New Monitor

[Ex-Calif]

At work I had 3 screens. The 15 inch laptop and twin 19 inch Panasonics. I duplicated this after retirement, hardly ever used the 3rd screen so simplified to the 15 inch laptop and a 19 inch Panasonic.

The most common use for 2 screens for me is to stream tv or news while I am typing up junk to you guys or watching Formula 1 on one screen and live track timing data on the second screen.

The Dell inspiron I have has a few failed keys on the keyboard so I added a wired keyboard a while back. I am waiting for something real to fail on it as it's about time. I keep 99% of all my stuff on drop box and mirror the onboarddrive to both drop box and backup to a 2tb external drive about once a month.

I will look for the cheapest laptop with at least a 1Tb HDD. Almost all of them are using the cloud now which is terrible.

I have also found the Win11 split screen to be useful at times but a bigger screen would be needed to use it regularly.

 

[Mark_K5LXP]

For a long time now it seems windoze is just a conduit to sell new computers. Make a license almost as expensive as a new computer. Apple also plays that game by dropping support for older versions (can you even buy a mac without an os?). I have a windoze 10 laptop and desktop, "upgraded" from windoze 7 before the free offer expired. They're sandboxed machines, unless there's some internal self destruct code they'll be on those machines until they're recycled. All my other computers run linux of one flavor or another and libre office is the suite of choice, even on the windoze machines. I have to run MS office 365 at work and it's awful. All the features are there but every time they bump a rev everything moves around and it's a hunt to re-learn the interface and steps. Worst of all, it breaks formatting of documents made with the previous rev. Might not be a big deal for a home user when you have to redo your annual Christmas letter but when you've got tens of thousands of documents under configuration control, you open one up and it's all jacked up, it's a problem. The IT department will only allow running of the most current rev of anything and if that means a mission critical piece of software is no longer supported, sorry charlie. When PC's were new I was really into hardware, OS's and software even travelling to an IBM office in Dallas a few times to meet with marketing and engineer types. Nowadays I am strictly a stoopid user. I get what I need working and leave it be. Let the poindexter types work through the minutia of getting obscure drivers to work and keeping all the compatibility balls in the air. Something like monitors, and processing speed, have for a while now been as good as I'll ever need them so once I get a setup stable there's no further need to mess with it.

My first foray into computers was the Sinclair ZX-80. Back around 1980 I'm guessing Radio Netherlands did an experimental broadast of a computer file. The Sinclair and a number of other computers saved program and data files to cassette tape. As an experiment they broadcasted this audio file on shortwave to see if anyone could successfully record it and load it into their computers. I recall the success rate was not remarkable. I don't know the subtleties of how that data was encoded but guessing between phase and amplitude distortion of shortwave propagation it wouldn't take a lot to introduce errors. It takes a bit of processing power and clever modulation techniques to make that possible today (AMBE et al). Except today even a simple text file can be bigger than all the memory those early computers had.

I don't know if it's tied to a particlular brand or model but we had a number of computers at work that popped capacitors on the motherboard. Prompted an inspection of all computers and quite a few had bulging tops, precipitating their ultimate replacement. Decoupling a power hungry processor takes a lot of capacitance to deal with high ripple currents. On a current project I'm with they're using high capacity ceramics and those puppies run hot. So with consumer grade stuff no doubt it's a fine line between cost and self destruction.

Mark B.
Albuquerque, NM

 

[TheBar]

One note of warning to Windows 7 users. You may be running 3rd party anti-virus software but there are holes where hackers can get in and modify the operating system itself. Your anti-virus will not be able to see your computer has been hacked because the operating system becomes the virus.

Even Windows 10 is vulnerable so Windows 11 now depends on a new motherboard chip called TPM 2.0 for security. That is why older computers will not be able to upgrade to Win 11. Most computers built since 2016 with an Intel 8th generation or higher CPUs will have this chip. But my 8th Gen isn't that fast with Win 11. As of now Microsoft says it will end support for Windows 10 in October 2025. I suggest you buy a newer computer with Win 11 well before then as prices will shoot up before support ends. When Covid restrictions ended last year demand dropped and the computer makers ended up with surplus computers. There may still be some good deals on Amazon. I got a Win 11 Lenovo 12th Gen in August that was new but a year old upgraded to 16gb memory and the fastest solid state drive for only $365. My only complaint is new laptops are too thin to have a DVD drive these days.

 

[CharlesinGA]

Computing speed and capabilities has basically plateaued Except for specialized software, the basic word processors and spreadsheets, amount of memory, size of drives, etc is basically holding their own and not increasing or improving in any measurable amount.

don't know if it's tied to a particlular brand or model but we had a number of computers at work that popped capacitors on the motherboard. Prompted an inspection of all computers and quite a few had bulging tops, precipitating their ultimate replacement.

