A Week Without Facebook

I just returned home from a week in upstate New York visiting my brother and his family.   It was good to get away and good to see them again, since I hadn't been there for five years.  They kept telling me that the week I was there was the best they've had all year.  And then they accused me of taking it back with me, because it was reported they would have rain for about 4 days when I left.  They kept telling me how warm it was, and since I'm from Florida, I felt silly having long sleeves on.  They were in shorts and I was in jeans, but I was perfectly comfortable.

My brother has a computer and I checked my email a couple times a day and a few other things while I was there.  I decided I should stay away from Facebook and other sites where I waste too much time.  I didn't even play one game of Spider Solitaire, and I'm really addicted to that!  Instead, we spent quite a bit of time in the evening in front of the TV.  I still don't have a TV, I watch a few shows on my computer and that's the extent of my TV knowledge.  Amazing how many channels there are, how much stuff that I've never heard of.  And I probably don't want to ever see most of it again.

I really didn't have withdrawal symptoms from the lack of Facebook.  I'm sure I missed some fun pictures and funny little signs.  When I got back, I didn't have the impulse to scroll down for hours looking for things I had missed.  I was fine.   Of course, now that I'm back, I do spend time looking at postings from everyone and making a comment or hitting like.

If you know anyone who thinks they can't live without Facebook, Twitter, or other sites, let them know it really is possible to survive without it.  It's an interesting site and I enjoy it but it's not the end of the world if I don't keep up with what everyone is doing.  Try it, see how long you can last.

Betty Karl
http://amzn.com/B009RCO02G

Windows 8

Just wanted to tell you all, be nice to your computer.  My 5 year old computer died a few weeks ago and I had to go out and get a new one.  The new one just happens to have Windows 8!  I am not happy with Windows 8!  I had Vista on my old one and Windows 7 on my computer at work, no problem.

Windows 8 wants to look like an IPhone or an IPad.  It has little squares app buttons on it, all preloaded, most of which I dumped.  Thank goodness, it also has a desktop app that you can work with.  There isn't a Start button in the normal place.  Instead, on the right side of the screen, right where you go to use scrolling for sites, it has a small window that appears usually when you don't want it to.  The Start button is in there, as well as settings (which is where you shut down) and a few other things.  It's where you can find your Control Panel and a few other things.  It's annoying because when I don't want it, it pops up  - then when I want it, it's bashful and takes prodding to come out. 

There are other things like a wrong swipe of my finger on the mousepad will make my screen go to the previous page.  Sometimes, a wrong sweep of the mouse will take me elsewhere.  My computer didn't come with a touch screen, which is fine with me.  Apparently, a lot of them do, which would make it more like an iPad.

The new computers don't come with Word or Excel - Microsoft wants you to pay extra for these programs that have been free for ages.  Some people can get away without these, but Word is important to me.  I have tons of files that use Word and the Word Viewer that I can download free does not do the trick. 

They even made my Spider Solitaire hard to work with.  When you're on that program, you don't have the time showing like you did in previous editions of Windows.  You need that to remind yourself how much time you're wasting!   You can't make the screen smaller so you can go play a game when you want to get away from whatever you've been working on and then easily go back to it.  They have a lot of graphics if you win a game - very annoying, unnecessary stuff you could turn off on the old systems.  I can't figure out how, or if, these can be turned off.  Yes, these are silly gripes, we all have our nitpicky opinions.

My IT guy at work told me of a program I can download that will make it look/work like Windows 7.  I want to be brave and just download it and think all this annoying new stuff will be gone.  However, I know that I've downloaded stuff before and have been VERY annoyed at the results, and  then spent a lot of time getting rid of what I spent a lot of time to get!  I will plan a day when nothing else is likely to happen. 

I guess the bottom line is that I had my old computer working the way I wanted, it didn't pop up with stuff I didn't want and couldn't figure out how to get rid of.  I was comfortable with it and now Microsoft wants to take me out of my comfy cocoon and make me learn to deal with their idea of great programs.  I was happy in my little rut. 

Like I said, be nice to your computer.  It may get even with you in the future.