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So I spent much of today transferring to my new computer. Unlike previous moves it was not just much a matter of swapping in the hard drives, but I was glad to note that there is an IDE socket on the motherboard should I ever need it.
As I had hoped Windows 7 (already installed) allows for on-the-fly resizing of the primary partition - although the now seems to be a "System", "Boot" and "Primary" partition before you get into extended partitions). So I was able to quickly shrink it to a size which will hopefully be enough for the OS and then add back in my usual separations. They are of course somewhat larger than the old ones, but once they were set up I was able to just suck applications and data across the network from the old machine. Most of the settings came over as well, Firefox "portable" being a notable exception.
Media and photos are transferred, "work" will be done at a later date in conjunction with my annual tidy up / archive of inactive sites. I still have to set up synchronisation and backups for -anything-, but until there is new data that's not a big issue. I'm planning to more aggressively back up offsite to the cloud this year, so I have to spend some time checking out options.
Navigating two computers with only one monitor was/is entertaining (the old one in the VGA port, the new in the DVI). Also managing two mice and two keyboards, as I kept trying to use the primary keyboard no matter which computer was onscreen. I did have the new box up on the desk while this was going on - now it is down beside and the old box is tucked behind the desk, so there is more room.
The old box gets to hang around as an XP machine for browser testing until I get virtualisation sorted out.
I had issues reading text in Win7 all day, but I've just figured out to turn Cleartype *off* and it's made a world of difference to legibility. The "Favorites" taking up space at the top of the Navigation Pane and the additional "Libraries" and "User" items before you even get to you folder list are incredible annoying. I will look more closely at these "Library" things though, they could be useful.
Pinning to the taskbar is nice, I can -almost- do what I used to with the quick-launch bar but even at a "small" size the icons just have too much space around them. So I have a custom toolbar for the items I use once or twice a day. Chrome also seems to be having issues with launching from the taskbar, or more likely Windows is having issue launching Chrome from the taskbar.
Another issue is VLC not handling wmv files (or anything using WMV1, WMV3 and probably WMV2) encoding) - it'll play the audio fine and Windows Media Player (yuck) will play them, so that's an issue which can be addressed later.
Also left to do at this point/this evening:
- install printer and scanner, will doubtless want to download the latest drivers
- [edit: Fuck. Scanner is obsolete. 64 bit drivers are just not happening]
- install joystick (should be fine) and headset (will probably need drivers)
- see if my favourite configuration of Winamp still works of if I'm going to be looking for an alternative solution to that. Digsby docked to the side of the screen OK, so I have hope.
As I had hoped Windows 7 (already installed) allows for on-the-fly resizing of the primary partition - although the now seems to be a "System", "Boot" and "Primary" partition before you get into extended partitions). So I was able to quickly shrink it to a size which will hopefully be enough for the OS and then add back in my usual separations. They are of course somewhat larger than the old ones, but once they were set up I was able to just suck applications and data across the network from the old machine. Most of the settings came over as well, Firefox "portable" being a notable exception.
Media and photos are transferred, "work" will be done at a later date in conjunction with my annual tidy up / archive of inactive sites. I still have to set up synchronisation and backups for -anything-, but until there is new data that's not a big issue. I'm planning to more aggressively back up offsite to the cloud this year, so I have to spend some time checking out options.
Navigating two computers with only one monitor was/is entertaining (the old one in the VGA port, the new in the DVI). Also managing two mice and two keyboards, as I kept trying to use the primary keyboard no matter which computer was onscreen. I did have the new box up on the desk while this was going on - now it is down beside and the old box is tucked behind the desk, so there is more room.
The old box gets to hang around as an XP machine for browser testing until I get virtualisation sorted out.
I had issues reading text in Win7 all day, but I've just figured out to turn Cleartype *off* and it's made a world of difference to legibility. The "Favorites" taking up space at the top of the Navigation Pane and the additional "Libraries" and "User" items before you even get to you folder list are incredible annoying. I will look more closely at these "Library" things though, they could be useful.
Pinning to the taskbar is nice, I can -almost- do what I used to with the quick-launch bar but even at a "small" size the icons just have too much space around them. So I have a custom toolbar for the items I use once or twice a day. Chrome also seems to be having issues with launching from the taskbar, or more likely Windows is having issue launching Chrome from the taskbar.
Another issue is VLC not handling wmv files (or anything using WMV1, WMV3 and probably WMV2) encoding) - it'll play the audio fine and Windows Media Player (yuck) will play them, so that's an issue which can be addressed later.
Also left to do at this point/this evening:
- install printer and scanner, will doubtless want to download the latest drivers
- [edit: Fuck. Scanner is obsolete. 64 bit drivers are just not happening]
- install joystick (should be fine) and headset (will probably need drivers)
- see if my favourite configuration of Winamp still works of if I'm going to be looking for an alternative solution to that. Digsby docked to the side of the screen OK, so I have hope.
