Scattered Thoughts . . .

Microsoft Surface 3 with keyboard and mouse... I've had a couple of days to play with my new Microsoft Surface computer. This laptop/tablet combo is really nice! I've loaded most of the software I will be using on this computer including Adobe Photoshop. I tried it out... not only is this Surface far better than my two year old HP laptop which had better specs but it is, without a doubt, the best laptop I have ever used. I'm quite impressed! Sheila played with it for a bit last night while I was cooking dinner... she loved it as well and was left feeling as though her Kindle Fire tablet is feeling a bit old and clunky by comparison. To be honest, I don't think my Kindle Fire tablet feels old and clunky (I have the same Kindle Fire tablet as Sheila) ... the Fire is just as light and nimble as my new Surface 3. Sheila may feel this way simply because she has a crappy screen protector (and it is scuffed up a bit too) on her Kindle Fire which cuts down on clarity.

As I wrote a few days ago, my not quite two year old HP X360 laptop bit the dust during a thunderstorm over the weekend. It crackled and sizzled loud enough for Sheila to hear it in another room. It was fried and about as dead as dead could be. This HP X360 model could be flipped around so it could be used as a tablet which came in handy for certain situations. This HP model allowed me to handle photos and video while on the road and also allowed me to backup all my photos and video. I did, however, have problems with this laptop as well as some regrets. Before I get into the history of how I got to this point, let me quickly say that my new laptop of choice (for my specific needs) is a new Microsoft Surface 3. Here is a short promo video for the Surface Pro 3... the non-Pro version I bought is slightly smaller at my preferred 11 inches, full HD resolution, and significantly less expensive yet with few compromises... So, let's go back to some boring info about how I got

Windows 10 screenshot... the Start menu opened. For the past few months, Microsoft has been nagging me by way of popup notices on my computers to upgrade my Windows 8.1 Operating System to Windows 10. I've been holding off downloading this incredibly huge (file size) upgrade in the hope that Microsoft would iron out all the little quirks, kinks and bugs. In the meantime, I would have to tolerate the constant barrage of nagging prompts from Microsoft. I chat with a lot of photographers from around the world everyday and more and more of them have upgraded to Windows 10 lately. The general consensus was that the upgrade was relatively painless and there were no problems with any software and much of the hardware issues have been ironed out by now. This was the news I was waiting for so I decided to upgrade my laptop first and see how it performs. In Microsoft's defense, the biggest problem up until lately was that third party software and hardware developers were dragging