No Brainer

Live.com just came out with a new version of their calendar. It resembles the Google Calendar, but looks a little more extensive. After logging into Live.com and going to the new calendar, I tried a few things to see the differences and to see which I prefer.

I first created an event for the day. It works very similar to Google except it automatically adds a time to the event when one isn’t typed in. The Google Calendar doesn’t add a time unless you type the time in. Any event added without a time is automatically added like an All-Day Event. One other difference was in deleting the event. After I deleted the event, the screen took a little longer to refresh than the Google screen.

One new feature Live.com Calendar offers is Social Events. You can create an event and invite others to join in on the fun very similar to Evite.com, but a little easier to work with and the map of course ties right into the invitation since Live.com has it’s own mapping system from Microsoft.

The only option Live.com Calendar is missing that Google Calendar offers is the ability to share the calendar on a blog. Live.com only offers a link for someone to click and view the calendar. Other than that, Live.com Calendar is very nice.

However, for me, because I use the feature Google offers that Live.com doesn’t - availability for blogs - I will continue using Google Calendar. To some it may not be a big deal. But to me, it’s the whole reason I use the Google Calendar so I can show it on one of my sites.

Maybe, after a bunch of users try it out and complain to them, they’ll add that feature. But for now, I’m sticking with Google Calendar, not just because it’s got one more feature, but because it has a little simpler control panel and is a little more straight forward.

My first notebook computer was a Zenith, back when they made computers. Zenith no longer makes computers because they either sold that side of their business to a larger company, quit because they thought it was not profitable or they got forced out of that particular line of work because other companies were stronger. For whatever reason, it’s too bad because that notebook computer lasted me many years without any major problems, unlike the computers I keep getting these days.

My Zenith notebook was a Pentium I. At that time, it was not a top-of-the-line computer, but it worked like one. The notebook computers these days whether they are top-of-the-line ones or not, don’t work like top-of-the-line computers at all. They seem to breakdown or have problems within the first month or shortly thereafter no matter how low or high the pricetag is.

From my experience, used refurbished notebook computers are better purchases than new ones. They already have the kinks worked out and faulty parts have been replaced with better working ones. The computers have also usually been tested by people to make sure they work and work right.

So if you are in a situation to buy a new notebook computer, you might want to rethink going out and buying a new one, one that hasn’t been tested or used by someone else. If you do decide to get a new, you may consider asking the salesman if you can have the floor model. If there are any problems with it when you check it out on the floor, they’ll probably fix it or give you a discount on it where you can take it home with you and get it worked on under the store warantee. Once you get it back, it should be good as new and you will probably not have any problems with it for years to come.

I’m in the market for another notebook computer as of yesterday, when my Sony Vaio of only three years quit completely! It died. It’s probably the power source, but it isn’t worth buying a new one because there are several other problems with the notebook that I don’t consider it worth fixing. I’ll probably sell it out piece by piece to someone with the same model looking to fix the one they have instead. It was the only other notebook I had that didn’t die within the first year or have some sort of failure that rendered it useless. The only problems I had with it was overheating, something that was caused by a dirty fan, keys that don’t work on the keyboard, a broken screw on the inside of the screen that makes the screen wabble sometimes when the other screw isn’t tight, and now the power source. Other than those problems, it worked well.

My next notebook computer will definitely be a used one, one where I know the problems before I buy it, or at least know about the ones that got fixed before I bought it. What will yours be?