I started out buying a Lenovo laptop but had a lot of trouble with
their having assigned foreign characters to the number keys above the
qwerty row of keys. I had the right language selected, but you
couldn't type an at sign or other things from there for anything.
They also had a Lenovo window that interfered with everything, and
their really dumb tech support couldn't tell me anything about it.
It's their product, but they never heard of this window, and had no
help to offer except to exchange it for another laptop.
I did exchange it but for an HP. While this was quite a lot better,
they still like to change the typical key assignments. For instance,
the F2 did not give you the rename function. It still had enough
things that were a pain not to keep this one either. I just don't see
the point in having to so-called "repair" a brand new computer.
That one went back too, and I called to order a laptop. I thought it
would cost more, but it ended up being $65 less than the HP. This one
does what it's supposed to do. They do have some windows for their
own backup and selectable graphics that can be a pain, but these
things can be set, although by sighted help, or even deleted.
My Just Checking program was complaining and, after a short time,
stopped letting me add and save new entries. I tried upgrading to the
latest Just Checking version, but it wouldn't talk, even with
reclassing the main window. I went back to version 2.27 and
re-installed it so that it was in the root folder of the C drive as
recommended by the program author. I'm told that Windows 7 doesn't
particularly like saving program data, like the checkbook files, in
the programs folders. Some programs are fine this way so far, though;
so maybe it depends on the program. This solved my Just Checking
problem, and it's working fine now.
I've had trouble with Eudora in Windows 7. The read and unread
graphics will not speak unless you close WE after opening Eudora and
re-opening WE. Then they read fine. However, I'm having trouble
getting the program to get and send mail, particularly the sending of
mail. It just sits there trying and then times out, over and over,
until I've done it enough times to finally get the mail to go.
I've switched to Thunder bird 16, which is the latest, but am still
having trouble with this too. The mail comes and goes easily; so
that's the big improvement. However, I keep getting a browse window
when reading and writing emails even with the use plain text for
everything checked. This has made it so that I cannot write email in
Thunderbird. If I do control-shift-a to turn off browse mode and
start to write, it simply turns back on after accepting maybe one
character of typing and gives me the error depending on the characters
typed, such as no anchor. I'm writing this in Notepad and then can
cut and paste it into the write window just fine. A nuisance, but
that's the best I can do so far.
So, in summary, check out what the computer does when typing and that
you really get the characters or functions that they ought to perform.
Some of your old programs might not work, so be sure you have some
alternatives that will be acceptable, or just keep the old computer to
do certain things if need be. My easy CD Creator didn't want to
install, so I'm still burning CD's on the old laptop. I know that
Windows 7 has a CD burning function, but I have yet to find it or
learn to use it.
If you can afford to, buy yourself a Windows 7 tutorial. It can be
immensely helpful in getting you to understand the difference in the
layout of Start Menu and so on. I have found it much easier than
Start Menu shortcuts, like I used to use, just to fill my desktop with
the programs I use most and assign hot keys to start them. Not only
is it easier and quicker to start them, but I like that the hot key
and shortcut will run each one maximized. I've assigned the entire
alphabet and numerals from 1 thru 9 and 0. Yes, I have a lot of
stuff, but I don't care if it's full looking. It works. I just sort
the desktop by name to make them easy to find even if not using a hot
key.
Hope this is helpful info for you. If anyone has any tips that might
help me with the things stated above that I am still having trouble
with, please send them along.
TTFN,
Marilyn
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