Windows 8

I teach a "Windows Essentials" class at Yavapai College.  All of the computers at that college use Windows 7, so this class is about it.  But, as you many know, any new PCs purchased by individuals will have Windows 8 installed, so I  decided to incorporate some of the new operating system fundamentals into next fall's class.  Being a techie, this also allowed me to justify purchasing another computer to add to my "collection" of a Windows 7 laptop, an iPod Touch, and a Lenovo A1 tablet!

The computer I bought is an ASUS S200E Vivobook laptop that cost me about $400 and has a touch screen.  I consider it sort of an ultranetbook because it is very thin and small, with an 11.5-inch-diagonal screen.  Here's a picture:


I chose this over a tablet because of the keyboard (I do a lot of typing, and a virtual keyboard is awkward), three USB ports, HDML, 4GB RAM, 500 GB hard disk, web camera, etc.  You can see specifications at http://www.asus.com/us/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/ASUS_VivoBook_S200E/#specifications .  It is also about the size of a large tablet and weighs only 3 pounds.

Even though Windows 8 has some issues right now, I'm confident many of them will be worked out with an upcoming revision (Windows Blue?).  Many of the programs specifically written for Windows 8 are still not fully implemented, but behind the "Metro" interface (the Desktop) is really Windows 7.  All of the programs I used with Windows 7 work just fine.

I especially like the touch screen and some of the applications built for Windows 8 like Kindle and Google Chrome browser.  I normally prefer Mozilla Firefox but their "Nightly" development effort is still full of problems in the Metro interface.  In future blogs I'll discuss some of the things I've learned so far and some of the applications I've added.

Isn't technology fun?

Why Am I Blogging?

This is my first real blog.  I set up a previous blog to highlight some things that are happening in a church committee, but most of the postings are from others in the group.

My wife and I are going to take our first train trip in mid-May, and I thought it would be interesting to create posts on what happens on that trip.  We're traveling from Flagstaff, AZ, to Cincinnati, OH, and have decided to try the train rather than drive the 1850 miles or have to deal with the absurdities of air travel.  As I thought about blogging this adventure, I realized that there might be a lot of other things to share.  After all, I'm over 70 years old and have become aware of a lot of things!  I'm also a techie who has taught at a university for 20 years and continues to offer a couple of introductory computer courses as an adjunct, so some posts will be directed at computers, the Internet, etc.  I also like to sing, love good music and enjoy reading.

I bought a Kindle e-book reader a while ago and have read more books in the past few years than I probably did in many years before.  I'm cheap, so I am always looking for free or very inexpensive books.  Maybe I'll "talk" about some of the books and where I've found free ones.

So, this blog will be pretty eclectic.  I'm looking forward to sharing some of my thoughts with you and hope you enjoy at least some of them!