Well, my old Acer laptop finally gave up the ghost the other day. It had been growling at me for some time, and finally just went dark and wouldn't restart, although the hard drive was spinning up. I figured out that the growling was the fan, not the drive (fortunate, because I was able to take it out and put it in a caddy and retrieve all my data from it), but the impaired fan probably caused the graphics card to overheat, and that's what finally went.
Still, it lasted a really long time, especially given all the lugging around I did with it, which banged and beat it up mercilessly. So to replace it I went for a new Acer laptop, with a faster 4th-gen Intel i7 chipset and a full HD screen. Both make a *tremendous* difference. The one thing I was worried about was having to use Windows 8.1. I'm so NOT a fan of its "tile" look and feel. But it turned out that the folks I bought it from gave me a tip that is my reason for posting this. If any of you needs a new Windoze laptop but are resisting getting one because you're used to Windows 7 and don't want to "upgrade" (which is really a "downgrade" in terms of user interface and usability IMO), here's the solution. Just go to this site and download a simple, free utility, and voila! -- all your Windows Start menu capabilities are back. http://www.classicshell.net <http://www.classicshell.net>
