UPDATE – I’m making slow but steady progress on draft #2 of
the detective story. Things may slow down a bit because this week I upgraded to
a new laptop because the old one was taking longer and longer to boot up and
one of the keys had come loose, with a second one threatening to follow suit.
Since Microsoft’s been bugging me to upgrade to Windows 11, I went ahead and
got a machine with 11 already installed. Sadly, I had to buy Microsoft Office
11 separately so I’d have access to the latest version of Word. The words you
(all three of you, maybe four if Switzerland’s tuned in this week) are hopefully
reading here are coming to you live from
the couch where I’m typing between commercials during Thor: Ragnarok.
I’ve already done work on an existing file and only had minimal problems, but
this is my first attempt at creating a new file on the new system. It’s…well,
it’s turning into an interesting experience.
A caveat: if this week’s entry seems a bit disjointed and
distracted, it’s because, as I mentioned, I’m watching a movie as I work. If
there’s a break in flow, those were the points where I looked up to ogle Chris
Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, or both. I’ll try to type fast, and coherently,
during commercial breaks and get this done before the big battle scene at the
end. And if anyone’s wondering: Loki’s the one you have a torrid affair with
before you marry Thor. Just in case it ever comes up in conversation.
$$$$
And here we go. I’ve barely started and already it’s giving
me issues.
I didn’t have too many problems the other times I changed
laptops. Mostly it was just getting used to that particular machine’s
idiosyncrasies. Windows 10 was similar enough to Windows 7 that upgrading
wasn’t much of a jolt. Wish I could say the same for Windows 11. Working with
this is like I’ve been speaking Canton Chinese and 11 only speaks Mandarin.
It’s just different enough to throw me off.
And then there’s the fun I’m having with the cursor. (NOTE:
I’m being sarcastic.)
New Lappy didn’t waste any time showing me how annoying it
could be. Once I got home, I naturally signed in to Google and checked out my
regular sites. Of course I used the cursor and the scroll bar to move up and
down. Instead it zoomed my screen out. Then out again. Then in. This happened
without me clicking anything. Just moving the cursor brought on a dance of extreme
close-up to ant-size print with all size variations in between. No amount of
clicking on the mouse pad would return my point size to normal.
And that’s not all. My headstrong cursor also likes to drag
the page itself around, zooming in and then swiping left or right so I can’t
read a full sentence from either side. Again, no amount of clicking and
dragging on my part reverses this.
I don’t know if this is a hardware or software issue. I’m
not doing anything. It does this on its own, sometimes when I’m not even
touching it. In the time I’ve been typing this entry I’ve already had a zoom
in/zoom out incident and a random left-swipe. Ironically, the zooms started after
I’d asked Search “Why does my cursor randomly zoom?” Answer: it may think my
Control key is stuck. Try pressing Control. (Didn’t work.) Help told me I
should be able to disable Chrome’s Zoom function by clicking on Settings and
going to sections that didn’t appear when I did so. As for Microsoft Settings,
that shows me the Zoom setting was already off. Somebody needs to tell that to
my errant cursor.
I’ve had three laptops before this one and two versions of
Windows. I never once encountered this problem with any of them, or on the
various library machines I’ve used over the years. Others must have, though,
because answers show up in Search. I just wish the answers worked.
Monday a new assignment comes in. I get to do paid work with
this annoyance lurking in my system, just waiting for its moment to pop up and
piss me off. I’m under warranty for another couple of weeks, but first I think
I’ll go up to the computer lab the library’s offering. Maybe someone familiar
with the new iteration of Windows can help me straighten this out. If it turns
out to be a hardware problem, then I’ll take it back to the shop. I
should have kept Ol’ Unreliable, my oldest laptop with Windows 7 on it, as a
backup. At least I know how to work on that one. Only problem was, it tended to
conk out unexpectedly; sometimes it would boot up again, other times it wouldn’t.
That’s why I got rid of it, and why I started calling it Ol’ Unreliable.
There is a bright side to the zoom problem: I tried playing
computer games, and the constant random zooming ticked me off to the point I
just shut the whole system down. I think I’ve finally hit on the solution to my
gaming addiction. The price of the laptop was still cheaper than therapy, so I
have no complaints in that regard.
In semi-related news, my car has decided it’s also going to
be difficult and not start at random times and places. The lights come on but
the engine won’t turn over. It’s not the battery; that got a jump from a guy in
the grocery store parking lot, but it did nothing. It may be the starter.
Popping the clutch got it started and I got it to the garage, but they couldn’t
do anything because it started right up for them so they can’t determine what’s
wrong. Right now it’s running fine, but it could leave me stranded at any time,
in any situation. I’d think it was in collusion with my new laptop if I were a
paranoid person. Oh, wait…
Looks like I’ve got this written. Now let’s see if it’ll let
me post. If not, it’s off to the library with a thumb drive, which may be how I
end up doing the paid assignment. There are always solutions if you look for
them. See y’all next week.
