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Thursday, December 12, 2013

Unexpected expenses

The first digital scrapbooking page I have done for the LONGEST time!  I actually just tossed some things on a page, testing out photoshop on my new computer...so it's nothing special, but was nice to do a page for a change!

For the FIRST time, in a LONG time...probably a couple years at least...I've made a digital scrapbook page. It's just kinda thrown together, testing to see if my program was working...but hey, I scrapped! Yippee!!!

Kit Credit: Antique Beauty by Dustybear (I didn't see it in Blushbutter's shop...so it may not be available any longer.)

What a pain the last couple weeks has been in the computer department around here.  *sigh*  We got up one morning a couple weeks or so ago (or humm...it may be more like three weeks now...my how time flies!) and DH got upstairs before I did, so turned on my computer for me.  By the time I got up here (think I took my shower that morning before coming up...so it would have been a little while after he was up here) my computer was at a screen I've never seen before.  DH said it beeped at him for a while, before it went to that screen.

It wanted to do a system restore for some reason...so that had me worried.  It took it's time, but did finally come all the way on for me, and I went about my day as usual.

The next day, I got  up here to turn my computer on myself, and it just sat there beeping at me, a really loud scary beep when it's coming form my expensive computer.  LOL  I pulled the battery out of my laptop to shut it down...cause it wasn't coming on and just beeping, I didn't want to force it.

I then turned on my old desktop, that basically I've just kept for backup (thankfully) and to use to get to my external hard drives, so I didn't have to hook them up to my laptop.  I decided I'd have to use my desktop till we could get me  a new computer, cause I didn't want to keep trying to turn my laptop on in case it only came on one more time...so I could do it that one more time and get everything off it, once I had a new computer.  I thought it would be easier to get it off my old one than dig through my files on my external hard drives and decide what I just had to have on my computer again.

This is NOT what I wanted to spend our money on this month...especially that much of it, but...even though I'm not on the computer as much as I used to be, I like having one to play with...and like my laptop so I can move it around.

I looked online, and found a fairly cheap laptop that sounded like it wouldn't be any worse than what I had had, and had just a tad bit bigger hard drive (which I desperately needed).  It was in our price range, so we took a quick trip to Best Buy to pick it up.  That was the Monday of Thanksgiving week...so the rest of that week, I only managed to get it set up and window's updated, with having to do a lot of cooking.

Once Thanksgiving was out of the way, I started moving things from my old laptop...which did finally come on again after having to run system restore AGAIN (I didn't shut my laptops down again till everything was moved over...which took three days and nights cause I have a LOT on it)...and  I also started trying to get my programs on the computer.  Since it has windows 8.1 on it, I didn't know what would work and what wouldn't.  My office/e-mail program worked thankfully...and Photoshop went on...and seemed to work, but once I got around to actually trying it out I couldn't do much in it, without it slowing everything way down and taking forever just to mess with a photo.

Sadly...that meant my Photoshop cs3 wasn't going to work out for me.  I knew I couldn't afford the new Photoshop, but luckily right at that time I also saw a post on facebook about the new subscription plan adobe was going to.  Most of it sounded like it was something I'd never be able to afford, but then before I could give up on that idea I saw a special plan they had that I figured I could afford so finally decided to give it a try.

Then the hair pulling sessions started.  For some reason the mini bridge wasn't working on the new Photoshop on my computer.  I read that some people had that trouble...since cs5...so it's been an on going problem they haven't bothered fixing for several years!  *sigh*

Praise God I had paid extra for tech support (that also came with virus software that could be used on three computers) from Best Buy when I bought my computer...and this was software tech support not just an extended warranty.  I spent DAYS calling them up every day having them help me, cause they would get it working and before the day was out, it was back to not working.  I also talked to Adobe, but their fixes didn't work...and one of them I tried but almost locked myself out of my computer making it unusable, so I wasn't trying that again without help, and Best Buy tech support thought it was a stupid idea anyway, so it never got tried.  LOL

Yesterday the geek squad agent finally got it to working for longer than a few hours.  It's still working today...so while I'm not holding my breath, I'm at least more hopeful that it will KEEP working!

I just need to find the time to do a few more scraping pages, to see if it slows down the longer it's open like it was also doing....but haven't found time for that yet.  I'm so rusty when it comes to scrapbooking, my pages probably won't be wonderful, but hopefully I can do something halfway decent at least!  LOL I really want to find time to do it soon, so if it just can't be made to work right I can get out of the year contract with adobe before it's to late to (I have 30 days to try it out).

If Photoshop just isn't going to work, I'll probably have to go back to paint shop pro.  I went so far as to download a trial of it, since PS wasn't working, and it's taking a while for things to come back to me, but I'm finally remembering some of what I used to do in psp and there are even a couple things I like better than ps....just not everything.  LOL  I'd miss some of the things I know and love in PS...but...since I don't seem to scrap much anymore, could maybe learn to live without them...I think.  We will see how the next couple of weeks go with photoshop.

Even if I keep Photoshop for now...in another year or so, if they up the monthly price on me I might just go back to psp anyway, cause I'm not willing to pay much more to use ps no more than I use it these days.

So....while I'm not happy to have had to buy another computer, and certainly not really happy with adobe...I AM happy with my geek squad tech support!  It upped the price of the cheap computer a hundred bucks...but has already been well worth it!  The fact that it covers three computers makes it even better...cause once I get this new one going good, I'm going to talk to them about my old laptop, and see if there is anything they can recommend on it...and also we can use it for hubbies computer if need be!

Now if only that was the ONLY expensive thing I had had to replace in the last month I'd be happier...however...that's another story (rant).  *roll eyes*

I'm just thankful that somehow...after being short on money most of the year...we had enough to do what we've needed to do lately.  It's a major miracle to my way of thinking!  Course I did have to rob from one "fund" or another to get it ALL done...but we are still ok, and for that I'm extremely thankful!

Now...to move on and hopefully start saving instead of spending!  My porch still needs a few things bought for it before we can build it, and I gotta save a little more money before we can.  :-))

2 comments:

  1. Deb, I have to tell you that you might not have needed to bought that new laptop. Places like Best Buy, and Geek Squad are out to get you to spend money of course. As a long time reader I know I could talk my private geek (aka my better half) into doing tech support. :) He does so for UMKC the University side of it and I will say he is awesome at it. He does most of the work over the phone and internet. Heck he fixes my mothers computer when she's in Florida or back home in Thunder Bay in Canada. There are some things he can't do. But if your coming down to KC any how we live north of the river. I'm commenting as per my google account so if your wanting to you can contact me through that. We can talk if you'd like cause I'd hate to see you end up off line over a silly computer issue.

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    1. Thanks for the offer. I know all the stores like that are out to get my money, but not knowing much about how to fix computers I let them. LOL I already got the darn thing, so...guess I'll live with it, especially since I don't know if the other was a hardware or software problem. Thanks though! :-))

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