WYSIWYG

What You See Is What You Get. This is a journal blog, an explore-blog, a bit of this and that blog. Sharing where the mood takes me. Perhaps it will take you too.

Menoteknikkuls... musings on matters mesmerising

WARNING; POSSIBILITY OF BRAIN FRIZZ...


I mentioned (yes I did) about the loss of YAMspetoo. Also mentioned that this meant travelling light to OZ.

That resolve lasted about, oohhh, 87 hours. (... I'll explain the following travesty shortly...)


The convenience of a tablet really is worth noting. Even here in the hutch, it matters. Voovoo the Vaio is a fully grown laptop and no light weight. For majority processing, it can't be beat. However, Voo mainly lives in 'the office' and having to move her round the house with me made it clear very quickly that this was not convenient. Okay, so don't be working at night in the lounge, YAM....

Only it is not just writing that Y2 served; for reading/researching, the tablet is by far the more viable tool.

There ensued an entire night of searching the web, updating knowledge of what is value and would serve key purpose, and whether I wanted to go all out and get a high-end 10 or 12 inch model which would be full back up to Voovoo; or go even smaller than Y2, opting for something which is truly just for travel and sitting in the lounge of an evening, reading and listening. As you'll gather from that bogoffal vid clip, the latter was the final decision.

Okay, an explanation for the video vomitable on offer above... the ASUS Zenpad C 7.0 arrived and I was very keen to show it off. I opened up Voovoo's camera and it turned out that she only had a 'monitor'... you know, for burglars and lost birds checking.... then had to cobble the three parts together into a total clip. The quality of the webcam is generally pretty good, so have no idea why it is so grainy. Then, the sound instructions were all there, but as you gather, failed completely... the failing was futher compounded by deciding to upload directly via blogger insert (that little clapper board at top of compose page). Never done that before, but didn't want this thing out on the tubular! Anyway, that reduced the quality further so you can't even read the explanation I added. It may not show up at all if your reading on an android device.

Hey ho. Here's the kicker. The newbie is called the YAMroid. It runs on, you may surmise, Android.. version 5.2 which goes by the name Lollipop. OMD. Preserve me.... am getting HAEMorrhoids trying to learn this thing. A whole different universe from the one I have been in.

You will have noted from the silent movie that there was a wireless keyboard purchased also; when it comes to traveling and having to write my comments to you all, that will be a sanity saver - for typing into the screenboard with all that autotype nonsense is enough to cause chips to spit. However, even this little board requires adjustment of style, so if you get some very short, or some very weird(er than usual) comments .... or none at all.... know that at the very least I will still be keeping an eye on you all!!!

Am very very very glad I got all the posts done to the end of the year already.
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Okay, typed all that above on Voovoo and am, as of this section, shifting to YAMroid and the keyboard. Got Voo's bluetooth mouse working on the thing too. That was actually written  a few days ago (I know, I know, am doing my time warp thing again, sorry 'bout that, it's getting a bit crazy as I am on the final count down to OZ), and since then there has been a huge learning curve going on with the 'roid. Tuesday 13th brought a heart-rending 87 moments. The darned thing locked up. Then turned tail and would only show the Bot Signal. I shut the cover, shivered, and put the kettle on. Sigh... determined not to panic. Back to the ever reliable Voo to research the possibilities of self-repair. Deep breaths. At the end of the day I was shaking my head; I knew that the battery would be well-low by that time, so plugged it into the charger

Up came the sign-on screen.

Oh yeah. Tech-wiz right here.

Meanwhile, in all the trawling the teckky and geeky sites, I took time to investigate the whole Windows 10 schemozzle. Have many of you been getting that annoying pane popping up? The Bully Box telling you to "GET IT NOW!"?

You are all capable of doing your own reading; this is not going to turn into a regurgitation of all the various moanings and hoorahs. The salient points are these;
If you are on Win7 currently, stick with it.
If you are on Win8.x then it may benefit you to move on up, on your own head be it.
Many would say shift over to Linux, but I won't bore you with that just now.
After going live, Windows 10 has not stopped dropping hints.
NEITHER HAS IT STOPPED DOWNLOADING FILES INTO YOUR COMPUTERS.

Oh yeah, a cruncher that one. Some of the more alert amongst you will have noted a drag on your systems, no doubt. Most will just have thought it was the broadband narrowing; for those on capped web access, they may have wondered how they were using up their allowance so fast.

The Win10 dowloads have been happening without the usual updating signals and have not required shutdown.

The heavy-handed hints are that there is no longer any 'support' for Win7. "So what?!", roars the YAMster. All that meant was that, if one registered, there was a helpdesk available to the enduser and proper advices of updates. Neither of which were ever required nor will be in the future. There continues to be patches for security and to maintain Office 2010, which matters more. Those are likely to remain for at least another five years, according to Microsoft's own website.  By the time Voovoo reaches 2020 (paws crossed), there will be need to update hardware anyway and by that time, any new machine will automatically come with Win10. There won't be any new versions after 10, you see, because the purpose of this new beastie is to subscribe and get ongoing updates... in the same way as currently happens with Google and Android. Only they do it for free (at least for the forseeable future). Updating to Win10 before June 2016 is 'free', but at some point the subscription notices are likely to start appearing. For business, it actually makes some sense, to be honest; but for the 'ma and pa' user, it stinks.

