First Post From the New Laptop
OK, the new machine is really pretty and I love the feel of the keyboard. It's also incredibly lightweight and the battery doesn't get really warm like my old one so I'm not toasting my leg anytime I use it literally from my lap.
But, dang, getting it set up is a royal pain in the arse.
The first issue was getting it connected to the wireless at work. Vista is not as intuitive as XP. We put the WEP key in but, for some reason, it won't remember it. Actually, I may have that fixed but I'm not sure.
The second issue was me being dumb. No where have I written down my WEP key for my home wireless. And, I had no idea how to even find it. I needed to find it not only for using my wireless going forward, but also to use the "Windows Easy Transfer" program that came with my new machine since I didn't have a cable to connect my two machines directly to each other.
I called The Rocket Scientist, confessed my ineptness, and he was able to talk me through accessing the router from my old machine and finding the key. Like the wireless at work, it didn't seem to stick. It's now very securely written on a post-it note on my computer.
Once I got the two machines connected to my router, I started the Easy Transfer process. It ran and ran and ran. Suddenly, it stopped. My old laptop had lost connection to the wireless. I shut both machines down, reset the router and logged in to the old machine. It found the connection and I was able to open my Yahoo but within a minute or so, it disconnected. After fighting with it for quite a while, I called it a night. Which was really morning since it was 12:30 AM.
I took both of my machines into work and tried to move files over the network there. It was going along swimmingly until it got to a group of pictures and decided half of them weren't formatted properly. I had to hit continue for each one and finally just killed it.
One of the guys got me a cross connect cable to connect my machines directly and we started the process over, this time just with my Music folder. Part way through that, the same thing happened as with the pictures. It started balking at some of the files so I called it a day at that point.
They sent me home with two network cables so that each machine can connect to the route and skip the wireless part. I haven't the energy to even try.
I'm having dinner with The Rocket Scientist tomorrow night. Perhaps, I can sucker him into helping me.
But, dang, getting it set up is a royal pain in the arse.
The first issue was getting it connected to the wireless at work. Vista is not as intuitive as XP. We put the WEP key in but, for some reason, it won't remember it. Actually, I may have that fixed but I'm not sure.
The second issue was me being dumb. No where have I written down my WEP key for my home wireless. And, I had no idea how to even find it. I needed to find it not only for using my wireless going forward, but also to use the "Windows Easy Transfer" program that came with my new machine since I didn't have a cable to connect my two machines directly to each other.
I called The Rocket Scientist, confessed my ineptness, and he was able to talk me through accessing the router from my old machine and finding the key. Like the wireless at work, it didn't seem to stick. It's now very securely written on a post-it note on my computer.
Once I got the two machines connected to my router, I started the Easy Transfer process. It ran and ran and ran. Suddenly, it stopped. My old laptop had lost connection to the wireless. I shut both machines down, reset the router and logged in to the old machine. It found the connection and I was able to open my Yahoo but within a minute or so, it disconnected. After fighting with it for quite a while, I called it a night. Which was really morning since it was 12:30 AM.
I took both of my machines into work and tried to move files over the network there. It was going along swimmingly until it got to a group of pictures and decided half of them weren't formatted properly. I had to hit continue for each one and finally just killed it.
One of the guys got me a cross connect cable to connect my machines directly and we started the process over, this time just with my Music folder. Part way through that, the same thing happened as with the pictures. It started balking at some of the files so I called it a day at that point.
They sent me home with two network cables so that each machine can connect to the route and skip the wireless part. I haven't the energy to even try.
I'm having dinner with The Rocket Scientist tomorrow night. Perhaps, I can sucker him into helping me.
