Latest obsession

I'm no gamer, but I am a little bit obsessed with computer games.

My latest obsession is Crossy Road, which isn't too different from the old 1980's game Frogger, where the frog had to cross the road, dodging traffic along the way.

Crossy Road is fun because whoever thought of this game, came up with various characters. I have two favorites. I love the leprechaun. I find his voice endearing. He speaks as he goes, in what I can only describe as non-sensical gibberish. But he's a quick little guy who can easily make his way around trucks and cars. 

I also like "The Dress" character. This is so clever. Remember the controversy over the beige or blue dress? Some people saw one color, while others saw a different color. In Crossy Road, if you are playing that character and you lose, the next play is the other color. That just cracks me up! 

Some of the other characters are equally as endearing, like the basketball player that dribbles all the way across the road, or the caretaker that carries a light around with him. Sometimes, even the scene is varied. It really is a very clever game. And, if I don't beat my score--presently at 319--I'm going to go crazy.

Crossy Road incorporates more than a road. It also includes a body of water to be traversed on moving logs. There are waterfalls on either side, on which there is a danger of falling off. I almost always lose the game in the water. It is positively infuriating!

I got started on computer games when my life began to revolved around the computer, some 40 years ago. As a writer, there were times I just needed to take a break. My computer is an extension of my brain, so I use it for taking notes, managing finances, and just about any other use there is. I also use it for cheap, mindless entertainment. Games always seemed to help me break away from the grind, but not too far away, in case a thought came to mind that I needed to jot down.

I find that playing is relaxing overall, even though at times I can get a little frenzied, trying to beat my own score. I'm very self-competetive.

Long before I was a writer, I was enamored with the old Atari and Activision games played on the Atari 2600 game console. I was the neighborhood Space Invaders champion. And my high scores earned me an Activision arm patch for the roundup game, Stampede. When I was pregnant with my second child, I watched my due date come and go. My son finally arrived 11 days later. I was Those video games got me through, occupying my mind while I waited for his arrival. 

Through the years, I've had my favorites, from word games--I simply love Words With Friends--and mostly all word games, especially Scrabble like games or making words from jumbled letters. I'm not at all into the shoot-em-up games with the realistic blood and gore. I just like the mindless, simple ones.

Over the years, I've definitely had my favorites. I played a simple version of Mahjjong, and Welltris, a 3D version of Tetris. I wish I could find a version of that which would be compatible with today's computers. That was so fun.

I love Bubble Spinner, Yahtzee, Hidden Objects games, and Solitaire games, with my favorite being Spider Solitaire. The best game I've ever found like those are Pretty Good Mahjjong, which combines solitaire with mahjjong tiles.

I also love the silly little game, Click only Red.  

My computer saga continues

My love/hate relationship, with Microsoft, at least the latest version of it, has continued for more than a month. I last wrote about this in a post dated January 26, entitled, I hate Windows 10. It is now March 3. That is far too long to fret over some silly machine that has always been billed as helpful.

My message today is two-fold. First, it isn't just Windows 10 that I hate, it is Microsoft in general. More about that later...

But the good news is, I have solved my problems, at least for the meantime.

I purchased a refurbished computer that already had Windows 10 installed. I was a little leery when I realized it was an older system that had also been upgraded.

I proceeded ever so cautiously, as I attempted to transform this little black box into the familiar tool I had known and loved before it was upgraded from Window 7 to Windows 10.

Love the photo--the new computer is on the right side of my desk. The old one is on the left. I'm not sure how much longer I can live with this! My initial goal was to downsize from that giant desk. Now I'm grateful that I have it so it can accommodate two computers, two monitors, two keyboards, and two , not to mention my phone, lamp and some other necessities. 

I've spent the last week with this virgin computer, bulking up the system to meet and exceed the old one. Windows 10 is working well. I am pleased.

The first program I installed was my beloved Crossy Road game, the one I wrote about previously that simply would not work on my old system with Windows 10. The saving grace was the fact that the new system ran Windows 10 Professional edition, rather than the home edition Microsoft offered in their free upgrade.

I was thrilled that Crossy Road works again. Once again I can get my chickens and other favorite characters across the busy highway of life.

Another problem the old system had was the inability to run Google Earth. Runs like a champ now.

Quicken was also a problem. The sound files didn't work. After using this program for years, I was rather used to hearing that little cha-ching sound when I hit the enter key. I spent a few days trying to figure out the problem, but never did. I suspect it is a Quicken problem however; not a Microsoft one. Google is home to lots of Quicken sound complaints. I'm just one of many.

I had a sound problem in, Pretty Good Mahjongg, another one of my favorite games. It just wasn't fun to play my favorite free cell game without the sounds I was used to. However, once installed in the new system, it works just like it is supposed to--like it used to.

That brings me to why I am so angry at Microsoft.

I bought an upgrade of my aging software, MS Office 2007. I upgraded to MS Office 2010 not too long ago. I bought it online, so of course I don't have a disk. I did save the email however, that contains the Product key. My computer life is fairly well organized, so I could lay my hands on it almost immediately. I installed the software and noticed that Outlook, the integrated email program wasn't there. Outlook simply wasn't there.

As I lay in bed last night, I formulated a plan. I would uninstall MS Office 2010, reinstall 2003 and then upgrade it with 2010. Hah, everything went according to plan until I learned that Outlook installed alright, but as a trial version.  I did a little Google sleuthing to find out that I purchased the Home and School edition. When it installed over a previous edition, it installed as a trial edition. Never mind the fact that the program is old; Microsoft still wants me to buy the thing as a stand alone program. It is only good for 2 months. At that time, I could either buy Outlook or I could upgrade to Microsoft's latest version of MS Office 365, which is basically a monthly rental. Forget that!

