Showing posts with label Windows 8. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Windows 8. Show all posts

Monday 27 May 2019

A Laptop Stole My Day


I bought my dad a laptop for his 80th birthday. He virtually never used it, so I bought him a tablet and he gave me the laptop back. He likes the tablet, it's easy to use though he's still getting to grips with the concept of wifi, but he likes using ing to watch youtube videos and research things via Google. So far so good.

I was going to sell the laptop but the battery was dead, which means I can't really sell it. A new battery will cost £20 - £40 and I could maybe get £50-£60 for the laptop. Then I thought I only use laptops plugged in , so I could make use of it, then I thought get my guitar interface and keyboard and this could be the studio. It's a 64 bit operating system, and was thinking it looked slightly strange. Ut was because it's Windows 8.1 . So I thought simple, just upgrade the Windows 10 then it's the same as my desktop and other laptop. No problem.

That was about twelve hours ago and I am still trying to upgrade to Windows 10 and it keeps getting into a loop searching for updates. There is nothing worse than something looping when you cannot break the loop. This is similar to the incident in March with an unexpectedly lengthy update that I documented here.

I am still attempting to do this upgrade, and each try takes a long time. I have nearly written a few songs while this has been going on, but as the laptop is going to be my recorder they have flown off into the ether. I was playing along with songs on the radio including "Isis" by Bob Dylan, then sat and played the guitar solo from Thin Lizzy's "Emerald" and still I came nowhere near having a recorder.

So we have just passed midnight and slipped into the Bank Holiday Monday and the upgrade is going along with no sense of urgency whatsoever and I am hoping for success but feel that I will hit another brick wall. It is now of the "Checking For Updates" sequence and this is where it keeps failing although I have taken precautions to try and circumvent this situation. Things should just work. I always say that if Washing Machines and Cookers were like computers we would never cook or wash anything.

And it looks like it has stuck once more.

So what do I leave you with, well Thin Lizzy's "Emerald", the penultimate song from the album "Jailbreak", is one of their finest moments so we will go with that.



Wednesday 28 October 2015

Another Day Another Software Update - #30 - 1986 - Hollywood Beyond - What's The Color Of Money


Another day and software update on the iPad. I mean these are getting weekly and I spend more time updating the damned thing than actually using the damned thing. And it still asks you for passwords after it has updated , though Windows isn't much better. I've been waiting for Windows 10 on the tower for three months , yet Windows 8 is still updating , while my laptop went Windows 10 a month back. I'm sure it will come at some point.



Money Go Round
The musical Odyssey reaches year 30 and I've chosen Hollywood Beyond's The Color of Money , I could have chosen The Damned's Eloise but this edged it.just because it's original and a one hit wonder.

So have a brilliant day , apart from Lee , you have a great night .

Monday 28 October 2013

Be Happy and Enjoy Yourself



Today I found that there was an update to Windows 8 from Microsoft , so I applied it. It was asking to share lots of stuff , and while I like sharing lots of things with my friends, I a bit more reticent about sharing with faceless corporations. I still get slightly annoyed that my Google searches on my PC appear on my phone as well.

XTC Go 2
But this doesn't stop me enjoying myself, and taking delight in the good things that others show me, like new music from around the world , such as a good friend showing me a brilliant XTC album cover, for their second album the excellent Go 2.

Their back catalog is amazing and if you don't know the band you should really check them out.


Pete Burns


 

I bought the album from Probe Records in Liverpool served , probably by Pete Burns of Dead or Alive, a striking individual even then. He never insulted me , so he must have thought my purchases were at least acceptable.

Anyway, the thing is lots of great music can make you happy , and it makes me happy, and there's one song that I'm thinking of and it was one of my mums favourites. Everybody put a smile on your face, have a great night and a great day tomorrow.

Friday 7 June 2013

Windows 8 Maps and Scottish Pirate Metal

I'm still getting to grips with Windows 8 so this may be an unfair rant. One of the problems in building intuitive interfaces is that the user has to guess what the designer wants the user to do and the designer has to pre empt what the average user will do.

So I was presented with a map roughly centered on Newcastle , with a Bing logo in the bottom left hand corner (and we all know how rubbish Bing searches are) , so that doesnt bode well for the package. Eventually I discovered that a right click on the bottom of the screen brings up a menu with a directions button whicjh I selected , put it my start and destination post codes and it drew a blue line on the map....

...and that was it , no printed directions , no opportunity to put in detours. So went back to Google Maps and got what  I needed.

Anyway it's sunny, and I will we driving down despite having a cough , cold , maybe hayfever and feeling quite rubbish. This day in 1692 an earthquake destroyed Port Royal in Jamaica , a notorious pirate haven . Article here. This gives me the inspiration for todays June's Tunes , the Scottish Pirate Metal (how niche can you get)  band Alestorm