Yay! The new laptop is here!

After going without since September I finally have a new laptop. Blogging, typing up and editing stories and many other things are infinitely easier on the laptop. I’ve seen a number of people on Facebook asking if they should get a new laptop of just an ipad/tablet/whatever. allow me to ramble.

I love my tablet. I use the hell out of it for everything from silly games (and I’ not just talking Fruit Ninja and Angry Birds, I have three horse raising/training apps) to typing up reviews, email, music,  and general life organization. It’s mega useful because it fits in my purse and I can keep track of my books and movies so I don’t double buy, keep a current schedule and to do list, a digital checkbook and even my dogs’ shot records all on one thing. I have Uno with family mode if we’re at a restaurant and it’s taking forever for food to arrive. It’s use at tweeting and uploading pictures to my facebook is fantastic.

But some things on it just sucks. There are mobile version of websites that suck (like Facebook, which for some reason wouldn’t let me edit pictures/albums or Mapquest which wouldn’t let me get directions because I denied it the right to log my location, despite that I needed directions to help Jason get past three miles of a highway being closed while I was safe and relaxed at home in my jammies). There are somethings I’ve never really found out how to do on it, like making cover art for my self published books, editing the epubs or editing my stories (I can read them, but the app versions of open office and word won’t let me change the documents.) Then, there’s autocorrect. And finally, the truth is, love my tablet, but I type so much faster than it can keep up with that I went back to writing by hand. If I didn’t watch it the sentence would turn to complete gibberish unless I stopped every few words to make sure the tablet was keeping up. And hitting the wrong buttons on a touch screen can be so insanely irritating.

So I ABSOLUTELY advise writers still keep that laptop around.

My new one is an HP, she’s purple and her name is Beauty. I have this thing about naming my computers. The very first one was a Dell named Baby. When I told Jason I wanted to work toward being a professional writer he bought her for me to encourage me. I had her for nine years. She worked very well for me. In fact it was while I was transferring my files from her to an upgrade that she died. Seriously, she died right after I transferred the last family photo with my second laptop on my lap.

The second laptop was a Toshiba named Behemoth. She was a beautiful beast, 17 inches and maxed out on everything when I bought her. After no problems for about 4 years in September she started having power/overheating problems. It’s sad because we totally abused her. We got her running again, but in October she took a fatal cup of water to the keyboard. I still have her quite corpse and hope to frankenstein her back to usefulness.

In between I got a Cruz ereader I named Little B because she was a little bitch. Slow, grumpy about the internet, not licensed to use Android apps she looked slick and pretty, but was the back alley, cobbled together version of a tablet made by someone who had never actually used one before. And my current tablet (a real tablet), a Toshiba Thrive named Bug (as in Ladybug) who has been a totally awesome sidekick but can now let someone else take the hard work and go back to just being a sidekick.

Anyone else name their electronics?