SETTING UP

Last night, after 8:00, I started to install my computer on to the high speed router/modem. Hooking up all the wires to it was easy enough because AT&T's instructions were very large and the diagrams were nice and big so as not to confuse you as to what wires go where. However, when I got to a certain point, right in the middle of set up, Norton security pops up and asks if I want to install the security program. I started doing that when things went a little off kilter, so I had to make that call to the AT&T technician. Easily enough, he got me on track and I was hooked up before he even got on the line because they have a recording and invisible checking device as to see where you are having problems. You do what the robot voice says, and if you're still not hooked up, then you get to talk to a real person. The recording must have fixed the problem. Boy, talk about technology. But talking to a real person was a good thing, because he told me not to go on to the next step in the instruction sheet when I thought I had to.

I played around with Red until about 3:30 AM and then went to bed. A good thing I took a nap earlier because I knew I would be on line until the wee hours of the morning, since AT&T said not to try to hook up until after 8:00 PM.

I did everything I could to find out about every setting I could. Interestingly enough, this Windows 7 doesn't seem to have as many settings or things in the same place as my Vista program. After I got familiar with Red, I tried hooking up my old computer. Funny, I've never named him. After a short time fooling around with trying to hook him up, I did it. It runs fast. At the end there, I thought for sure it was just going to stop completely, it was running sooooo slow. Now I can try to update it with the programs it said it failed to update. I don't know it will work, but at least I know it will be possible to do easy enough and fast enough if it does.

Windows 7 is nice because it has large shortcut keys with pictures on them as to what the keys are. Vista just had a standard face on them. You could change the face, but the choices were limited.

What is also interesting is that this computer's battery has to be initialized in a certain, or should I say, the best way. That is, that you should run the computer on the battery until it is completely out of power then plug it in until it is full and then again run the computer on the battery again until the battery is depleated again. You have to do this three times in a row, which I am now in the process of doing, with only one more time of filling and depleating the battery.

It is so nice to have a computer now that goes from Web site to Web site, really fast and once there, performs your every wish quickly with no pop ups, hesitations or complaints. I know it's about all of those updates not being done, but I still don't understand why they didn't update, even with a faster speed at the library. Now I'll be able to spend more time trying to figure out why and hopefully get my old computer back to normalsy, or at least close to it.

Another great thing about Red. When it is run on battery, the screen is as bright and clear as when it is on AC. My old computer's battery always made the screen look dimmer and that's why I hardly used it on battery. Although the battery life on Red is only about four hours, I find that good enough before I'd have to find an AC outlet.

So, I'm pretty happy with my new toy, or should I say, my necessary part of making life a lot easier to operate in.

The screen size operated by the multi-gestural key pad is also really a nice feature because I can make a page larger and yet keep everything on the page in plain site. For example, the editor I'm typing in right now is almost the size of the whole page. In my old computer, there was no way of changing the size of the page, so I was typing on a small sized editor section and smaller type was what I had to see. How easy they're making everything on computers now a days. It makes my heart sing to use this new instrument.

I've checked to see how I can transfer my old data from my old computer to my new one. They said that if you transfer all of the files, some may have viruses in them and you can transfer them over to your new computer. So how do you know which ones have viruses? My security system on my old computer says there are none, but who knows? I'm hesitant on making a full transfer, or any transfer, for that matter. Unless I know more, I'm putting everything in this computer fresh and hopefully Norton will keep me as safe as it can for the next 60 days. From then on I'll be loading up another freebee security program which seems to work great.

The sites that I would automatically go to with a shortcut on my old computer is a pain now, for I have to input passwords. A few of the sites won't accept my password, so I have to see about that by calling them.

All and all, things are going really well. And oh, to be able to receive and make calls while on line...priceless.