Listening to the Voices in my Head

Dug out a fossil

In computer terms, it's close to a fossil. My old Acer Aspire 5735 laptop.  It was relegated to the closet, not just because of it being limited with 4gb of ram, but because it kept overheating and shutting down.

I took it out, booted it up, and it actually boots up fast.  I updated a few things, but not the OS (it's running Win 7 64bit Pro, and please don't nag me about upgrading to Win 10. I have plenty of security for it) But that overheating problem.

I remembered that we got some thermal paste when we were building the two boxes (Alan's and mine). I removed the back while he was finding the thermal paste, and then he took off the fan with built on heatsink. Cleaned all the old thermal paste off, and replaced it with maybe a smidge more than what was originally on the CPU.  I got it currently downloading Windows Defender updates, while watching a movie on DVD.  That area that would get scorching hot to the touch is just warm.

I have to remember that it only has 4gb of ram onboard, and has to share it with the graphics card (note to self, I should check for driver update for it).  I've gotten so used to The Beast with all its bells and whistles.  It is limited, but within those limitations, it seems to be working just fine.  After Windows Defender is finished updating, I will try using On1 Photo 10. Graphics editing used to make it seriously overheat then shut down.

It's my computer, is it? Bull$hit!

After weeks of Corel support telling me it was my computer, or my other software that was preventing WinDVD12 to play disc folders, guess who just put out an updated that "Fixes known issues"

My computer, huh?  Yeah, only because Corel had massive bugs in it.

But yes, it's always easier for them to blame the users' hardware, or other software.

I am seriously torn between which photo raw editing program to use, that isn't Adobe.

I love On1 PhotoRaw, but the stand alone has problems that seem to crop up with every iteration since before it was name for years (aka on1 2018, 2019 etc etc) 

With the latest version, On1 PhotoRaw 2020, when using it as a stand alone, my graphics tablet is almost unusable with the local adjustment brushes. At first I thought it was because I was watching a video on 2nd monitor, so I shut that down. And I made sure nothing else was playing/running other than ordinary computer programs.

The second the stylus tip touched the tablet, not only did the cursor move glacially slow, if at all, but the program would have the "Not Responding" in the program window frame. When that vanished, SOMETIMES what I was trying to do succeeds, but more often than not, I end up with some weird brush stroke adjustment somewhere it doesn't belong.

That being typed, if I use On1 PhotoRaw 2020 as a PLUGIN with Photoshop, I don't get those horrible slow downs.  But having to the the Raw adjustments, then punt the JPG into Photoshop, shut down On1, only to launch it as a plugin isn't a very efficient workflow

DxO PhotoLab 3 standalone.  About the same price to buy/upgrade as On1.  And I am sad to say that I can do all the adjustment brushes I want without it turning  my computer into an 8088.  I might not have all my nifty presets and custom brushes in it (yet) but performance-wise, it's much better than On1 2020 Standalone.

Wow, I remember when having a 10mb hdd was a lot of room.

Today, I got my fully functioning Windows 1903 (build 18362.239) that was on a small 500gb drive, onto a 2tb drive.  All is working. The only issue I had was RoboForm AI whining about it not being activated.  Seeing as Windows 10 is the only place I have this version of Robo AI on it, I just reactivated it, disregarding the "this will deactivate from the other machine!"

Cloning your HDD to a larger HDD or even to an SSD shouldn't be so fekking fiddly. But it was. After two days of trial and error (making sure to NOT do anything that would endanger the 500gb drive) it's done! 

Wow, I remember when having a 10mb hdd was a lot of room. 

"NEW AND IMPROVED" not always a good thing

Too often, I see people getting caught up in what I call the iPhile loop. Regardless of what the item is, they have the get the NEWEST version, even if the one they have is perfectly serviceable and works. Even to the point of camping out to be FIRST!

This goes for phones, cameras, computers, cars. Are some of the newer phones better/packed with more features? Sure, but will I USE those new features? Probably not. I wouldn't have gotten a new phone, just a new phone plan, if Alan's phone wasn't dying. He inherited my S7, I got an S9.

