Christina Hollis—The Shock Of The New...

I love writing with a pencil, on paper. My ideal is a black, eraser-topped Woolworths HB (a type that's vanishing rapidly, from both ends!) on the right-hand page of a brand new exercise book.

You know where you are with a pencil. The same goes for your Work In Progress, unless somebody tidies it away. This isn't the case when you get technological. Almost without exception the publishing industry wants manuscripts sent as attachments to emails, and specifically Word files, at that.

My OH has been in the vanguard of technological perfection all his life. This is why we had a Betamax video player,  and if only he had the time to kickstart a Kickstarter project, Spitfires would fill the English skies once more. As he considers Apple superior to Windows for word processing, that's what I've got.

Find out more at http://bit.ly/1GEkZkJ

Technology is not my friend. It took me six years to puzzle out the original idiosyncrasies of my first Mac, by which time age and an over-stuffed memory (the machine, not me) gave it the excuse to add a whole new range of quirks and failings. This meant daily overheating and explosions (me, not the machine) as every function took forever—by which time it had forgotten what I'd asked it to do, and just tossed up any old thing. Think predictive text, only worse. And unlike that this was never, ever, funny.

Yesterday, OH came home with a brand-new computer, just for me. It has a screen the size of our chimney breast, and goes like lightning. I'm typing on it now, but very, very carefully, as nothing operates in quite the same way as it did on Old Unfaithful. This means I can now lose all my work in a fraction of the time.

I'm off to get a few chapters under my belt to get the feel of this new machine. Meanwhile, if anyone knows how to retrieve my playlist and library from cyberspace, I'd be eternally grateful! 

When she isn't cooking, gardening or beekeeping, Christina Hollis writes contemporary fiction starring complex men and independent women.  Her books have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and she’s sold nearly three million books worldwide. You can catch up with her at http://www.christinahollis.blogspot.com, on Twitter, Facebook, and see a full list of her published books at christinahollis.com

Her current release, Heart Of A Hostage, is published by The Wild Rose Press and available at myBook.to/HeartOfAHostage  worldwide, and from http://bit.ly/1iNf2Gw in the US.

Laptop Limbo : : Anne McAllister

This is the time of year that I should be making resolutions and cleaning my house after holiday celebrations and, according to my editor, finishing my book.

And I will – but first I need to find a laptop.

My laptop, Charley, whom I have loved for the nearly three years I’ve had him because he is light and fast and responsive, seems to have a fatal illness which hours of assiduous customer service and a complete wipe of the hard drive and a return to factory specs do not seem able to put right.

It  could be the fan. The fan makes a terrible grinding whirring gasping noise.  And then it’s silent, and I can’t think that’s a good thing for Charley.  I fear he will over-heat. So I shut him off. Then when he’s cooled down, he comes back on and behaves for a while, and then he begins to groan.  Also not a good thing.

I am not conversant in laptop-speak, but when even though I can personify my laptop to the extent of giving him a name, when he begins to talk to me, I worry.  I fear for either my sanity or his health. My sanity seems pretty good at the moment, so it’s Charley’s health that is definitely in question.

I have a friend who thinks he might have a fan he can put in my laptop.  But in the meantime, because while I love Charley, I realize his life span may be limited, I am looking at laptops. (I don’t say ‘replacement’ in his hearing, but you know what I mean).

So, do you have suggestions?  Recommendations?  Commiserations? 

Any of all of the above?

This is what I’d like: a 13” or 14” laptop with a fast processor (Windows, not Mac because I do stuff that I would have to change everything for if I got a Mac, even though I am sometimes tempted). I’d like it fairly light-weight and I’d like it to survive being dragged to the library and the coffee shop and where I teach my genealogy class when I’m not writing romances.

Another Charley, basically.

But unlike Charley, I don’t think I want to take this new one on serious long trips. I used to do that. Then I got a netbook and it was so much less stressful, not to mention ‘heavy,’ that I’m leaning toward that for travel.

