I was always a software man and this computer is showing that up.
Any offers of help, paif for or free in the London N1 area gratefully accepted.
March 10, 2020 - Posted by AnonW | Computing | Hardware, Surface Pro
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What this blog will eventually be about I do not know.
But it will be about how I’m coping with the loss of my wife and son to cancer in recent years and how I manage with being a coeliac and recovering from a stroke. It will be about travel, sport, engineering, food, art, computers, large projects and London, that are some of the passions that fill my life.
And hopefully, it will get rid of the lonely times, from which I still suffer.
Why Anonymous? That’s how you feel at times.
The Anonymous Widower
Where I work there is a fleet of Surface Pros, of various sizes/vintages.
The Surface Pro is supposed to be a premium product (evidenced lightweight/thin/small with touch screen to compete with Apple laptops) but we have have had a number of reliability issues, certainly many more than the more traditional Lenovo Thinkpads of the same vintage (X and L series, various sizes, SSD).
Some of the reliability issues may be down to an imperfect corporate build image of W10 for the Surface, seems very fussy in certain areas where other brands/models are not.
Also, the lack of USB ports and full size HDMI connector can make the Pro a bit of a pain in a work environment, necessitating various dongles to be carried/used. The more expensive power supply with non-standard connector is also an issue, in terms of having spares (one on the desk, one in your travel bag, and maybe one at home, and maybe extra HDMI dongles too to connect to a big screen at desk/home)
Comment by MilesT | March 11, 2020 |
Where’s the port for the SD card?
I also have all my pictures on a Western Digital MyCloud, which can’t communicate with the Surface Pro.
Comment by AnonW | March 11, 2020 |
SD card–you need to get a SD to USB adaptor, increasingly less common for laptops to have SD card slots. At least the adaptors are cheaply purchased online.
Not sure about MyCloud, if it is network connected it may be a driver or Windows10 increase in network security blocking; if it needs a non-USB connection then you will need to get a USB adaptor.
It’s also becoming increasingly common for laptops, especially smaller/business ones to have a smallish solid state drive (SSD), instead of a traditional hard disk. SSD is more power efficient, but aren’t necessarily as reliable long term than a HD, especially for traditional operating systems like Windows, Linux.
Comment by MilesT | March 11, 2020 |
What I intend to try first, is to improve the reliability of using OneDrive. Then I can use the SD card and the WD MyCloud on my old laptop or a low-mileage desktop to put the files I need there and then pull them onto the Surface.
Comment by AnonW | March 11, 2020 |
Or Google Drive/Google Photo, or one of the older photo sharing services (set up for private mode) or some other cloud storage (Apple, GMX/1&1).
I use both OneDrive and Google for various purposes, more usually Google than Microsoft because the browser based document apps on Google are much quicker and easier to use than the Microsoft equivalents although Microsoft has improved a lot of late (and I have used both “ecosystems” professionally in big corporate environments as well as traditional full Microsoft apps and LibreOffice–pros and cons to the various approaches)
Comment by MilesT | March 11, 2020 |