Getting The New Computer System Ready I have been going nuts getting my new computer equipment set up. Murphy’s Law states if something can go wrong it will and believe me many things went wrong. At this point I am partially set up which is good enough to write this article and post it. Before I get into what I went through, I have to say I was much more comfortable with Windows 10 than I am with Windows 11. In some areas it seems Microsoft has made it harder to do things. I imagine as time goes by, I will get better using it, but right now I miss my old operating system. Another thing the new operating system did was very unusual. I like to show the icons of my external hard drives on the desktop screen so I can easily access them. Their names are the drive names and number and for the first two that was what was assigned. The third drive however was not named that way but assigned an icon and name from a software program I don’t even have on the computer. This was really strange and so far, I cannot change it. I will have to work on this problem later. It doesn’t hinder me from opening the drive and using the software on it. One thing I will have to fix seems to be a problem with Windows. Sometimes, when I click on a folder to open it the hour glass comes up and as you know this means the computer is processing and it doesn’t stop and I have to do a reset. As a matter of fact, I have a list of things I want to do to make Windows more friendly. One of the things that really bugged me was trying to move all my software over to the new computer. Some software took me days to do it, because in some cases I needed permission and in others it just didn’t work. A lot of research went into trying to accomplish the moves and I managed to get almost all of the software moved to the new computer setup except for about 3 programs. There was a huge time investment doing this. For example, getting the original voices into the audio creation program took me three days. I just couldn’t find the correct sound files in my backups, but finally persistence pays. The programs I am so far not able to move are not important to running the site, but never the less, I want to move them. One is a terrific art program. One program which I think is really handy is the Hallmark Deluxe Card maker. I couldn’t find my serial number anywhere when I reinstalled it on the new computer. I looked everywhere and finally emailed Hallmark and they answered the next day and gave me the website to redownload the software without needing the serial number. I want to thank Hallmark not only for their understanding in this situation, but also their fast response. I use this software to create any type of greeting cards I need. When you have a lot of children and grand-children you are always sending out cards. I have a dual monitor setup. I went to set up the second monitor and found I needed a special wire and had to order it. It finally came and that was when I realized I had a new problem. My second monitor bit the dust. In all the years I have had computers and monitors, I only had one other monitor go down on me. I even have an old Amiga monitor from the 1980s which still works. It is funny, the software I thought I would have the hardest time to move, turned out to be the easiest. I thought for sure Microsoft Office would be one that would cause me a lot of grief as would Dreamweaver. I use Microsoft Office to write my articles and Dream Weaver is used to convert them to web pages to send up online. When I first tried to move Microsoft Office, it wouldn’t accept my serial number after I performed all the steps I was asked to do. I waited about a half hour and tried again and it the move went right through without having to call anyone. I hate calling on these things because at times I have gotten people which I really had a hard time understanding. I am sure a lot of you know about this. The other program was even easier to move, all I had to do was go to the help menu, click on deactivate and reinstall it on the new computer. This is why I like Adobe so much. Other companies could learn something here. If Microsoft had the same way of moving software it could get even easier. The art program was instrumental in designing the Truthfacts website and the pages I use. That is one of the reasons I want to get it transferred to the new computer. One never knows when I might need it in an emergency. I also enjoy art, even though I didn’t get a chance to use it much lately. I could also buy it again, but it costs hundreds of dollars because it is the equivalent in stature with Photoshop. I make no money from the website and as a matter of fact it costs me to run it. I haven’t had a chance to check out the speed of the new computer, but it should be a lot faster than my first-generation Thread Ripper. They both have 16 cores but this computer is rated much faster. I need the speed when I save the site every day to backup files. I don’t want to spend hours doing this. Another thing which I decided to do was move things around in my den where I have my computers. This has turned out to be a bigger job than first suspected. One wouldn’t think this but there are a lot of wires involved and some were too short to reach where I wanted to go. Sure, I could get longer ones, but it is not a case of buying new wires, but of rerouting them. This is something which I don’t want to do right now. Because of this I have been trying other layouts. I am easy to please and as long as I have room to work, and things are easy to reach, I am satisfied. At my age this could be the last new computer system I buy. I said the same thing the other day about my car.
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