Laptop NDE
My obsession finally led me into near ruin two days ago.
I have been playing with Paint Shop Pro, as some of you know, and since I didn’t want to fork out any money for something I wasn’t sure I really wanted, I’ve been running trial software. Ordinarily, this is not a problem, or at least I’ve never experienced any problems – as I never run trial software from sources I haven’t researched and JASC/Corel are known software agents.
The problem was – I got greedy. I downloaded PSP 7, and it was okay. However, after getting up to speed on PSP 7, I started thinking about the newer versions. Now that I understood what some of the features were that I’d read about, but hadn’t understood when I initially chose PSP 7, I thought I’d try PSP 8. Not a problem. It took up about the same footprint and I really liked the user interface. But was I satisfied? Of course not!
I started looking into what it was going to cost to actually purchase the software, and for some reason, the old versions (which were actually created by JASC, who was bought out by Corel) were a hell of a lot more expensive than PSP X2, which was Corel’s latest version. I could get PSP X2 for half what PSP 7 or PSP 8 would cost. Well, PSP X2 (i.e., PSP 12) must be better than 7 or 8, right? No, and here is where we run into the adage of “newer isn’t always better.”
I downloaded the trial for PSP X2 and discovered that it practically ate up what memory I had left on my laptop. Not good. The program was bloated with stuff I didn’t want and wouldn’t ever use and ran slower than a 600 pound pig that had just eaten 60 pounds of bacon for breakfast. I hated it immediately and resolved the next morning to uninstall it. Which should have been a piece of cake, since it installed with its own uninstall program, and which seemed to uninstall just fine. Except it didn’t. When it uninstalled, it took some seriously needed .msi files needed to run just about every other program on my computer with it!
Needless to say, Kat was a very unhappy kitten.
Not only did I have to restore Windows back to two weeks ago, I still had to reinstall things like my Earthlink software so I could get back on the Internet and read my mail, reinstall my antivirus software, reinstall everything I’d installed since two weeks ago, and still suffer through the blue screen of death. But I’m feeling much better now, although Windows SP3 still won’t download (but heck, its been refusing to download since April of last year even though I’ve run through all of Microsoft’s secret “What to do if SP3 won’t download tips and hints,” which includes renaming the Download document in case it got corrupted – even re-ran the tips and tricks last night, hoping SP3 would install and save me from the blue screen of death – no dice, I was toast and had to suffer all 5 Steps of the Resurrection – during which I had a nice, hot soak in the tub with some of my lovely bath salts – nothing like a good soak during a resurrection).
After hunting down each and every little piece of Corel on my laptop and executing it with a double wipe (deleting was good enough for me – I was not in a very good mood by that time), I happily downloaded PSP 8 and here is my latest wallpaper accomplishment (I created the little butterflies from fonts and I “extracted” the humming & mouse and the faerie kitten from .jpg files; the other art pieces were created by Nancy Schmidt):
I also had time today for a stroll through the garden (using my new Canon camera – which I love!) and some new digital art using my old Ulead graphics program (after all the trouble of getting PSP 8, I still don’t know how to make it do this; pathetic!):
The Amaryllis Have Bloomed!
Such a Cheerful Sight
The Jasmine is in Full Flower
The Gardenias Have Finally Consented to Appear
Photo taken while Flower was Bobbing in the Wind
The Elephant Ears are Growing -- But Very Slowly
The garden smells so wonderful, I think I’ll sleep with the windows open tonight.
Hmmm….missed these two posts somehow…were you busybusy posting everything between last time I checked & when you posted your language lesson..? See how you are..? Sneaky, sneaky! Very nice pictures. Taking photos is another thing I like to do, but along with my hands not writing or working well, they also tend to shake. Not to the point that I can’t carry a cup of coffee – Goddess forbid THAT should ever happen! But enough that it messes with pictures when I try to do close up pretties like you’ve done
That’s ok, I can still enjoy yours
bb
dawtch
My hands shake now, too — getting old will do that to you, I hear. My new
camera has some kind of stabilizing gizmo doodad in it. We are getting on
very well; my old camera and I had a hate-hate relationship from the very
beginning and never did agree to get along. It snarled and cursed every
time I took it out of it’s case — very off putting, to say the least. I
had higher expectations of a camera from OLYMPUS, donchaknow. But Canon
has far OUTSHOT the camera from on HIGH. he he he!
I obviously need to start going to bed at a decent hour and apparently 1:00
a.m. ain’t decent!
I currently have two nice digital cameras – one is a Nikon 7 megapixel I bought that takes great pics in almost every situation. It has that stabilizer gizmo on it, too, and I have gotten some beauties on it. It automatically fixes the light in the pic, and doesn’t require the flash unless you are in almost TOTAL darkness. The other is a Kodak EasyShare 8 megapixel that I won from Starz! at work. It also takes beautiful pics, and is the one I use most – simple because it’s usually the handiest. Unfortunately, the shaking of the hands tend to increase anytime I try to hold a camera still – go figger. Luckily, both of them have an auto-shoot feature, so if I hold the button down & take 10 shots, I usually end up with one or two that are usable.
I can relate to the hate hate relationship, but for me it is with my serger. We have reached a mutually satisfying agreement, tho…I won’t expect it to sew & it won’t destroy any more of my sewing projects…
bb
dawtch
Your garden is astonishing! Just beautiful!
Thanks, but it is really in bad shape. Between draught conditions and a
hard freeze this winter, added to two years of neglect while I was ill,
it’s not any where near what it should look like by this time of year –
which is starting to depress me.