Windows8.1, spell checker, grammar checker or parallax website
garyg
Posts: 420
Hi
Is there anything on the Parallax forum that causes automatic grammer, spell checking etc. that
would cause my entering of post info to be delayed, interrupted, or in any other way
make it difficult to post comments to the forum.
I'm newly becoming familiar with Windows 8.1 and things have been quite goofy lately.
While typing this message, I've had to slow down to less than my normal typing speed in order to
be able to write this message.
Problem happens when a wiggley red line appears under where I'm typing.
Any comments, suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
It appears that my Forum Posting Difficulties have been resolved.
I'll add another message to this thread concerning what I've found.
Is there anything on the Parallax forum that causes automatic grammer, spell checking etc. that
would cause my entering of post info to be delayed, interrupted, or in any other way
make it difficult to post comments to the forum.
I'm newly becoming familiar with Windows 8.1 and things have been quite goofy lately.
While typing this message, I've had to slow down to less than my normal typing speed in order to
be able to write this message.
Problem happens when a wiggley red line appears under where I'm typing.
Any comments, suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
It appears that my Forum Posting Difficulties have been resolved.
I'll add another message to this thread concerning what I've found.
Comments
-Phil
I'll do some research on my browser.
This should work out.
My conversion to a new computer and not familiar software will, I'm sure take some time.
I'm very happy that the Parallax forum structure is not causing these troubles.
Once I get some of these basic troubles sorted out, I can then install my Parallax Microcontroller software on
this computer.
Upgrade to Windows 7
If you think that's a joke, you're quite wrong. Both business and home users are avoiding Windows 8 like ... well, like it was Vista.
I had to buy some laptops for my kids recently. and Windows 8 came for nothing - but the "Windows 8 preinstalled downgrade to Windows 7" cost me $200 bucks per laptop. This way, Micro$oft gets to claim they sold another Windows 8 licence, but they get the money for selling you Windows 7.
I paid, of course - Windows 7 is almost as good as Windows XP was, which was almost as good as Windows NT was, which was almost as good as ... but I think you get the idea. If it was me, I'd use Linux, but Micro$oft has the school market by the balls here in Australia, and our wonderful new "progressive" government no longer believes in providing school kids with computers, so now they all have to buy their own. Tough sh*t if you don't have the bucks.
But I guess there's one good thing about Windows 8, at least from a Micro$oft perspective - it finally makes Vista look like a raging commercial success!
I was black humour!
I always find stories like yours amazing, disturbing and depressing. I seem to have been reading them more and more in the last few of years.
They always go along the lines of: MS OS or other product is horrible, expensive, I didn't need it, I didn't want it....but bla bla....I bought it anyway.
I don't know what kind of madness this is. Millions of people the world over paying year after year for stuff they don't want or need. Whilst complaining about it all the time. Meanwhile MS profits reach record highs.
Conspiracy?!#$
Seems that the algorithms used in XP update software to figure out what patches it needs and apply those patches was such that the time it would take to apply updates was proportional to the square of the number of updates there had ever been. Or worse. As such XP update was taking very noticeably longer and longer.
For example: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/exponential-algorithm-making-windows-xp-miserable-could-be-fixed/
Win8 failed to catch, must be those cold Wisconsin nights taking their toll on the hard drive...
If wee new how two spell wee wood knot kneed a program too czech it. Dough!
That meant the when the thing broke down you could fix it yourself. Or if you didn't have the time or skills get your local radio man to fix it.
This used to hold for cars as well where detailed repair manuals were often available. I even had one from Yamaha for my motorcycle back in the 1980's
The equivalent for a piece of software, especially an OS, is that "breaking down" means security holes and bugs are found that need fixing or that new devices need to be supported and so on. Indeed this is often called "software maintenance". The equivalent of the repair manual is the source code and documentation of the software.
So I propose that MS should be required to provide the source code and documents for any product they do not want to support any more.
(No offering a whole new OS with a different user interface, hardware requirements, and software incompatibilities is not supporting the old product).
That way we could fix security issues and bugs ourselves. Or if we don't have the skills some experts would do it for us, for money of course.
Is that asking too much?
http://www.techspot.com/gallery/member-galleries/p4878-macbooks-offer-great-windows-support.html
It appears that my brouser does not play well with the Enhanced Interface - Full WYSIWYG Editing Message Editor Interface.
My old XP windows worked fine with that setting, but now that i'm using Windows 8.1, Explorer and outlook as my internet stuff replying to posts was very difficult.
I changed the setting in my Forum settings to the Standard Editor - Extra formatting controls
Now I can actually type a reply or new message thread without having trouble when typing the message.
The only thing that is happening, is that mistakes in grammer or spelling still show up with the red squiglly line under the suspicious words.
