Playing with Beta

This is going to be a total geek post, so you have been warned!

In case you haven’t heard Windows 7 is coming out soon, but until that time you are able to download and install the RC for free. The actual download of the ISO file has been removed but there are still ways to get it, and you can still get keys from the win7 page.

I’m still in the process of getting all my files installed, and my drivers updated, but I can give a little review of my experience so far.

First, because I was upgrading from XP I had to do what they call a “custom” upgrade. What this really means is that you have to wipe your hard drive and install win7 from scratch. There are some files that I was surprised were actually still around after the upgrade given what the installer said would happen. The actual install was very quick and it took me longer to back up my files to my external hard drive than it took to install the update.

The first thing that you see when restarting the computer for the first time after the upgrade is that the loading screen is totally different. No longer do we have to stare at a moving bar graphic. The new graphic is very visually appealing and actually enjoyable to watch. Speaking of booting up, the startup time for win7 is amazingly faster. Really, it’s a huge improvement there!

Next is the desktop. The new taskbar is a big switch and something that takes a little getting used to. In past versions of Windows you could set up quick launch icons on your taskbar, but when the program was launched another version of the icon was created to let you know that the program was running. Not so in 7; now what happens is that a little graphic is added around the icon to let you know that it is running. This is nice because it takes up less screen real-estate and also is less intense on the your graphics card. Another nice aspect of the new taskbar is that items are grouped automatically. Now this has been done in past versions but the new way in which this works is a huge improvement. If you mouse over the program stack a little menu will open showing the individual windows. From there you can select the one you want to visually display, or you can even close them from this menu.

There are some programs that I have yet to be able to run, such as Logos (which is a huge must for me!) but there are still some settings I have to play with in an attempt to get it to run. There is a mode which I’m going to try which will emulate previous versions of windows and run the program as if the OS was that previous version.

Overall I think this is a huge improvement and look forward to exploring it more and finding all the new features.

To Drug or Not to Drug…? Part 2

Well we decided to start her on the treatment and it has been interesting so far. Not much to say at the moment since it has only been a couple of weeks and it can take three to four before it gets into the system and starts working. He also wanted to start her on the patch as well and so we have started that too.
She seems to be doing fine and the first week of school was very normal which was nice. Hopefully that continues!

To Drug or Not to Drug…?

Well after having our phone appointment rescheduled four times we finally got a chance to talk with Sarah’s doctor. After all of the tests that we have had done, the medications she’s been on and the special diet, it looks like she is going to have something more added.

Basically she’s gotten to the point that she is pretty typical, but her dopamine levels just will not come down into an acceptable range. So that leaves us with some interesting choices. We can go with a medication that will help regulate her levels, which is something that Hannah and I have been somewhat leery of in the past. The other option is to give her the nicotine patch.

Yeah, that’s right, the patch. Our almost seven year old might see some benefit from the latest thing to help smokers quit. The thing is that the medication and the patch act in almost the same way, but there are of course other things to consider. The patch will show immediate result, which is a solid plus, however may not be the best for her situation because the main issue is she gets a little “crazy.” And when I say crazy, I mean random; things like random words that don’t literally mean anything and just laughing and being silly. The big thing is the crazy speech though. So we can try the patch, and it may help with that issue some.

The other option is to use an anti-psychotic medication on a very, very, minimal dosage. The benefit with that is that it will probably help more in the long run and help to actually bring the levels into a manageable range. But it will take a couple of weeks before it even starts to show any benefit. So the question is which will be better?

We’re still thinking about it and discussing what we feel would be best for Sarah and of course we are praying for God’s wisdom in all of this.

Happy Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s day to all the mom’s out there. We celebrated on Saturday since we have church Sunday and trying to go out is just insane. I helped Hannah paint her nails and will probably give her a massage later. The kids each made cards in school which are just totally adorable.

Door Knobs and…Broom Sticks?

So this morning Hannah was leaving the house when upon closing the door, the knob came off right in her hand. Well needless to say that wasn’t the best thing in the world, but she locked the deadbolt and went about her morning.

When I got up she mentioned this to me and so we set out to get it fixed. Now we have been needing a new one for a while as the old one was really sticky and you had to turn it just the right way in order to get the door open. We got used to of course but this really forced our hand into making the necessary change.

We headed out to Lowe’s and got some lunch along the way. Man there are a lot of options for door knobs. Different colors, shapes, sizes, etc. And then there are the keys! We actually needed a couple extra keys anyway so we bought a couple of cute ones for ourselves (Mickey and Minnie of course!).

When we got home getting the old one out was no problem, but getting the new on in…that was work. I was literally dripping sweat by the end of it! The hardest part was getting the screws to go in for some reason, but it finally was done.

So now we have a nice new door knob that actually works and you don’t have to be tricky about opening the door.