The Vent and Rant Thread

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by wodin

Hmmm, I didn't know that, thanks. Actually it is a federal agency (military commissary store) that was charging me. I began always stipulating "debit" when buying groceries there to avoid the charge. I think I'll try "credit" again and see what happens, and complain if they're still doing it.

are you with USAA? I know for sure that they have rewards for using your card as credit, Wells Fargo also does this. I generally make a couple of hundred a year doing this

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

...I'm starting to think I'm the only person who doesn't have issues with Vista. Guess I got lucky. ...

You're not the only one. I had issues within the first month, including the bluescreen of death, but after the techs at CircuitCity worked their magic, I had no further problems. I've had my current PC since Vista first came out.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

You're not the only one. I had issues within the first month, including the bluescreen of death, but after the techs at CircuitCity worked their magic, I had no further problems. I've had my current PC since Vista first came out.

I agree. I've had very few problems with Vista, and have never been able to understand the groundswell of negative comments. And I have heard a lot of positive stuff about Windows 7, which is why I find the feedback here surprising.

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by orlok

I agree. I've had very few problems with Vista, and have never been able to understand the groundswell of negative comments. And I have heard a lot of positive stuff about Windows 7, which is why I find the feedback here surprising.

Well, for my part, Vista takes up an awful lot of space on my laptop and loads very slowly. I HATE that little "dashboard." It just slows things down.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

Well, for my part, Vista takes up an awful lot of space on my laptop and loads very slowly. I HATE that little "dashboard." It just slows things down.

It does load slowly, but so do all versions of Windows. I leave my computer on most of the time. As for the dashboard, I disabled it.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by maianhvk

5 computers, am I the only one to consider that a bit too many for one single person?

Well, let's just say I have problems letting go of old tech. I also have a 6th computer- a 14-year-old IBM Thinkpad with Win98. I plug it in about once a year just to see if it still works, and though it sometimes takes a couple of tries, I can always get it to boot. I don't get new computers because the old ones break, I get them when I outgrow the old one. But they are still useful. Both of the XP machines have been completely dismantled and reassembled, much cleaner and with a new coat of Arctic Silver in the heatsinks. They run great, but I've maxed the memory and can't really do much more in terms of upgrading. Being older, they are also heavier than the newer laptops. They are good for experimenting and for loaning out.

One of the Vista machines is used as my work computer. The other is my ultra-compact 11z that's super-portable and has a 6-hour battery life. It's versatile. I can even run Lightroom on it in a pinch, but it's mostly used for internet stuff and managing my ebook library with calibre.

I've already explained my Win7 desktop. I needed something that can handle HD video editing and 15-layer edits of HD-resolution still images. Windows Media Center was a nice bonus that I've come to love. I use it with my Hauppage TV tuner.

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

You're not the only one. I had issues within the first month, including the bluescreen of death, but after the techs at CircuitCity worked their magic, I had no further problems. I've had my current PC since Vista first came out.

The first problem I had was USB-related and turned out to be a problem with my scanner. After that, I had an issue that turned out to be a problem with a proprietary Toshiba driver. I replaced it with the MS version and it's been fine since.

Originally Posted by orlok

I agree. I've had very few problems with Vista, and have never been able to understand the groundswell of negative comments. And I have heard a lot of positive stuff about Windows 7, which is why I find the feedback here surprising.

Me too. Although it's kind of funny - I put off Win7 as long as I could. I figured everyone was complaining about Vista, which I had no problems with, and they were raving about how great Win7 was, so I'd probably hate it. Turns out I love it. It's so memory-efficient that I'm often amazed at how far I can push the multi-tasking before I notice any lag.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

Me too. Although it's kind of funny - I put off Win7 as long as I could. I figured everyone was complaining about Vista, which I had no problems with, and they were raving about how great Win7 was, so I'd probably hate it. Turns out I love it. It's so memory-efficient that I'm often amazed at how far I can push the multi-tasking before I notice any lag.

