to the police when it gets stolen, and because I'm not looking at the outside of it while I'm using it.

Then came a two hour quandary.  I had ordered this laptop specifically because it was sold as running XP-Pro with a Vista Home Premium install disk should I ever wish to change.  It arrived with the wrong manual and the possibility of having any of four different Operating Systems installed.  The little sticker on the lower right of the keyboard stated that it was Vista Basic.  The official license sticker on the back read Vista Business.  There were two install disks included, both XP-Pro and Vista Home Premium.  I openly admit that this left me puzzled enough that I was afraid to turn it on.  So I went to *ell (online) searching for answers.  Nothing.  The only reassurance I had was a PDF file of my original order which I might be able to use to return it.  Almost everything that could go wrong ran through my mind until I convinced myself it would probably start with Vista Business, I would have to wipe the hard drive and do a bare metal install of XP and eight other disks that came with it.  I did not believe it unreasonable to resist doing that, but could think of only one other thing to do.  Turn it on and see what happened.  OK, I got a Pepsi, took a deep breath and a Valium, and poked the button.  I have never been so happy to hear the very familiar, irritating little "tweedle-ee-dink" noise that XP makes on startup.

One might think that would be happiness and relief enough for the day, but then one would not be Doc.  The computer is solid, well engineered, has a good overall feel, a bright and clear LCD screen without a single dead pixel, but it wasn't "mine" yet.  I began removing crapware, activating needed programs (with the pleasant surprise that MS Works came with the full version of MS Word 2003 and the MS Office Picture Manager, probably my two most used MS Office programs or tools.)  I then downloaded Firefox and a number of add-ons and extensions with which I had become comfortable, Spybot-S&D, Belarc Advisor, Windows Defender, Eraser, Rainbow Folders, Evernote, 50+ updates from MS Update and Office Update, add-ons for Word, updated all of the various programs which needed it, downloaded most of the Google Pack, and finally ran Auslogics Defrag.  I stopped then as the room had become noticeably brighter and I realized I had been up all night.  I decided that it might be a good idea to take a nap. 

Twelve hours later I was up from my short nap and found that a UPS delivery was on my landing.  It contained a "toaster," not because it toasts bread, but because it looks like one when a hard drive is inserted into the top to transfer its contents to another computer.  It can also be used in reverse to write files from a computer to the drive placed in it to use as a backup hard drive.  Some of Leonard will live on.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2009, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home." - Ken Olsen (1926 - ), President, Digital Equipment, 1977 Technorati Tags: laptop,computer,lack of manual,dawn,candy apple red