What’s up? :)

Well, well. It’s been a long while, dontcha say? What have I been up to? Other than working, I’ve been playing with my two babies (Matt and my laptop). 😀

  1. I finally bit the bullet and activated Bitlocker Hard Drive Encryption on my HP dv9700t laptop. It is not as bad as I feared and I’m actually surprised at how smooth it has been. The process of encrypting my disk took place overnight and I was ready to roll the next morning. I haven’t noticed any performance issues. If anything has been wonky, it’s the encryption file system that I’d been using to protect some of my files. What Bitlocker does is whole disk encryption and this pretty much renders your computer’s actual disk useless to someone who wants to know what’s on the disk, but doesn’t have the key. I’ve come to the conclusion that perhaps needing my USB key before my computer can boot up is not such a bad idea and probably more secure. One of the scenarios that has played out in my head is if for some reason, my laptop gets snagged by a less than trustworthy TSA agent, they can’t do squat with the laptop.
  2. The other thing that I finally got around to doing was testing out the ReadyBoost feature of Windows Vista. I purchased a SanDisk 2GB Extreme III SD Memory Card (SDSDX3-002G, Bulk Package) and I can say that since I already have 4GBs of memory, I don’t think my computer’s any faster. To my jaundiced eye, methinks the card I got is bogging my computer down. Hmmph. Anyhow, I got the card for less than $14 so I’m keeping it for good luck. lol.
  3. My cheapo mini-mouse finally died on me and I didn’t waste any time in getting a ‘real’ mouse from Logitech. It’s a good old-fashioned USB mouse because I’m done trusting newfangled items like bluetooth mice(?), etc. Remember my experience with the Logitech bluetooth mouse?
  4. I’m having a hard time with Nvidia’s apparently buggy drivers for my 64 bit Vista laptop with the Nvidia GeForce 8600M GS graphics chip. How hard can it be to produce something that won’t cause my computer heartburn? The drivers on their website won’t work for me and HP’s website doesn’t have any information on this issue. One more bluescreen because of my Nvidia GeForce 8600M GS graphics card and I will be calling HP technical support for an upgrade. Trust me, I’ve become an expert at knowing my rights when it comes to these things. Right now, I’m just waiting for HP’s premium headset to break again on me and they had better be ready to put up with me.

That’s pretty much about it. I’m looking forward to having a great week and I wish you all the same!