Month: July 2018

Just lazy … that’s all … or maybe not …

/ Tony / 1 Comment

I started to write this post on Friday, but put it off. I didn’t have a title then and was trying to think of reasons excuses why I haven’t posted since 5th July. And they were just excuses … ‘didn’t have time’ … ‘nothing to say’ … ‘too late/early/drunk/tired etc ‘ … you get the picture?  The only one that really seems to crop up the most is (not ‘too drunk’ although …) ‘nothing to say.’ I often sit down at one of my laptops, or the iPad with good intentions, and then nothing. So I’m going to try a bit harder over the coming months/weeks, after all now I have a paid blog, I need to get my money’s worth Be right back

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Now it may sound a little extravagant to have two laptops and an iPad, but there is a reason. Since I got my first PC back in 1995, I have had a money management application (or program as it was called back then) called Microsoft Money. It was discontinued some years ago, although Microsoft did bring out some cut-down versions, but I understand even these are now extinct. It has always worked fine with the upgrades up until Windows 8.1 came out and users were advised that ‘some’ software would not work properly in future editions of Windows. I don’t use it as part of my online banking as it never really worked with my bank, it just keeps a record of my future, past and present incomes and expenses. A a pinch I could use a spreadsheet, but I think that over the years, it would get a little unwieldy.

A couple of years ago, I decided that my laptop was running very slow and convinced K*** that I needed a new one which I got. I thought it would be a good idea to keep the older one, just in case R***’s home laptop gave in. So the old one was consigned to a wardrobe shelf to gather dust. Then, along came Windows 10 and everyone was urged to upgrade with the free upgrade. This latest version was said to be the worst for compatibility of older software, so I held off upgrading for a long time. I then had a thought Thinking smile . What I should do is keep the old laptop on Windows 7 (which I knew would run the Money program) and upgrade my new(ish) laptop to the latest version of Windows 10. That way, if Money didn’t work I could always use the old laptop. Thankfully it did work and I now have Windows 10 on both machines. I’m still very wary when updates come out and I will not update the old laptop until I know Money works on the latest Windows version.

It’s been a while …

/ Tony / 1 Comment

Well 10 days anyway. Nothing much to say really. My fourth, annual ‘op anniversary’ passed without any fuss. In fact it was spent working in the garden. What else … oh yes we updated our satellite television\telephone\broadbanddish subscription. I have to admit, I was a little worried about this, given that when he’s at home, R*** spend most of his time on YouTube and Nick Jr. Any issue with either the broadband or TV could would have caused real problems. However, everything went very smoothly. K*** is getting to grips with the new handset and the onscreen TV guide, but we will both get there, and R*** should not have any problems with it.

Now I say, “everything went very smoothly”, it did up until this morning. K*** wanted to print out her car insurance document printerand tried to do it from her iPad. Nothing happened! Our main printer, downstairs is a wireless network printer so printing from tablets, phones and the like is easy. I checked everything I could think off with no success, but the printer was showing as being connected in the network settings app . I checked the printer website and one of its forums and found that I needed to tell the printer that we had a new router as the IP address had changed. So after about twenty minutes of scrambling about at theSmug Mug back of the printer and another ten minutes rooting through drawers to find cables, I eventually got it working again. You know what, I felt such a “smug bas***d” when five copies of the said insurance document flew out of the printer!