Friday, October 17, 2008
I Love Technology
...Not really.
Misc: Despite my love of videogames and the glasses I wear, don't mistake me for someone who's a tech-head, or a fan of computers. I like it when things are simple and they work, which automatically rules out pretty much anything to do with PCs.
Case in point:
My old computer was wheezing its last this morning after having continuous difficulties over the last few months, so the wife and I decided it was time to get a new one. It was especially important to get something that ran well since I'm a big fan of Dragon NaturallySpeaking-- it lets me skip typing with my hands, dictating what I say directly onto the screen. It works great, it saves tons of time, and since I'm usually working on a story or a review, it's saved me from carpal tunnel.
So,we go down to a local electronics palace, and despite being on a budget we find something that's about 42x faster than my old rig. It also came preloaded with Vista.
::cue ominous music::
We get it home, I spend about three hours getting it configured, deleting all the extra crap I don't want off the drive, and transferring files. Finally, after I get it up and running to my satisfaction, I start loading up NaturallySpeaking, and IT WON'T INSTALL.
Turns out Dragon is only compatible with the 32bit versions of Vista, and the comp I bought has the 64bit. I do a little more digging, and not only do I find out there's no way to have the 64 run in a 32 mode, practically nobody supports the 64bit version-- I mean, if the package says it works with Vista and I have Vista, I'm going to assume it'll work.
Of course, this is where assuming gets you.
Long story short, I'm going to return the PC I have for a different model running the 32bit Vista, I wasted half the day between the drive and the configuring, and none of the paperwork or writing I needed to get done today got done....
Like the title says, I love technology.
Posts
Dude, not to pile on, but why did you buy a computer with 64 bit? Most System Reqs boxes on software will specify 32 or 64 though and very few support 64 from what I've noticed.
Nobody uses 64 bit in the consumer world. As for Vista, there's plenty of software that doesn't work well with it (older games in particular) and HP refused to provide updated drivers for the printer I had, but once you get used to it, Vista is actually pretty cool. I didn't like it at first, but it grew on me. Definitely has some good features.
Good luck with the new PC, sorry it was such a headache!
well, I think you have a pretty good idea of how involved I am in the PC side of things.
Considering that the only things I do on my computer are word processing and a little web surfing,I didn't think it would be necessary to do a lot of research on the different versions of Vista, and I wasn't really aware of the disparity between 32 and 64.
Call that a lesson learned, I guess. = P
Ahhh, just admit it. You saw 32 and you saw 64 and then you were all like, "well, the Nintendo 64 did have better graphics than SegaCD", I'll go for the 64!
:-)