Thursday, December 28, 2017

Two

Over the last few months I have been fighting a losing battle. My laptop's hard drive was filling up - getting to over 90% full, and that's not good. It was also running really slowly. Files would take a long time to upload or download and some things would just be painfully slow waiting for them to start.  I knew a new laptop was in my future, but I kept trying to put it off.


Finally I couldn't stand it, did a little research and pulled the plug. I ordered it from one of my business vendors about 4:10 PM on a Tuesday. It was delivered to my desk the following Thursday morning about 8:40 AM. It surprised the hell out of me - a 42 hour delivery was NOT what I expected.

I've worked a little with Windows 10 and I really hated it, so it took me about a week before I even took the new one out of the box. I powered it up and then waited about three hours while it updated god-knows what.  While I waited I tried cleaning out the files on the "old" machine that I didn't really need to copy to the new one, and upgraded Quicken on the old machine. Experience has taught me that you upgrade and update the data in your current system, then install the new version on the new machine, then migrate the data. So I got that going. I installed the Office Suite on the new machine. I let that update. Then I put the new laptop away for another week.

When I found myself writing notes for the new tutorials on the OLD machine, I knew I had to get myself together and JUST DO IT. Move everything to the NEW laptop.

So last night I got to work. First I installed Quicken and migrated the data. Then I installed Firefox and set up the sync to the new machine, but not before I cleaned out the vast collection of old saved bookmarks on the old one. No point in taking a lot of junk I don't care about.

I set up the ad blocking and anti tracking software (I use Disconnect) on the new laptop and got to configuring Windows 10 to NOT show me all kinds of stupid stuff I don't want.

Next up is copying the files from the old machine to the new one. In the old days of fast wired networks I'd simply let my backup software (Mozy) do it, but wireless networks are slower and it would have taken several days (I back up about 80 GB of stuff, and of that 69 GB is photos...) So I just got out the biggest USB drive I have and started copying photo folders over one at a time. It will take a while, but this way I'll have everything in both places. When that's done I'll install Mozy on the new machine, tell it to back everything up and I'll be good to go. After that I'll move my AntiVirus software over. The new laptop comes with McAffee free for a month, but I already paid for a two year subscription of the one I like (AVG), and I'm not going to waste it. I've got a month, I've got time.

Which is a very long and roundabout way of saying I didn't get into the studio last night, but that's not really the REAL reason. The real reason is that it was 10F when I got home last night, and the temperature is steadily dropping. My studio has windows on two sides, so it can get rather chilly in there when the weather cools down like that. So I had to find something to do in a warmer part of the house. Ergo, the transition to a new computer.

Yeah, I know.

3 comments:

Nancy J said...

Well done, and if anything fails, you always have the old one as a sort of backup. Transferring files and photos can take so long, and to be in a warmer room while you do the hard part is good thinking. 10F is -12C, and for us that is MIGHTY cold. Hope you have the heating turned up, and keep warm. We thought it was cool here with 4C this morning. ( 40F) BUT we are right into summer, so very unusual for us down here.

Quiltdivajulie said...

Staying warm is important. Temp here is 17 this morning with real feel of 8 - good luck with the migration and tranfer process!

Mary Ellen said...

I am having the same issues with my laptop. I realize I will need to buy a new one sooner rather than later, but I am dreading it. I use my tablet more than a laptop now, but sometimes you still need to use a "real" computer.