Good to hear something positive about Win7. I may well give it a go soon. Did you have any compatibility or driver issues?

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by orlok

Good to hear something positive about Win7. I may well give it a go soon. Did you have any compatibility or driver issues?

No issues with drivers - most of my peripherals are at least a few years old (2 Epson scanners, Epson printer) and they installed without any problems. The only software compatibility issues I had were one game that was released before today's graphics cards were even thought of, and one old freeware program that's been out of development for years.

Networking is easier too. You can only use the fancy new Homegroup networking with other Win7 computers, but you can still do normal folder shares and such with all the usual permissions, and it takes about 1/5th of the time to set the permissions that it took in previous Win versions. Another bonus is that I can access my shared folder from my roommate's Mac - I could never get my XP or Vista machines to show up, and we swap music tracks because we collaborate on recordings.

The Vista sidebar dashboard thingie has been set free - you can now put the widgets anywhere on the screen. I have a nice weather gadget that I found in the online gallery. With the increased memory efficiency, you can actually afford to run some of those without slowing down the whole works.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

are you with USAA? I know for sure that they have rewards for using your card as credit, Wells Fargo also does this. I generally make a couple of hundred a year doing this

No, but the Military folks (I guess us old retirees too) can get a "Military Star" charge card that gives discounts. I don't have one, I just use my bank (credit union) debit card.

I have a couple of credit cards socked away for emergencies, but haven't used one in years.

[Freeshadow]

since the new PCs are not sold with OS media anymore the only way to do reinstalls are the crappy restore partitions activated by a nonstabdard MBR on the HDD. said MBR makes it impossible to me to make an linux dual boot on the box so i have to live with win7 on it a lot of the overdesigned stuff can be turned of but the startmenu was just pita - until I found that here: http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/

[covingtoncat73]

Ugh. I was leaving work a few mintues early and the head of HR comes by and says, "MY day ends at 4:30." Well, by my cell phone's clock, it was 4:27 but whatever. I probably shouldn't have but I have a long drive home and do try to beat the traffic and it was only 4 minutes.

Also, CRAZY weather on the drive home. Barely any rain for 2 months and I was driving through rain so thick I really couldn't see. http://bit.ly/j9vNei
*cue second glass of w(h)ine*

[wannabee]

Originally Posted by orlok

I agree. I've had very few problems with Vista, and have never been able to understand the groundswell of negative comments. And I have heard a lot of positive stuff about Windows 7, which is why I find the feedback here surprising.

I like Windows 7. I think it's a bit like Apple when they changes from OS9 to OS10. It was sooo different everyone just went huh?

XP to 7 is the same though Apple didn't create a bloated slow vista in between which got many people off side.

Accept change. Change is good. You know what they say? A change is as good as a holiday. Have a holiday everyone.

[SneakySnake]

yair! what he said.

It is just hard for us as we get older to get used to finding our way around new stuff. And even though I am quite good with Windows 7 now after 2 different versions, bloke went and updated his computer to some other sort and all the bluddy commands are in a different place! And I can't see where to make folders come and go in Explorer! blast!

[bjones6416]

I actually LIKE learning new technology, but the Toshiba laptop I had with Vista on it was a nightmare. Some weird thing happened constantly that ate up space on the hard drive at an alarming rate. I can't remember now what it was, but there were a lot of people in the Vista forums at that time with the same problem. Something to do with it setting itself up for restore, it seems like. I tried all the tips I found online, but got so frustrated with it I just stopped using it. Hated it.

[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by bjones6416

I can't remember now what it was, but there were a lot of people in the Vista forums at that time with the same problem. Something to do with it setting itself up for restore, it seems like. I tried all the tips I found online, but got so frustrated with it I just stopped using it. Hated it.

My wife uses Vista on her Dell Laptop and never seems to have a problem. She did accidentally delete her recycle bin once, but that's easy to restore. She's using a Japanese version of Vista and doesn't want to upgrade.

One man's meat is another man's sushi...


Stitchawl