Old Dogs and New Tricks

I am probably the last--no, I know there are others--but I am a holdout and dragging  my heels as hard as I can. I *love* XP and have held on to it to the bitter end here and am still going to run my trusty old tower system with it for as long as I can but I do see the handwriting on the wall so there will not be much more on-line work done from it. My dear brother has come up with a nice Compaq laptop running Win7 which should still be good for a time yet and I've got it up and running. I struggle with laptop keyboards and touchpad-in-lieu of mouse but I'll cope. I even have loaded Word 2010 on it--again, a major change I just hate--and am going to make myself learn it. And it is way different from my familiar Word 2003. DTBL!!

I  just don't see why they have to keep reinventing wheels here but that's the way it goes. You cannot make big bucks selling and keeping up old stuff. The crowd that used to have to get the newest super-power zero to ninety nine in 20 second muscle cars are that way about computers now and then everyone is going over to tablets and smart-phones with touch screens and apps and all that stuff. What is going to happen to working office computers and the things writers use and all that??? They say the PC is all but dead and I am growling like a mad dog. Who is going to write a novel on an iPad for pete's sake?? It damn well won't be me!!

So bear with me. I've got to export a lot of things from one system to the other That means downloading to a flash drive or CD and then uploading to the other. They are not networked and so direct transfer isn't possible and without some super high tech gear XP and Win7 do not play nice together even if they were networked. So tedious cut/copy, paste, move and all that. Still growing... And then adapt my fingers to a very compact keyboard--never was a great typist anyway, learn that I want backspace and not delete when I hit the wrong letters--and where to find things and what they are called now. Frustration is my current middle name

WHO shrank the doggie door?

And my dang tongue is not quite long enough!

Yep, I'm one sad pooch here!!

. I think I will make a run down to Staples and grab a handful of flash drive USB sticks and I'll write on the old system and then move the file to the new to send to my publisher etc. I'll keep my fave photos on another and put some of them into the laptop so my slide show will run. I use it on power and not battery 99% of the time so no issues there. And if I do make that trip to Alaska this summer, I may even go nutso enough to grab a tablet and use it for my notes and rough drafts and such on that trek.

So cut the old gal some slack. I'll learn and I'll adapt but I have to bitch and whine and grouse a bit in the meantime! I may not post quite as often for a bit here but will endeavor not to vanish! Oh, I had my semi-annual freeze-dry treatment on Thursday--that's when the dermatologist takes the liquid nitrogen to the blotches and patches and yucky spots on the aging over-sunned skin. Now they are either blisters or itch like a fiend. This too will pass. They had it right--getting older is not for the faint of heart!!

For now Happy Easter to those who commemorate or Blessed Oester or hail to spring as it bursts into blooms, greenery and April showers. Yes, we are getting some of them today. So far, NMA in the rain gauge but have hopes for at least a tenth or so. It's a nice novelty to have the air small damp and to see some of that wet stuff in the heavy clouds and coming down on the hills above us if not right here.