About 1998 thru about 2003, there were BILLIONS of bad capacitors produced, which caused the failure of everything from washings machines to PC's to televisions. One guy created a web site called BADCAPS.COM where he was selling capacitors, kits, and providing information on how to replace them. Just in the past couple of months, after 20 years of operating the business, has he shut down the dot com side of it, but still maintains a forum. (read the info in the first link for a brief history of how he came about.)

To this day, those bad capacitors are still showing up in products. (It nearly bankrupted a couple of computer companies)

Charles

 

[TheBar]

One of the things I DON'T like is having to log into MS to use it. I had Win 7 set up so it just started up and ran, no log in, ever, for anything.

You don't have to. Switch to a local account then this. But backup the registry first if this is your first time to change it.

 

[gwinger]

I may have to look into the upgrade. You are correct, they seem to have simplified it. You can no longer move the taskbar to the sides or top, its at the bottom and as Henry Ford said about Model T's, you can have it any color you want, as long as it is black. File Manager is horrible, nothing like the one on Win 7 and apparently everyone feels that way, from my doing Google searches. I tried one replacement file manager, it was OK but not great, will try a couple more.

I bought the Office 2021 Pro package (unrestricted, lifetime license) for about $30 from Stack Social who I have dealt with before. Previously I had bought Office 2010 for the laptop and 2013 for the old desktop for $19 on a deal MS had with my employer.


The "culture shock" was how many little things, short cuts and such have been eliminated, probably to lighten up the code. The company I retired from (second largest airline in the US) is still running Windows 7, and paying MS for continuing support. That says something.

One of the things I DON'T like is having to log into MS to use it. I had Win 7 set up so it just started up and ran, no log in, ever, for anything.


Yep, installed a brand new HP power supply, no luck. I'm going to look into a motherboard as they appear to be cheap on Ebay for this model.

Charles

I do not trust Ebay. Some people are selling used stuff that doesn't work just to recoup some of the money they spent. Unless it is a reputable reseller.

 

[TheBar]

I do not trust Ebay. Some people are selling used stuff that doesn't work just to recoup some of the money they spent. Unless it is a reputable reseller.

I've been buying from eBay since the 90's. Seller ratings actually mean something there. I always check the seller's negative reviews. I won't buy from a seller with less than 97% approval or has sold less than 50 items. EBay guarantees the item is as described or your money back. I've had a couple problems in 25 years but they were resolved to my satisfaction.

 

[Tulecreeper]

I do not trust Ebay. Some people are selling used stuff that doesn't work just to recoup some of the money they spent. Unless it is a reputable reseller.

I've been buying from eBay since the 90's. Seller ratings actually mean something there. I always check the seller's negative reviews. I won't buy from a seller with less than 97% approval or has sold less than 50 items. EBay guarantees the item is as described or your money back. I've had a couple problems in 25 years but they were resolved to my satisfaction.

I attempted to buy an item off Ebay in 2002...I got screwed. I never went there again.

 

[DonTom]

You can no longer move the taskbar to the sides or top

Sure you can. It's just more hassle to do in Win11:

-Don- Reno, NV

 

[Ex-Calif]

EBay guarantees the item is as described or your money back. I've had a couple problems in 25 years but they were resolved to my satisfaction.

I've been buying on eBay for a long time like you. Fortunately I have never had a problem.

One of my rules for online shopping is like gambling. Never bet more than you are willing to lose. I think my largest purchase ever was maybe $500 for an MG transmission. It was also a "pick it up" item so I was pretty confident.

 

[Tulecreeper]

I attempted to buy an item off Ebay in 2002...I got screwed. I never went there again.

In 2014, I also attempted to buy an item from a 3rd-party seller on Amazon and got screwed. Never went there again, although my wife buys stuff from them all the time.

 

[gwinger]

In 2014, I also attempted to buy an item from a 3rd-party seller on Amazon and got screwed. Never went there again, although my wife buys stuff from them all the time.

I always look for items "sold and shipped" by Amazon. Only twice did I buy something "shipped" by amazon through a third party. It came in am Amazon box, but shipped by the seller. ??? Also took two weeks to arrive even though I have Prime.

 

[Merlin TC]

I hate all versions of Windows, I run Zorin Linux and love it. but sometimes I have to install my old windows 10 drive back in to do somethings that I can't do in linux, like I have a vhs it digital converter and of course it has to run windows. tryed to get it to run in wine on linux but no luck. I also hate this old dell that I have now, it won't allow me to install multipule drives like my custom built tower would. sadly my old tower died this year. right now I am trying to clone the windows 10 drive as it came on a 250 gig hard drive, and all the stupid windows update have now taken up all the drive space. the only other program I have on the drive is Xplane flight sim.