Turkey Day / Computer Re-Build

 As mentioned in a previous post regarding how surprised I was (am) at how well windows 8.1 actually seems to be, I did go ahead and pull the trigger and re-build the machine. I started around 8:00pm last night (Wed, 27 Nov) and am more or less finalizing the rebuild of it now.  I obviously began the evening looking over / through both of the drives that live inside of the machine and pushing anything that I felt may be of some value to me to an external for backup.  I then popped in my pair of backup drives for my photo's and libraries and ran the backup for those too.

This was also going to be, needless to say, a jump into the fire so-to-speak, live test of my backup strategy - was it going to prove to be good?  I'm pleased to report that indeed I have been able to get my libraries back online with all of my previous edits, key wording, etc ... all intact.  Nice.  I was even able to bring back all of my previously defined plugin preferences, settings, etc ....   I've learned a few more things about windows 8.1 in the process too.  If you have it - get "Classic Shell"!  Trust me - you want this - it is very nice and really makes windows 8.1 MUCH more familiar and easier to use (at least for me) as it brings back the windows 7 "start menu".

So anyway... windows 7 blown away.  Windows 8.1 installed, configured, tweaked some, etc ....   Lightroom and Photoshop both installed.  If you haven't gotten in on the $10.00 a month deal on these two packages yet -- you'd better hurry up and do so before Adobe turns the offer off!  Seriously - you can't beat it.  Both are killer packages - and for an annual $120.00 for both??  C'mon....   I also just installed the brand new OnOne Suite 8 that I qualified for as I had only recently purchased 7.5 just a few months ago when they (OnOne) announced a new version coming out that includes some major revisions and updates.  I wrote them and asked about getting in on a free update and they obliged... cool!  :)  I've watched several of their recent webinars / online training classes on the new version and look forward to using it.  I'm almost expecting to not even really need photoshop between it (OnOne and Lightroom) but again - $10.00 a month for both LR and PS ...  I have it installed and available none-the-less....


Square Deal Riders first race of their 2013-2014 winter series this Sunday -- looking forward to that!  It'll be nice to get "back to work" and inhaling some race bike / quad exhaust.  :)

Next post will probably be after the races -- more later.