Cameras. Same thing, do some of the newer ones have better features? *SOMETIMES*. I have found that different abilities/features aren't necessarily better, or of any use.

Computers? Doesn't matter what you get/build. It will be 'obsolete' in 3 to 6 months.

Cars? Given regular maintenance, they can last well over a decade. So what it doesn't have the latest GPS or bluetooth.

Software? Sometimes the old adage of "IF it ain't broken, don't fix it" applies. I have on many occasions rolled back to earlier version of certain programs because the older versions work better. (One example, Luminar 3. It was a complete disaster. IMO, they released a beta test, and then when the complaints about it crashing, hardlocking the computer, failing, they blamed the person's computer. Regardless how kick ass of a machine they had).

I have my cameras. They work and I like them. I know most of their workings inside and out. I don't see the need to get the newest version. If anything, I'm thinking of trading in something to get an OLDER camera that will suit my needs.

Another computer, another Win10 update

Windows 10 updated on Wing's computer, and just like with mine, the latest update well and truly killed off Windows Media Center. At first, he kinda got upset with us about it, that he liked the computer the way it was, didn't want any updates. I had to explain to him that with Win 10, you don't have the option to NOT update. You can put it off for a week, but it will still end up updating.

I tried to get WMC to work, and it would.. partially. It would scan the channels, load the EPG, but when you clicked on a channel, it would shut down. I did everything I my bag of tech tricks to get it work, short of installing a VM, and nothing worked.

I ended up installed NextPVR on his computer. It's free (donations are appreciated by not necessary. Since we are both using it, would be a good thing to do) Scanned for channels twice, found 31. Set up recording directory, and showed him how to use it.

Doing the great data shuffle/juggle

Windows 10 has issues with the 5 bay external drive (really long boot login time, powering it down without ejecting the drives first, causing data loss), so what I'm doing is shift data/files.  Putting certain files (installation files, back up files, video files)  and others that aren't often accessed on the external drives, and moving the data that is on the external drives, that is (will be was) accessed on a regular basis (photography, downloads, audio files) to the internal drives.

It has taken two days to juggle and shift files.  Currently copying the downloaded videos (ie my UltraViolet and other digital content files) to one internal J drive to the internal O drive, so I can shift my photography files on the external M drive, to the J drive once the digital content files have been moved.  MS time says about 2 hours to shift 1.2 tbs of said content.

Then I get to shift 2.6tbs of photography to the J drive. That will probably take overnight.

Even though OLW 0.6.3 or 0.6.2 doesn't display the right WP Template

They are the only ones that will post to one of my blogs.  It's kind of a pain.  Turns out I should have kept Office 2007 instead of upgrading to 2010 a while back, because you can't connect or post to certain blogs with Word 2010, but can with 2007.  But Microsoft won't allow two installation Office. I can edit Typepad entries with Semagic, but I can't POST to Typepad with Semagic.

Why can't programmers get together and cooperate?  Hell no, that is too much to ask for.

Just two a day

Slogging through all the Windows 7 "Cumulative Updates" I passed on installing so I could keep using one my favorite Blu-Ray players.  But it's come to the time that I just uninstalled it, and have installing the rather backed up Cumulative updates.  There are quite a few, but they take so long to download, and then to install, just going to do two a day.

Have to say, not happy about having to do this, but seeing as Micro$oft is going to be ending official support in 2020, it behooved me to get the updates installed, regardless how many programs Micro$oft suddenly deemed unworthy or out of date.

Yeesh

I updated my tablet driver, as the Wacom Desktop Center instructed.  Rebooted and wow, color me so not surprised, Windows 10 no longer detected my tablet.  I did all the at home trouble shooting, uninstalling everything, rebooting, reinstalling, rebooting.. nada, bupkiss.

Called Wacom help center, and a very nice young man named Jay, who was very grateful I could give him concise details on what I had done, we were able to figure it out. It seems the driver the WDC had was glitchy, and he had me download a new one. While it was downloading, I uninstall all things Wacom.  After the download, when through the inevitable cycle of reboot, install, reboot.

Plugged tablet in, and Tada! All I had to do was remap all my stylus/pens.