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Rebekah
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- virtual notebook

Mice

Shortly after I'd bought this laptop [DELL Studio 1555], I bought a cordless mouse ... Logitech. It's pink! All was fine but lately it slowly dawned on me that I'm getting more and more problems with it. For example, when I browse pictures, it's like it double-clicks by itself even though I only click once. I had not changed any settings or anything like that. When I started to think about it, I realized my trouble started after I upgraded to Windows 7. Went to various message board and read about people with the same problems as me, and finally I ended up on Logitech's own website. There was a patch to download, which I did. At first I thought everything had been resolved, but no ... same thing! It's not only the double-click issue -- it also get extremely difficult, not to say impossible to hightlight text. It's like it doesn't follow when I drag. Right now I'm back with an old mouse with a cord and that one works just like a mouse should do. Perhaps the pink mouse just doesn't agree with my computer ... I don't know.

I also like to play a stupid little game in Facebook before I  go to bed. That I couldn't do with the cordless mouse. It's a fast game and it just doesn't work when it doesn't follow or double-click all the time.

Tonight I installed a different extension for Twitter, just to see if it's any better or different. It looks fine so far, it's a cleaner interface and it has goo.gl as URL shortener. I like that. I'm still hoping for an extension where you get threads. It makes one helluva difference for one's Twitter experience to have it in the browser like that ... at least for me. Noticed today that I have 210 followers! I don't know who they are because I have nothing to say there. I'm a consumer of Twitter, nothing else. Same here in Posterous -- all these people! Do they really read this? I highly doubt that. If they do, all input is welcome :)

Filed under  //   chrome   mouse   twitter   windows  
Posted December 30, 2009
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Win7 update

It's finally sorted out -- I have the webcam back on my computer! Tried for the longest time to avoid calling Dell and tried the user forums instead. Downloaded some file that they recommended but when that didn't help, today I finally mustered up all my patience and called them. 

It actually worked unexpected smooth. The guy...whom I was able to understand ... did the thing, where they take over the computer. If I had used my brain a little bit more I could have figured this out myself. Grrr...  The CD with the installation files for the web cam DID come with the computer along with all the other discs. That was all! 

Filed under  //   windows  
Posted November 10, 2009
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Windows 7

So ... yesterday I received my Win7 disc from DELL. That was the deal, when I bought this computer, two months ago, that I would get Win7 as soon as it was released.

The instruction for the installation was pretty straightforward. It told me to stay connected during the installation. However, and that was the part that made me feel most uncertain during this process: It [the first part] removed/uninstalled my wireless network card! So there was no way of staying connected during the installation.

I think that made a big difference. In that end of the process, there was a point where I had a choice. The first choice was green and was the recommended way ... but I couldn't select that because I wasn't online. I have a feeling of that it made a clean install and put some stuff in a folder called Windows.old.

So far I've only been using it for one evening and now this morning. I lost the integrated webcam. Searched all the forums at DELL, and there were oodles of people asking the very same questions. I think they must do something about that, because it came with the computer -- it's brand new and it should work, since it's there! 

I've looked for drivers, I've tried to open it from the Windows.old folder but that tells me there are missing files. 

Last night when I went to bed, I closed the lid as usual. This morning the computer was shut off. That's new! It used to wake up when I opened the lid. Went into the power options and looked what closing the lid is supposed to do. It said SLEEP. To be honest, I don't know what the difference is between SLEEP and HIBERNATION, but either way it was completely shut off this morning.

Well, it's way too early to tell what this is like. It LOOKS nice alright.. and I had the opportunity to try Vista for two months. I'd heard so many negative things about it, but never experienced any trouble during my short period with it.  Okay, it was a little annoying with all those pop-up security boxes or whatever, but that was all.

I want my web cam back and I want to just wake it up in the morning ... that's all I can say at this point.

Filed under  //   windows  
Posted October 30, 2009
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What the **** ?

As I've mentioned before I have this new laptop, with Win Vista on it. All is going fine and I haven't had any trouble ... it's not that.

A while ago I decided to open the task manager and check out the CPU usage. To my surprise it was 56%!!! The only thing I had open was Google Chrome with two tabs open. 

This DELL computer came with something called Dell Dock installed -- a quite nifty bar on top of the screen ... looks a little like Mac. Noticed that that consumed a great deal of memory so I shut it down and also shut down the browser.

Waited a little while, when I didn't touch the mouse or anything...the CPU usage is STILL 24%... What IS this? Shouldn't it go down to almost zero when I'm not doing anything??

All input on this would be very much appreciated...

Filed under  //   windows  
Posted September 19, 2009
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Finally!!!



For more than four years we lived in a house in Quebec. It was quite desolate, and we had all kinds of backyard wildlife there -- animals that I'd never seen before when I arrived from Sweden, such as groundhogs and raccoons. It was winter when I first visited and I laid eyes on something blue in the snow outside our patio door. It was the most gorgeous creature I'd ever seen in my whole life...a blue jay!

I love all the furry and feathered friends, but amonst the birds, the blue jay holds a special place in my heart along with the ducks and the puffins :)

We bought a very basic point-and-shoot camera with no zoom but I never managed to catch him in a photo, even though he came around as soon as I put peanuts outside. Once he lit in the flower box on the sundeck and I shot one picture, but it was so blurry you could hardly see what it was.

Tried numerous times with the Canon camera, but they are so swift so most of the times, the only thing you saw was a blue shadow.

Today...AT LAST ... I got some decent blue jay shots! I was so happy!!! This was in Rockwood Park...someone had thrown out a bunch of peanuts on the ground so the blue jays and the squirrels were competeing. Lots of activity there!

I was so pleased...

When I came home I had some comments both here in Posterous and in Facebook about the special signs and the ALT-codes. I tried out what they said in the links but nothing worked.

However, finally I must have hit something really wrong, because the whole SCREEN turned vertical!!! This is the first time that has happened to me and I've been an avid computer user for almost fifteen years! The cursor's movements had changed accordingly too -- and I was absolutely clueless about what to do. I turned off the computer and turned it on again -- still vertical!

Went to Google and typed in «my screen is sideways» and got the answer right away: hit CTRL + ALT and the UP-arrow... It changed back in a snap! Phew!!! :o)

Went to DELL's support pages to find out about the ALT-codes. Turns out that on this particular model, there IS no embedded keyboard so if I want to use the degree sign, for example, I have to go to the character map and copy it. Blehh..

                 

Filed under  //   blue jay   dell   windows  
Posted September 16, 2009
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Special signs



I used to write on my desktop computer. Now I have a laptop ...which means NO NUMERIC KEYPAD.

Now I can no longer access the special signs... I used to do ALT+0176 for the degree-sign, for example. I used this all the time -- I knew them by heart! It was so handy!

I'm sure there must be an easy way to access them on this keyboard too, but I don't know HOW.

All input here would be very much appreciated!

Filed under  //   windows  
Posted September 16, 2009
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