New Windows

I've had my new laptop for about a week now. It's pretty sweet. It's so new and shiny -- actually it's from 2009, I think -- and I feel about as excited about it as I did my original laptop, which was a graduation gift right before I went off to college. (Of course, this was 2001, so in retrospect it was a pretty crummy laptop, but it was good for the time, and it was mine!)

And what makes this computer feel even newer and more shiny is that it has Windows 7. I was a little wary about it, from the little I'd used it on my MIL's laptop, because it was so different. I'd never experienced Windows Vista, so I've been using XP for a good ten years now.

While I'm still getting used to the different menu setup for the Office 2007 programs (Excel is the one I use most often), Windows itself I like. I like the new taskbar. I like the new start menu. Everything is very streamlined and, as I get used to it, very intuitive and user friendly. And I'm sure Office is the same way, it's just taking longer to adjust because I use a lot more functions in these individual programs than I do in Windows, and I'm still trying to do things "the old way."

Of course, now Windows 8 is being released in October, so says Wikipedia, and I'll be behind again. But at this point I'm pretty much used to it.

One other fun thing is that my new laptop has a built in webcam. So . . . I may try my hand at vlogging in the near future. Unfortunately the internal microphone doesn't work, or at least I can't seem to figure it out. This is a second-hand laptop (it used to belong to my FIL, and he got it through his job I think), so I don't know for sure, but unless it was something custom, this model is definitely supposed to have one. I do have a microphone I can plug into the jack, so it's not a huge deal, just a little annoying. I'm used to laptops being fully self-sufficient.

Anyway . . . still playing around and learning, but I'm definitely happy with it.