All of which is to tell you that I am opting to stay with Win7, which has proven to be incredibly stable and user-friendly. When it and Voo have to retire, I shall be giving serious consideration to alternative operating systems.

Meanwhile, I had to try and get rid of that nasty little bully box and the drag from the daily dasteredly downloads of unwanted files. 5+GB of them! That proved to be quite simple. I followed, exactly, THIS PAGE of instructions and, hey presto! No more 'spamming' from Redmond. I highly recommend it, if you are fed up with the offensive being mounted from that location.**

There is another matter which has come to attention and will affect all bloggers in the upcoming months; the shift to HTTPS. Some of you may already have been readdressed.

The addition of the 'S' is 'secure'. Hyper Text Transfer Protocol now is Secure. The trouble is with just http:// most of us are open to hacking... and it is a minor miracle that more blogs aren't damaged this way (Blogville's own Sweet William is a recent example of what can happen) - though majority hobby bloggies like ours are not prime spoils for the likes of those mischief mongers I suppose.

However, this rollover on Blogger is only just underway and many are not yet there. You can opt to go to https:// by clicking the settings page of each blog and scrolling down till you see the option. I have not yet done so myself, as when this is done, it means going back over various connections and links which may not yet be secured and would interrupt presentation. Every image, for example... it's a tad complex. It'll have to wait till I get back from OZ. Just wanted to give you the heads up.

Are you still here?  Well done for wading through that. Give yourself a treat.

**addendum; about 24hrs after writing that, the Win10 reminder box appeared again... disgusting. Turned out that even as I had followed the instructions, one thing that was not clear was that one requires to alter the updates notification status (in security section of control panel); some would say to stop them altogether, but I just opted for 'show me updates, but only download on my choice'... then I again hunted out the KB3035583 on the updates list and did the right click & 'hide' . By having altered the updates notifications, it couldn't slip through the back door. I left the notifications that way for a couple of days, doing a daily check manually - it didn't appear again, so have reverted to full automatic updates as of yesterday.  Let's see how that goes... sigh...


13 comments:

  1. I am a computer idiot. I have a phone the size of a brick with only the ringing app and my laptop is about as technically updated as my phone. I have to play with all sorts of gee whiz stuff at work - at home, I prefer to retreat back into the stone age with my glass of wine. :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hari OM
      Frankly, if it is working okay, then leave it that way...go the glass of vino! Yxx

      Delete
  2. Our pawrents have 10 incl tablets (Android) and like to use them when traveling. They also have desktop computers that they have in storage since last year they bought touch screen computers. Dad is the real computer mastermind and mom is just going along for the ride. Have fun with the new toys and we loved hearing you on the video!

    Your Pals,

    Murphy & Stanley

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hari OM
      ... you managed to hear me??? Crikey, your gorgeous ears are even better than I thought!!! Yxx

      Delete
  3. I must admit I do love my ipad but don't actually usually for more than playing the odd game on and I REFUSE to upgrade my windows 7 - hubby had to get a new laptop that had win 10 on it and just about pulled his hair out until he found he could set it back to look like win 7 :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hari OM
      Yes many folks don't realise that one can 'downgrade'... and if I have to get a new laptop even next year, I would still do that... Win7 really is just that good! Yxx

      Delete
  4. That Win10 update is so annoying, especially as it appears on my computer at work, and if I dared download it the Auditor of the State of Ohio would lead me by the ear off to jail.
    That said, my sister loves her smaller tablet.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hari Om
      hehehe, well this article wasn't to incite local govt anarchy! Home computers - well that's another matter... Yxx

      Delete
  5. oH Aunty Yam.... we have a tablet thingy and a YAPstop computer and a Smarty Pants Phone... they are ALL grrrreat... when they are working right...
    We are sooooo happy to have HEARD YOU and seen your BIG SMILE in the Video.
    We are SURE you will LOVE your new.."TOY". Frankie and Ernie.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hari OM
      Crikey wooffers... between you and the mayor doodz there is some supery dupery eardar going on... even I can't hear me. Yeah, it's the 'working right' business that was catching my coat last week... but getting things orderly now! Huggies, Yxx

      Delete
  6. All to technical for me nice to see you but couldn't hear you.
    Merle........

    ReplyDelete
  7. I hear ya... the win10 pop up is like a blow fly, you can chase it away 87 times and it always comes back :o( my momma is (hopefully, knock on wood and take a deep breath) happy with the new crap-top, the tablet was just a dayfly... it runs with android and my momma accidentally killed that thingy... it currently lives with the repair guy and no one will miss it here :o)

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  8. I don't understand PCs. I'm a Mac girl! :-)

    ReplyDelete

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