What new technology does to you!

[Little flower]

I'm the editor of our woodworkers guild newsletter and got rather frustrated yesterday, all of which I summed up in this note that I sent out to my distribution list:




Now I'm wondering if anyone else has brought a new computer with Vista and ended up with similar problems. I suppose it will all sort itself out in a few years!!!! But at least we do have things up and running again now.

PS Now we have Acrobat 8 that works just fine.
Hopefully, next months copy will flow a little better.

[CanadianScroller]

I swear the only function of upgrades is to employ people in the field of compatibility problems.
I used to do a newsletter for work it was 12 to 16 pages in full colour.
I could use the printer at work a beautiful 11x17 full color laser.
I was not allowed to install my software at work.
So I would do the work at home and then bring it in and print it.
Inevitably there would be changes that had to be made.
I would go home make the changes send the files in and reprint.
I had no USB thumb drive at the time so it was through email.
Now my email box at work is limited to 4meg files.
The files I was sending were very large, 70 megs or more.
I did find a way to email myself 70 meg files and it worked.
If I only had the software at work of a universal way of manipulating the files it would have been easy.
I thought of an old laptop I had lying around, that was incompatible.
So now I use the thumb drive and so far it has been successful. Oh that laptop doesn't have USB so that is once again incompatible

[GrayBeard Phil]

Also,

I have read twice now that Wacom pen tablets have a lot of problems with Vista home basic. It seems Vista home basic has problems with any input device other than a USB mouse and a keyboard (USB keyboard preferred.)

With the other two versions of Vista, the pen is almost a direct plug in, with no special effort to install. But WOW what a jump in price.

Now, where was that thread on Linux again?

Phil

[CanadianScroller]

I have some real issues with upgrades for the sake of revenue extraction.
Just what will Vista offer us in real value.

I have very few issues with the operating system I have now.
Mind you I have picked up a few utilities on the way to clean my registry.
I have an anti virus program, a different firewall and a pop up blocker, all of which should have been included in the OS in the first place.

I remember in the days of DOS when I didn't use Microsoft.
Windows had a competitor called Geoworks which was a very well written program. The reason one survived and the others didn't; marketing.

What kind of a marketing genius would name a program after a date, building in an illusion of the program becoming less useful as the date passes by?

An extremely rich one!

Once again, The Geek Shall Inherit the World

[PeteB]

What kind of a marketing genius would name a program after a date, building in an illusion of the program becoming less useful as the date passes by?

Windows 98 was a great version, very trim with little overhead. I clung to it until MS stopped supporting it a couple of years ago, then switched to XP Pro, which is now well debugged and trouble-free. Maybe I'll give Vista a play in a few years.

Old computing proverb: "The cutting edge will make you bleed."

Pete

[miamw]

Maybe I'll give Vista a play in a few years.

By then, MS will come out with ANOTHER new operating system! I waited until 2003 to get XP. I was addicted to Win 98 and was bucking "the system" mostly because it was so expensive to upgrade. Then, of course when I upgraded, there was that MS Blaster virus that attacked just around the same time which was attacking all the Win 2000 and XP systems. I couldn't win. What's next? Maybe at that point I'll get a Mac They used to say an apple a day keeps the doctor away. Does that apply to keeping the computer service technician away too?

[chrispuzzle]

I am still soldiering on with Windows 98. I had wanted to get a whole decade of use out of it but it looks as if I shall have to trade up this year some time.

Not at all convinced I ought to get Vista though. I am sure XP is good for a few more years. Vista sounds like it is designed to run on what is quite a high end PC at the moment in order to take advantage of all the allegedly cool stuff.

[Little flower]

I agree with all your sentiments but its already a case where to buy a new computer without having to buy Vista. The sad thing is we have always been ones who have steered away from buying the latest versions and if it wasn't for Trev needing to take the laptop with him so often and the old computer (on 98) continually crashing we'd still be living with the old technologies. But anyway, I'm looking on the bright side - believing with a glint of hoping that all new versions finally get sorted out. But yes, Microsoft sure have a way of commanding the market.