New little toy
by GinafishI got a new little toy last week. My Mac laptop had been slowing down to a snail’s pace and I found myself stalking my husband, waiting for him to finish with his faster laptop in the evenings to do things online. Anything that involved graphics especially. So while I love my Mac and it’s ease of use, it had started to outlive it’s usefulness.
My husband kept suggesting that I start to look into pc’s because surely one day I’d want a new computer. Well, it took me a long time, but I’m happy to say, I’m typing away on my itty bitty new Acer Aspire One with a tiny 8.9″ screen. It’s one of the new netbooks or whatever they are called.
Things I like about it:
- It’s light! 2.2 lbs! I barely notice when I have to move it somewhere.
- The keyboard actually fits my hands. I don’t have to stretch to reach any numbers or think about where keys are any more than I did on a full size pc.
- The screen is very bright and the colors are good.
- There are 3 usb ports so I can plug in whatever I need to.
Things I miss about my Mac:
- The ease of screen shots. Ctrl, alt., 4: then drag the plus sign around whatever you want to take a picture of. *sigh* I’ve downloaded Faststone’s capture, but it’s a 30 day trial with a price tag of $20 after that.
- A cd/dvd drive. Nope, the tiny computer doesn’t have one of those, but it could be easily remedied with an external one.
Things I’m trying to get use related to pc’s and the mini-me size:
- The sound quality. It’s tiny just like the laptop. I am pulling out the speakers and ear phones more. I’ll probably have to look for some comfortable ear phones soon so they are more portable. Right now I’m using the big honking kind that covers all around your ear like helicopter pilots use.
- Open Office: I’ve opted not to use Microsoft products anymore since they have issues when on a pc. And freeware is my friend. I used the ‘excel’ type program the other day and it went well, so I think this will be resolved shortly
- I’m still trying to find a way to check all my email in a way that suits me. I did use Microsoft Entourage for years, and I tried to use Mozilla’s email product but found it really awkward. I have a google acct, hotmail, and an independent acct that are all active and need to be checked daily, so I’d like something that tied all of those three together. Good luck to me, eh?
- I’m also trying to figure out FastStone ImageViewer. My husband says it does everything Adobe Photoshop does, but I’ve used Photoshop for over 10 years, and old habits die hard. I might have to break down and buy it one day.
So that’s my news for today! Today I have the joy of spending hours transporting my photos from my mac (another program I’ll miss iPhoto) to my pc. It almost makes me want to weed out the good vs icky photos, but then…I’d be on the computer for days!!
What sort of features attract you to new computer toys??
I’m going with a netbook next time. I’ve learned that I don’t ever do anything fancy with the laptops so why spend 5 times as much as necessary.
For checking email, I totally recommend using gmail all the way. They have an offline version now if you don’t want to lose that part. And you can go into the “Accounts” tab and set up your other addresses to pop into your gmail. With some filters and coloured labels it’s very slick. I haven’t used Outlook or any other email program for over 4 years and I don’t miss it a bit.
I really like the price of netbooks too! I will say that I tried to hook it up to a bigger screen to see how it went and although it was bigger, it didn’t show more, it was just magnified if that makes sense. Now I’m off to look for webcam software…fun fun!