'puters

Changing a hard drive is like buying a new computer.

Except that it does not come with all of those new programs and discs.

Everything is different. The version of iPhoto I was using is not on this drive. At $80 for a package, that is off budget right now, so I went looking for a replacement. So far I am using Picasa, which seems to be a workable alternative, except that it is a whole new program with a lot of it's own idiosyncrasies.

For one thing, it loaded all of the photographs on my HD. Problem is that I have a LOT of photographs that I did not take, tears, screen savers etc, so now my album is very cluttered. I'll keep working on that one.

Same thing with my word processing program. It was on a disc I paid for, but does not have the registation number in sight, so it won't load. I found OpenOffice which is a good program and it is free, but it is not quite the same.

Once I bought a program and installed it in my computer. Soon after that I changed computers and the old one would not load. A call to the company resulted in more frustration. I would have to buy a new copy for the new computer, so I went without.

Open source programs are pretty good. For an amateur like me they may easily take the place of the “standard” issue, but though the money price is lower, the learning price is up there.

I guess that will give me something to do!