A new “school year” is beginning. We have a new family computer to use for education. It’s a nice HP TouchSmart AIO Core i5 23″ beauty, though it doesn’t have any of the features I wanted to add on, in store we had no options, only this one. HDMI input, Bluetooth, Blu-ray … none of them exist on this model. It wasn’t super important, but I did want at least a Blu-ray player. Really want a Blu-ray burner and have thought for awhile that maybe I should just get a stand-alone version, so … the other thing is a Bluetooth module … I can get a dongle, but that’s not as nice as built-in on an AIO.
My laptop doesn’t have Bluetooth nor Blu-ray. I hated that back when I got it. Guess what I feel now? I really hate that I STILL don’t have those features on a machine. I have a dongle on my laptop for bluetooth. It doesn’t work right unless I put it on the e-Sata port. It’s a special combo port, anyhow, it provides better power, and it’s the only port on my laptop that will run it correctly, troublesome, since my keyboard and mouse use it and I have an external sata device …
So I have a job I need to finish and that is archiving all my photos and making something out of all my video footage. I need Blu-ray disc burning for that. I refuse to use DVD’s nowadays, so I do nothing at all. I have a lot of video that I need to process and this new computer can handle it better. Which means I need to put my Sony video programs on here (the machine I’m typing on is the HP AIO.)
As for the educational things: I have LEGO We Do software which will work with this desktop, finally a desktop! Our other things never worked with it, only my laptop. I am actually missing one of the discs, I hope I can figure out which one and find it. I have Artes Latinae installed. I’m having them ‘start over’ again, for the 2nd or 3rd time. It’s been that long since I bought it and we’ve had so many computer issues … augh! Hopefully that ends here.
I need to get them all started on more stuff, so the main topic is how to REALLY use a computer, use programs, and create things. Also they need to learn to use their cameras better, and how to really make the photos nicer, delete when necessary, organize like crazy.
They will have a better time on this computer writing blog posts and other documents. We have OFfice 2010 Home and Student. I’ll upgrade this computer to Win 8 and have plans to upgrade to the new Office programs.
Years ago I had Office 95 (actually still have it, just isn’t installed). I loved it, I loved Access. I really wish they had that in H & S … but they don’t. It’s just not possible for us to buy 2 or 3 licenses for Office Pro, but I wish I could. In the old days it was easier to deal with these things, You could put it on a laptop and a desktop both. No real life restrictions. So we have H & S since it’s affordable for family use, even though it’s a lesser product, but not so bad.
I need to get more things going than ever, and it’s hard with limited funds. I’m hoping I can get some packages of somethings for my oldest two to rip through soon … it’s a high possibility. So we need to get on point and finish the Math-U-See levels they are on and go through more than one more before the end of the year.
Well, that’s just starting peek into what we are planning and getting done, or need to.