Jump to content
GreaseSpot Cafe

My newe toy


Twinky
 Share

Recommended Posts

Just got myself a new laptop, Dell Inspiron, preloaded with Windows 10 and a few MS bits and pieces (well, what isn't, these days?).

A question or two for techies here.  It uses Edge as a browser.  Is it any good?  Reliable?  Stable?  I am used to Firefox.  Don't know whether I should download FF and use instead.

Next question, and this is a real dorky one: I backed up all my stuff to the cloud before I took in my old (well-running) HP laptop  for its "health check," which was a good thing that I did, as Curry's have managed to replace the hard disk and now they can't get it going again ("driver problems").  Hence my brand new computer.  BUT how do I easily get my stuff OFF the cloud?  I want everything on the laptop.  Not in outer space to be hacked into by any high school kid that chances across it.

Thanks in anticipation of your assistance!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As you can tell, I seem to have forgotten how to type on my "newe" toy.

Hey, maybe that's what I'll name this device.  Nevé (as in the French pronunciation - ne-vay).  Case colour is "sparkling white."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/25/2018 at 6:44 PM, Twinky said:

A question or two for techies here.  It uses Edge as a browser.  Is it any good?  Reliable?  Stable?  I am used to Firefox.  Don't know whether I should download FF and use instead.

I am a techie, both by nature and by profession.  Don't use Edge.  Stick with Firefox.  And to be safe while browsing, don't use the Google search engine, use Duck Duck Go.  Google tracks everything you do, Duck Duck Go does not.  I'm not sure about Yahoo yet.

If you find you need to use a Microsoft browser for some insane reason, use the regular Internet Explorer rather than Edge.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/25/2018 at 6:44 PM, Twinky said:

BUT how do I easily get my stuff OFF the cloud?

This would depend on what type of computer you had before, meaning a Mac or a PC.  Then it depends on what you used to backup your "stuff".  You might have to install an app on your newe toy first.

BTW: If you don't need MS Office specifically, LibreOffice has a great word processor and spreadsheet, and the entire office suite is free.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, thanks, I have got my stuff off the cloud, well, some of it.  Not all, some seems to have disappeared, and some has appeared in folders other than those in which it ought to be.  Maybe I will find some of the lost stuff in inappropriate folders.  Or maybe it is gone forever.   I still have a lot of work to do, in moving into this laptop. 

Thank God I also backed up my Work folders onto a pen drive as well, because the folders for the last two financial years are incomplete and my Excel spreadsheets are nowhere obvious.  As a self-employed person, these are vital for working out the income tax I have to pay, and I fancy the Revenue would take a dim view of my excuse that my income and expenses documentation had disappeared into a cloud.  One somewhere over the rainbow, presumably, LOL.

I had an HP laptop previously.  This one is a Dell.  Function keys work a little differently, but I guess everything is here, somewhere, somehow.

I bought MS Office 2010 when I bought the HP; now it seems I can get MS Office online.  Which, of course, only works when I can be online; no internet access for the last few days has been a bit of a pain.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, Twinky said:

now it seems I can get MS Office online.

Yes, that can be helpful.  I think it's a whopping $5/month for a personal account.  It's great if you believe you need daily backups, which they do, and to be able to get to your email from a multitude of devices, and to have a linked calendar.

I like LibreOffice for the office suite, and I use Mozilla Thunderbird for my email.  The only thing they don't have, which I don't really need, is the linked calendar.

So, really, it's just a matter of preference.

As for your date, you may want to consider an external drive specifically for that, and a solid state drive would probably be the best choice.

Have fun with your new toy!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Got any suggestions about how to stop Win 10 bloody well trying to synch to OneDrive?  I don't want that, resent it enormously, and it's caused me to lose a whole lot of documents and photos.  And when I've restored from the OD Recycle bin, it's stuck items any bloody place it feels like, nothing like in the original folders.

