Hello from our new laptop

How exciting: for our trip we’ve bought a new laptop :-D

Why? We want to be able to:

• keep in touch with people back home
• go online wherever we happen to be to research the next stage
• watch movies or shows we’ve bought specially to view on the trip (could you recommend some good “travel” movies?)
• play a game or two in down-time
• transfer, sort and store our photos as we go.

Please give your tips/advice for travelling with a laptop.

So, Cricket researched options and required specifications and finally recommended the:

Toshiba Satellite A500/031

Sure go ahead, if you’ve had trouble with one, do send warnings.

But so far (4 hours in to familiarisation, only Firefox installed) I’m enjoying it – except that the desktop icons are a lot larger than I would like and there are no options to make them smaller (resolution is as high as it will go; and Control Panel options to change desktop icon & text size is only available to go larger).

Just like when I found delightful features of Windows 7, I have been delighted to discover Toshiba Bulletin Board.  The boys and I will be sharing the laptop and I don’t think we need to have different user settings because we use the same programs, and anything we want to keep private we can save to our memory sticks – BUT I like to use stickies and to do lists – but the boys don’t need to see my notes to myself on the desktop.  With Toshiba Bulletin Board we can make our own boards – to pin up our own lists, photos, notes etc.

Naturally one of the first things I did when I finally started familiarisation procedures (ie mucking about in there) was to begin a todo list, and documenting what I’ve done and learned so far :P

1. Removed battery
2. Connected to secure home network
3. Windows 7 offered to set up a homegroup and this time I went with that and received a password
4. I can access some stuff on other home computers - but it looks limited to docs, pics, vids, music; couldn't see how to access program files - would be convenient not to have to redownload stuff.
5. Created personal Bulletin Board - boys can have their own
6. Listed things to install in Board’s ToDo List
7. Installed Firefox
8. Learned a tiny bit about homegroups – but still confused about Windows 7 file management.
9. Tried to find a way to shrink the icons on desktop – couldn't
10. Changed basic computer's Windows7 user name from New User, although that is still showing as its name from my PC.
11. Wondered what option we will use for office software on this machine.
12. Removed Wild Tangent
13. Looked for that Windows 7 writing tool I liked so much for blogging, ah yes Windows Live Writer, so it is in the Windows Live folder.
14. Changed desktop background theme.
15. Binned Adobe shortcuts - won't need those
16. Pinned tools I use (Paint, Writer, calculator) to Taskbar, unpinning the unnecessaries.
17. Played some more with the Board (added a pic of Xin and Me in Second Life)

And now the laptop and I need to get back to work…. that to do list calls…particularly the firefox addons: delicious, kwout and zotero.