Last month, I finished building my first two Windows 11 computers. Mine was the first one, done as a learning experience. The second one was for Janet to replace her ailing Windows 10 PC. The second installation on Jans' machine went much smoother due to the lessons learned in doing mine. I’ll talk a little bit about them here and next month, I’ll move on to covering the Plan “B” I had for the two ex-Windows 10 PCs we replaced. You can purchase Windows 11 in a few different ways. You can ge…

When it comes to computers, most people want only three things. I’ll have a bit of fun here and refer to them as the Three Laws of Computer Usage. It’s not a new idea but rather a shameful rip-off of Issac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics. If you think about it, these laws determine whether you get your work done without a splitting headache, or stand the computer on a tree stump and blow it to bits with a shotgun. Here they are. The First Law: The computer must startup reliably. No extra b…

As is traditional, my nephew, Patrick, was coming to spend a few days for the annual Uncle/Nephew Christmas Shopping Expedition....... The decorations were up, including the tree, with the lights strung, ornaments hung, and timers set free. After a long day of cleaning before he would come, I found myself tuckered, worn out, nearly done! So, along ‘round midnight as I readied for bed, I looked at my phone and my heart filled with dread. For there on my phone, shone a text in bright red. From…

Well, not so much. Our first storm of the season was a whopper. It started out as rain and then shifted to wet, heavy snow. Weather reports said that accumulations would vary based on the elevation and could amount to as much as a foot. We were as ready as we could be, so when bedtime came, that was that. At around 4 AM, I was awakened by a whump sound like when a tree comes down. Since it wasn’t followed by a crash, whatever it was hadn’t hit the house. That meant it could wait until morn…

I had hoped to get something posted before this - don't like to let it go more than a month at the most. Anyway, its' been pretty quiet around here. So, I thought I'd do a sort of "progress report". The computer and network issues have been (I'm afraid to say so too loudly) mostly dealt with. The only odd thing is that I just discovered that some of the USB ports on my PC seem only to work when they feel like it. Not the end of the world but annoying nonetheless. My nephew’s file server w…