I've spent the past couple of days setting up the replacement computer. It's astonishing how much software you collect over time, and how much you come to rely on it. Just about every step has meant installing something new; but I'm getting there, and most things are working fine.
The machine is soooo much better than my old one. Faster (much), and quieter (in fact I don't even realize it's doing anything). As an example of speed, processing RAW files tended to take 10-11 seconds per image; it now takes about 3-4 seconds per image. Much, much better. For the technically minded, I'm now running with 8GB of RAM, on a Vista 64-bit machine, with 1TB of hard drive (plus 1.5TB on external drives).
Vista seems a bit defensive (it wouldn't let me save custom presets into the Neat Image folder). I had to move them manually and do the constant 'Yes i really do want to this' clicks, but I can live with that.
And yes, I have had time to take some photos today. In the garden. Where I saw this beauty.
Slow worm
Camera note: taken with the Sigma 105mm F2.8 EX DG macro lens, using the EOS 40D internal flash.
19 Comments
Both Western Digitals (a 1TB and a .5TB). I remember when a 40MB hard drive was HUGE!
1 TB hard drive and a 1.5 TB of external hard drive :yikes:
Wow, things have certainly changed.
Is your external a Seagate, Western Digital or other?
😆 this is called User Account Control and presents one of the most annoying features in Windows Vista. There are actually 4 methods to disable it – if you want to do that, of course. I do that to almost every PC I set up 😀
Here you can find these methods. I suggest to use 1st or 4th method, don`t mess with regedit unless you have made a copy of registry file.
http://www.petri.co.il/disable_uac_in_windows_vista.htm
1TB :faint:
Congrats on both the computer and the slow worm! :yes:
Thanks Darko! I've now disabled UAC and hidden the 'you're not secure' task bar warning 😉
Adele, thanks!
:hat: 😀
1 TB hard drive… :eyes: :yikes: :faint: Congratulations! Mine is only 160 MB…
And you've caught such a cutie 🙂 🙂
Nice pic 😀
My Vista PC at first wouldnt let me download files sent by MSN but thats quite good in a way, found out how to let it though lol. 😛
Its nice being able to hear the birds singing outside in the background with it too rather than the noisey whirrring from an old PC.
Anna, I really plan not to run out of space for a while, but 160 MB is tiny!
Thanks Mark! I'm learning my way around the new machine (and Vista). I really notice the quietness of the new machine. A real pleasure. It used to be like working in a factory when the old machine was doing almost anything at all.
😆 😆 Silly me!!! I surely meant 168 GB! I was too impressed with your hard drive 😉
Ahh! That sounds more like it. It would have to have been quite an old machine otherwise. 😉
Well, it's not too ancient but needs some additional memory device! Maybe another hard drive or smth like that…
External drives are perfect for photos.
Great news about the computer, Congratulations! I have two external drives that I use. It helps keep the business files separate from the photos.
Lois, thanks! I'm still in the process of sorting out old software and acquiring replacements for things that won't work with Vista… but at least I now have both external drives attached to the box and can get to my archive images more easily.
yay slowworms – got my first of 2009 on Sunday 🙂
BTW Vista can be a pain…
They seem to be getting active. I've had a couple of glimpses of ours in the garden, but generally they stay well hidden. My main (current) grouch with Vista is that it won't run some of my favourite applications (I use massively out of utilities with nice simple interfaces which I've lovingly transferred from machine to machine (going back to Windows98) and until now have always been able to manually configure by tweaking files.) I guess I may have to update some of them 🙁