I looked all over the internet for a solution to this problem. It isn't that I like Outlook; I don't. But, I read something somewhere that made me think tweaking the settings in Outlook would allow all the affiliated Office programs, Word, Excel, etc. to have more options than the blue, black, and silver settings the program offers.

It was not to be. Everything I've read indicated that there is no work around to the 2-month limit on Outlook.

The color issue has me driven. I was really curious because when I looked at my old program, there was a green tint in the application. It wasn't present in the new install. I couldn't remember what I did to get that pretty green color. Finally, it dawned on me. The setting I used wasn't in Outlook at all; it was in the Windows desktop personalization. I clicked a few buttons, and got my green color. As my photo illustrates, my computer has a sunflower theme. Yellow doesn't work very well, but a green tint at the top of the application window is just great. It is all matchy-matchy with my sunflowers, just the way I like it.

I'm over the fact that I got screwed by Microsoft again, but the joke is on them because I don't like their old Outlook program anyway.

So, the only casualty in my computer life is the loss of my old best friend, Lotus Organizer, a program I've had for 30 years or more. It still worked in my old system, but because I no longer have the installation disk and subsequent setup program, I can no longer put it into the new computer. I scoured my old computer in search of the initial setup email, but I just couldn't find it. I went back to the online store where I initially bought the upgrade, around 2003, but alas, it is no longer active. Amazon was even selling the program at one time, but they are out of stock and will no be able to get more. I would gladly pay the 14 bucks for it. It held all my phone numbers, email addresses, Christmas Card list, birthdays, and so much more. So sad!

Lotus Organizer was an old IBM program from back in the day when Lotus Office Suite contained several programs. Remember Lotus 1-2-3 and Word Pro. That really does go way back--perhaps to the 80's. Organizer was a nifty little program, unlike any I have seen since that simulated a day planner complete with animated page turning. I have no idea why someone hasn't developed one similar to it in all these years. I've tried them all, however. There are none like it.

My initial program was installed with seven 3.5" floppy disks. I'm not even sure we have an old computer around any more that has a 3.5" drive in it. The last time I installed the program, many years ago, it still worked. That was nearly as many computers ago as it was years.

So, all in all, I'd say my computer life is back on track. It will be nice to be rid of a second system on my desk. I plan to reset and repair Windows 10. It will be good as new. It is nice to have all my photos, music, and documents that go way back to my professional life. The new computer is now lean and mean too. Without all the junk, it is much speedier. No regrets. Microsoft tried, but I win!

I hate Windows 10

Seems to me the last time I even opened CHMusings was about six months ago. That has to be close to the time when my computer installed a Microsoft Update to Windows 10. 

I was pretty satisfied with the new operating system. I was using the Windows 7 version. I really liked that, but fell for the hype about upgrading to the free version of the free operating system for a limited time, blah, blah, blah. Then around Aug. 16 when Microsoft released its dreaded Anniversary edition, it all changed.

I haven't been happy with my computer since then. It seems that every time I open a program I haven't used in awhile, something goes awry. 

Early on, I found new problems every day. Many of them have been fixed, thanks to the computer pioneers who have availed themselves to us poor inexperienced users. There are so many fixes for the multitude of problems that Windows 10 has unearthed that I now wish I had resisted using it.  

Had I known I could, I would have uninstalled it pronto. However, it wasn't until about a month in that I realized that was even possible. Then I learned that Microsoft limited rollbacks to only 10 days, I believe. It was too late for me; I was stuck with it.

Remember my obsession with Crossy Road, a game available in the Microsoft Store. I wrote about how much I loved this game in a previous post. Well, I did love it. Microsoft killed it.

I used my event viewer in Windows to try to troubleshoot the problem. I used the built in troubleshooters; I left messages in the Windows forum, that were never adequately answered. I searched for a solution to the multiple problems loading and ultimately playing the game. I read about solutions, one-by-one, trying them in an effort to get the game to work. I took chances with repairs I really didn't understand, like editing the registry and altering code that didn't make sense to me. All the while I expected my computer to just become a giant paper weight. I had the important files backed up, so I felt almost safe.

Windows continued to update their system. I kept hoping that one of them would make the game work, but to this day, it will load, but it doesn't play correctly. 

Funny though, I can play it on my laptop which I bought with Windows 10 installed on it. Everything works fine on that system. It is just my desktop where nothing works correctly, you know, the one that I've used for years for everything from writing to household finances to listening to my favorite music. 

I've also found that the sound no longer works in Quicken, the software I use to track our household finances and pay my bills online. After following advice and trying everything I could, I broke down and bought the latest version of the software. It still doesn't have sound. Truthfully, I like my old version of that better too. 

I've used Quicken for years. I was always accustomed to hearing that little cash register sound every time I hit the enter key. Now, I am now faced with black hole silence. 

My camera won't upload photos through the USB cord, even though I bought a new one. That doesn't work either. I now have to physically remove the card and insert it into a card reader that works sometimes. Who knows how long that will last? 

The other day I opened Google Earth. Oops, it won't load. I tried updating the software and using the compatibility setting, but to no avail. I no longer have Google Earth. I wonder what program is next.

I'm so frustrated with Windows 10 that I'm thinking of wiping the hard drive and installing a clean copy of Windows 7. I just know I will lose data though, so that is a really last resort. One day I worked up the courage. I was going to go there. First, I thought I'd double check my backup. It was on a thumb drive. Windows said it couldn't read it. So, once again, I'm stuck. 

I'm thinking of trying to manually install whatever I can on my laptop and going with the paper weight idea. In the meantime, I'm not happy!