laptop – Anthony Otero

MacBook Cometh

This is my first (of many) posts in which I am using my MacBook Pro. If you are following me on twitter then this is not a new thing because I have been talking about my laptop. There is a reason for my lack of posts this month. My Dell laptop met it’s bitter end about a week and a half ago. So I have had to replace that with a MacBook Pro.

My old Dell laptop with
battle scars

It has been a goal since last year to get a MacBook. Money being what it was, I could not afford to do it so I decided to put that on hold until the right time. I also knew that my PC laptop was on its last legs since last spring. There was several things that were not working well. The screen light went out first. So I had to plug into monitor. Then the connections from the malfunctioning screen to the rest of the laptop broke so it was almost in 2 pieces.

That is what I was dealing with for about 2 years. I held back on purchases because I did not think it was essential. Technically, my laptop still worked. I just had to deal with the hardship until the time came in which I can get a new one. I really didn’t think that my hard drive would die so I guess I waited a little too long. However, I had been waiting for my Tax Refund so, I didn’t really wait all that long.

Funny thing is you never really think about all the stuff you have on a laptop. Thank God that I had already backed all my pictures on a portable hardrive. All my music was tucked away in my iPod and some of my movies were in my iPhone. My documents are all gone. However, my stories and poems are all copied in other places like email. So when I think about it, I really did not lose all that much. Well, at least nothing important.

The government finally decided to pay me yesterday and I promptly bought this Macbook. No, it is not the new one that has just come out. The SU Bookstore was selling this model (which used to be new) with a discount of $350 off with a free printer and an SU thumb drive. I could not beat this and buying it made me happy. I began to realize that this is yet another goal I can scratch off the list. I wanted this laptop for my very hopeful future at Sarah Lawrence.

First, let me say that it is an adventure to get music from an iPod to a Mac. However, I supposed that if it was meant to be easy Apple would have just came up with an app for it. So I have had to get some software for a very small fee and I am finally happy to say that I have about 99% of my songs back. This also makes very much appreciate all of my efforts to collect every piece of music I own.

Which beings me back to my thoughts. 10 years ago when I decided to leave New York City to come to Syracuse, it was an easy decision and in the grand scheme of thing, took minimal effort to move. There were no goals then. I just wanted out because I hated the direction my work career was going and 9/11 made living in the city hard to deal with. I just had to leave.

Fast Forward to 2011 and everything I do has to be a goal. The move back to NYC is becoming this epic deal that involves smaller goals being accomplished. It is funny that when I was 26, I could fly off from the seat of pants and not worry about…the future. Now, I am the 36 and future becomes something worth planning for. This may be one simple MacBook to you, but this is just symbol of what my future brings…

Black Weblog Awards, Blogging, laptop, Michael Jackson

Tid Bit Tuesday

Laptop Issues

My laptop is now giving me issues. Of course it will. This is a perfect way to end a horrible month. I thought I fixed this issue before when I was in New York City, but it seems that I will have to take other measures. I am not really too worried about it. I am just more annoyed than anything else.

When my laptop has issues I normally have to find other ways to entertain myself. I realize that I am a bit of a gadget junkie, but I tend to read a lot when I am online. Then there is this blog that I love to write. The most important thing to me, however, is my music. I am always playing music from my laptop. Yes, while I could play it through my iPhone, I have more variety on my computer.

I know I will end fixing it, but it does make me think about how life would be without one for a while. I think may need some time to “unplug”. I need to get back to reading. I have decided to dedicate at least one hour a day to reading. I will see how that goes. I have a lot of books that I can catch up on.

MJ on the Mind

As I had stated on Friday, I am still shocked and saddened by Michael Jackson’s death. I find myself listening to his music more now then ever. I used to listen to his music as it was, but now I have some songs stuck in my head. I have told myself that I will just play as much of his music as possible until I get tired of hearing the same rotation. Of course I am not even close.

I am also not interested in any of the drama that will come out about his estate and who is getting what money. It doesn’t matter anymore. I am more interested in why he hated his image so much. What makes a man who has everything change his appearance? Did he encounter such racism as a kid that he hated what he saw in the mirror? Maybe one day we will find out.

Blog Awards?

I am not the type of person to toot my own horn. I have stated numerous of times that I write for myself. However, I saw a fellow blogger had nominated himself for the Black Weblog Awards and I was just curious as to how one would go about doing this. So I did some research and in the end, I nominated this blog for some awards.

I will say that I have no expectations on winning. I am doing this because, as some people have put it: “if you don’t toot your own horn, no one will do it for you”. I think that ever so slowly I am getting a following and appreciate that and all the well wishes that I am getting. I think it would be cool just to say I was in the running. If you want vote for me you can click here. You can choose any of the 4 categories or all of them. Up to you. I will have the link on the right column until voting is over. Thanks again for all the support.

guest blog, laptop, my life

Laptop Issues

It is not my intention to skip blogs for this long, but I am having issues with my laptop that has made it diffcult for me to connect to the internet. So I am writing something quick tolet my readers know that I am still alive. I did manage to write a guest blog on Brookey’s Cafe Blog. So please check that out. That was posted yesterday.

Once I get up and running again, I will write several blogs about my weekend. I was going to write a review on Terminator: Salvation. I will try to get that done. For now, I want to just get some rest. I hope you are all doing well…

C Cleaner, Filehippo, FinallyFast.com, laptop

C-Cleaner

I am not a techie, but there are times where I feel I need to know certain things. Particularly when it comes to my computer. This is my second laptop. So far it has been really good to me and one thing that I learned from my previous one is that if you take good care or it then it will take good care of you. Keep that in mind.

All week I have been dealing with a computer issue at work. Something that was not my fault, but more of a communication issue that involved a program being installed on my desktop that I need in order to continue day to day business. So this issue took more than a week to resolve and during these type of processes one always seems to get to know the IT people pretty well. During this time I got to know something about our IT person and what she uses on her own laptop. My question was simply, “What do you personally use to clean the junk files from your computer?”

She told me about this program called “C Cleaner”. I was informed that this was freeware that our division uses to clean up the old Internet files and the sort. She even used it on my desktop computer in order to make my system go faster. Of course I was excited about this.

My old laptop was slow after awhile. I know that I could have taken care of it much better than I had. With the one I have now, I am doing my best to keep things running well. I had even bought an external drive so that I do not have to keep everything on this laptop. The only thing I neglected to do was clean this laptop of all the junk. I have increasingly been interested in FinallyFast.com. The commercials are so damn annoying, but it gets the point across. However, I am skeptical when it come to this kind of stuff which is why I ask the IT person what she uses.

So today, I decided to download C Cleaner. I got it from FileHippo and I was just ready to see what this was going to do. So I install it and run the program. I figure that this thing will take forever and I will sit here for 30 minutes or so. That was far from the case. It took maybe 5 minutes to delete 18,650 MB! I was stunned.

So, my suggestion is that if you have not cleaned out the junk. Do it. It will make your computer go faster and improve performance…