When all is said and done...

[susandennis]

There must be 7 stages of grief when a computer dies.  Especially one that you live with for 3.5 years every single day sometimes for many many hours in those days.

If there is, the 7th step must be, Wow.  This new sucker is slick.  And isn't it a joy to be free of years of computer debris.  And Yahoo!  That error message that I have to click through every time is now gone!!  Whew.  And OK!

I have everything very close to being under control.  I have even been able to do some real work this morning. I have spent more than a few cycles being oh so grateful that I have worshiped long and hard at the Church of Backups.  I haven't even had to use my main backup.  I was able to pull some critical files (pst's and some other stuff) off the harddrive of the dead laptop thanks to a nice utility they had at HQ.

Until about a year ago, I eschewed the whole My Documents file scheme and carved out my own.  Then I stopped.  I put all of the important stuff into My Documents. My pst files are in a pst folder there, etc  It sure made finding and saving the important stuff easy. 

The most major stumbling block was trying to remember the name of a tiny little list app that I use - I knew it was tree something but try googling 'tree application list'.  You get a lot of stuff from things that grow in the ground to anything but what I needed.  I had the data file - a .trl file and I just kept at it until finally I scored.  TreeLine.  Ahhhhh

I am getting used to the Del key being moved on me and the left Windows key.  And the feel of the keyboard  The touchpad is way more better and it has one of those little thinkpad pokey eraser things in addition to the touchpad.  I might even see if I can train myself to unmouse.

it is hot hot hot and my a/c is working hard to keep up.  So far so good.  It is more than a little helpful that this new laptop does not get nearly as hot on my lap.