I NEVER like NEVER want to synch anything.  In fact, I don't want any of my private data anywhere near any remote location.  Except in my pen drive which sits in my desk drawer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/2/2018 at 11:48 AM, Taxidev said:

Yes, that can be helpful.  I think it's a whopping $5/month for a personal account.  It's great if you believe you need daily backups, which they do, and to be able to get to your email from a multitude of devices, and to have a linked calendar.

I like LibreOffice for the office suite, and I use Mozilla Thunderbird for my email.  The only thing they don't have, which I don't really need, is the linked calendar.

So, really, it's just a matter of preference.

As for your date, you may want to consider an external drive specifically for that, and a solid state drive would probably be the best choice.

Have fun with your new toy!

LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org  are good office suites. Mrs Wolf uses OOO, I use LO.    Mrs W also uses Thunderbird, and has for a long time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/25/2018 at 7:44 PM, Twinky said:

Just got myself a new laptop, Dell Inspiron, preloaded with Windows 10 and a few MS bits and pieces (well, what isn't, these days?).

A question or two for techies here.  It uses Edge as a browser.  Is it any good?  Reliable?  Stable?  I am used to Firefox.  Don't know whether I should download FF and use instead.

Next question, and this is a real dorky one: I backed up all my stuff to the cloud before I took in my old (well-running) HP laptop  for its "health check," which was a good thing that I did, as Curry's have managed to replace the hard disk and now they can't get it going again ("driver problems").  Hence my brand new computer.  BUT how do I easily get my stuff OFF the cloud?  I want everything on the laptop.  Not in outer space to be hacked into by any high school kid that chances across it.

Thanks in anticipation of your assistance!!

Whenever humanly possible, I use someone else's free program rather than Microsoft's free program.  So, I don't use IE or Edge, I use FireFox and other derivatives (PaleMoon, etc.)  I'd trust Chrome before Edge on general principle-  and I don't like Chrome because I don't like Google spying on me any more than I like MS spying on me.    Frankly, I'd keep a few browsers along, just in case one works better than another for something (that's why I discovered PaleMoon in the first place.)

If you want to add a Chromium-based browser, I'd add one instead of Chrome itself.  Chrome has all the spyware slowing it down.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_(web_browser)#Other_browsers_based_on_Chromium

 

I know nothing about the cloud-based questions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, WordWolf said:

I'd trust Chrome before Edge on general principle

Believe it or not, you're safer the other way around now.  I use Chrome only for watching videos because it does that better than Firefox.  However, I no longer use Google search.  Instead I use DuckDuckGo - it doesn't track anything.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Taxidev said:

Believe it or not, you're safer the other way around now.  I use Chrome only for watching videos because it does that better than Firefox.  However, I no longer use Google search.  Instead I use DuckDuckGo - it doesn't track anything.

Who said I recommended Google Search?   I use DuckDuckGo when StartPage isn't making it for me.

But Microsoft and Google and Facebook attempt to track you and grab your data.   So, I prefer not to use MS browsers (IE, Edge)  nor Google browsers (Chrome) . I use others, and may add something to block Facebook and Google tracking.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
11 hours ago, WordWolf said:

Keep in mind that Google's tracking you when you're using Chrome.

I recently learned that if you don't login to Google+, and you use DuckDuckGo for search, even in Chrome, DuckDuckGo will block the Google analytics that are on the main page of almost every web site in existence, which is what they use to track us.  That's very cool.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Taxidev said:

I recently learned that if you don't login to Google+, and you use DuckDuckGo for search, even in Chrome, DuckDuckGo will block the Google analytics that are on the main page of almost every web site in existence, which is what they use to track us.  That's very cool.

I'm pretty sure that it means that your SEARCHES are private.  However, once you go to another website that is NOT DDG, you're subject to Google's prying.  That's why people use CHROMIUM (the system UNDER Chrome)  rather than CHROME (the browser that Google signs and uses to track.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...