I took Charley to New York a few weeks ago and he did fine. But he stayed in the apartment once we got there.   When I took him to Washington DC last summer, he stayed in the hotel room after the first day because he was too heavy to schlep across the mall every morning and back every afternoon. So I’m thinking a new one doesn’t have to stand up to the bangs and bumps of travel the way Charley did.

I want good customer service, which I have had with Dell. So I have no complaints there.  But that isn’t to say someone else doesn’t also have good customer service, though apparently some don’t. 

My daughter, who has a laptop of a different brand that begins with T, is not at all enamored of their customer service. “What service?” she has been known to shriek.

So, I would welcome recommendations and suggestions. Or warnings. 

Either one will help me narrow things down. I am leaning toward the Dell XPS 14z.  Do you have one? Do you know anyone who does? If so, I’d love to hear about your experiences. Forewarned is forearmed and all that.

Besides, if you warn me and I do it anyway, you’re entitled to say, “I told you so!”

Anne is working on a Christmas book. She’d better hurry and finish it because, as her editor says, “It is rather tied to a particular time of year, Anne.”  Er, yes.

  Her next title, Savas’s Wildcat, will be an April 2012 Presents Extra.  And her most recent book was The Night That Changed Everything, out last November  from Presents Extra.

Peripheral Woes : : Anne McAllister

Peripheral woes, I am here to tell you, are not peripheral.

They may be 'peripheral' to a computer, but they need to work or Bad Things Happen.

Bad things are happening here. Or, rather, Good Things are not happening.

For four and a half years, my printer never let me down. It was right there, ready to print, copy and scan day in and day out. As long as I remembered to buy it ink and keep it full of paper, it was happy. And so was I.

Then I did the unthinkable. I bought a new computer.

This was not a capricious decision. I needed a new computer. The old one was S.L.O.W. It was stuffed with files, and it made noises no self-respecting computer should ever make. The minute I turned it on, it sounded as if it had a serious respiratory disease. It wheezed. It groaned. Its fan went wonky. I expected it to die at any second.

So I retired it and got a new one.

The old one is now resting comfortably on the floor of my office and a flash-bang whiz-kid of a computer has hustled along to take its place.

So far the new guy on the block is doing a great job -- with one exception. It can't run my printer.

Well, no, that's not true. It prints just fine. It copies perfectly.

But it can't scan to save my life. Or its own.

I've downloaded it new software. I've installed everything perfectly -- the online guides tell me so. And then when I try to scan, the hourglass just spins and spins and spins. And if I question what is happening, it says, "Software not installed." But then if I go to install it again, it says, "Software is already installed."

I have been saying several four letter words.

I have not said them to customer service because the printer is so long out of warranty that I'm sure they will laugh at me for even expecting it might work.

So, I need your help.

I either need better advice on how to get my scanner to cooperate (while still making sure my printing and scanning functions work), or I need to get a new printer.

Any advice on the former or suggestions on the latter?

If I have to get a new one, it will be an all-in-one like my old one. I don't have room in my office or my life for dedicated anything at the moment.

It would be nice if I could network it to my laptop and my husband's computer. It would be lovely if it were fairly fast. And if ink didn't cost an arm and a leg. And it was reliable. And if customer service was actually that -- service.

What's been your experience with your printer/copier/scanner peripheral? Does yours fax, too? Do you wish it did anything else? Like washed the dishes and mopped the floor?

Hmmm. Boy, is that a tempting thought!

Anyway, I really would appreciate your advice. If you have a particular brand to recommend, please tell me. A model? I'm all ears. One to stay away from at all cost? I really want to know that, too.

To say thanks I'll send a copy of one of my recent books to five people who make suggestions. I'd send you the newest one, Hired by her Husband, except I don't have my author's copies yet. So it could be The Virgin's Proposition or one of the other Savas-Antonides books.

Give me your opinion on printer/copier/scanners and I'll put your name in the drawing. Then check back on Friday and see if you've won a copy. If so, please send your snail address to me using the "contact Anne" tab on the right hand sidebar of my blog .

Thanks!