Monday, October 07, 2019

Computers - Gaah!

Several months ago I bought a computer for the shop.  Something to edit videos on, to keep books for the club, and as a general record-keeping system and a place to keep match scores.  I bought a little solid-state device, brought it home, updated it, and took it to the shop.

I went out this morning to input some scores, and Excel wouldn't accept input.  It worked last week, but this morning, it won't work at all.  So, I brought it inside to see if I could get it to work.  Evidently, Windows needs to check in with the mother ship once in a while.  Now, it's going through some sort of interminable update cycle.

There are a very few of us who don't acre if a particular device ever connects to the internet.  We might want to take it to the woods to download game-cam photos, or to keep in the shop for light record-keeping.  Someone should make a nice little computer that can be a stand-alone device that does't feel an  overwhelming compulsion to update every time a new feature comes along.

I am coming to despise the connected world.  I don't want the cloud, or whatever OneDrive is.  I simply want to store things on a flash drive and update records occasional.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:05 PM

    I know what you mean. I collect knives and having a unit specifically for storing pictures of them would be very convenient to have and carry when I want to share with others. Have a Dell Inspiron Duo Notebook with a flip screen to convert to table. Touchscreen so that is handy at times. The cons - the keyboard is pretty small so working with full size and it can become challenging.

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  2. Yeah, getting damn near impossible to get a stand alone unit that doesn't have to connect for updates. Planned obsolescence and all that BS... I update my laptop once a month, because I have to... Grrr...

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  3. Anonymous9:24 PM

    I'd look into using linux for those use cases. The distributions have become quite friendly.

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