I really don't mind that.
It's no longer slowing me down.
I truly don't understand how the internet brouser, Outlook, Windows 8.1 actually work together, but
changing my settings to the standard Parallax Editor Interface appears to have resolved this issue.
In the very near future, People reading my posts may find some interesting new spellings of words, as I now can't find a spell checker when making a reply to posts.
Its good to see serious responses and a bit of humor.
Those responses help to ease frustration.
Thanks
Garyg
I'd like to think that a computer OS might enhance my mental powers rather than dull them.. so I use LInux.
Linux seems to do searches much faster than Windows. Why so? Well, it seems that every time MS creates a new version of Windows, they feel obligation to add more complexity to the Registry, to expand the size of the OS to sell ever larger hard disks, and to make their security more convoluted and obscure.
So, you buy a bigger and faster computer only to have it bog down with slower and slower OS operations. Vista was the prime example of this.. rather dismal. Windows 7 of course followed as a fix. So Windows 8 is just the next stupid move.
At least wait for Windows 9, if you must have Windows. Xp is over.. try to move on.
For what good it does, I've corrected my original subject line spelling of grammer to grammar.
I actually looked it up in my 2" thick 1990's Webster's.
The Microsoft trap is somewhat overwhelming to me.
I never really liked the Microsoft approach, but it appears to me that If I want to communicate with anyone, using Microsoft things usually appears to be the way
to get things done. Not that I like it, but it appears to be that someone has a corner on the market.
If you can get a Linux mentor to install a Linux dual boot on an existing Windows machine, there is nothing to loose and a lot to gain. I get more work done, spend less time waiting for the OS to do things, and don't have annoying popups with dire messages.
I did the dual boot myself, but it was a challenge and I had to reinstall it several times before I got it right. For a novice in dual boot installations, one might panic and thing they lost all their Windows partitions.
These days, I am using Debian as it plays nice with Brad's Spin Tool. Ubunutu seems to have broken something that will support it. And while Mint does work, Mint refuses to work with Google for their own monetary reasons.
I do have Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 on various machines, as I have added dual boot to all that I have. But I seem to rarely if ever use Windows anymore.
Once the Linux is installed, you can actually search for and read files in the Windows side of a dual boot machine. That allows you to deal with your old stuff. For a new office suite, Libre Office is free and good. It is just a bit different that MS Office and of course MS wants to punish you by having some incompatibilities between the two. But for simple stuff, they are pretty much compatible.
And when you finally are up to speed in LInux, devices like the Raspberry Pi are easy to use. I have a Cubieboard that is pretty much a complete computer in a small package including a SATA interface.
What is the sticking point for you?
I look at it like this. If your circle of friends goes bad, starts taking drugs or drinking excessively, perhaps getting into criminal activity, you might find yourself following along with them for a while. At some point you might realize what is going on and decide it has to stop. At that point it's two late to try and talk them out of it. The only thing to do is dump your old friends and start a new life. It's not an easy decision to make.
I left my Windows using friends to their fate in 1997. I have no problem communicating with most of them. The ones who make it difficult are just being to rude to be friends any more. Please do elaborate. What does not work? What does not work with Google in particular. Whose monetary reasons, Google's or Mint's?
I was thinking to give Mint a try. If there are any show stopping reasons not to I'd like to know before I waste time on it.
I think it's that the Firefox installed with Linux Mint doesn't use Google for the built in search functions. They use something else because they get donations from them, but not from Google. It can be changed manually, but like a lot of stuff, it's not immediately obvious how. It's not a major issue, I'm beginning to think Google is best avoided these days anyway.
My early days of joyful Linux were Ubuntu 10.04 and up..., but at 12.04 they began to evolve into something a little too special. I did try Mint, and a few others. But all roads pretty much pointed to Debian as a final choice for me.
I switched to Debian because of the lack of Google in Mint, but also because I want Asian language support. I actually do use Chinese occasionally and Mint omits that.
The nicest thing about Linux is that you can have a multiple foreign language interfaces for Free; whereas Windows suddenly demands that you buy their Premium if you want any second language support.
It was time for me to accept that I had learned enough about Linux to choose between the two real sources of code --- Fedora/Red Hat and Debian.
Ubuntu, Mint, Puppy Linux, and the others make new users feel less daunted, but they each wander a bit further from one of those two.
Wine has progressed in Linux if you really must run some legacy Windows item under the Linux OS. I don't do so as I have the 'other OS boot' if I really need to run a Windows installed item.
++++++
Do we need a 12th step recovery group? Windows Anonymous?
I am totally with you. Why use a broken derivative of Debian when you can use Debian?
A decade ago I might have understood that Debian was a bit of hard work and that the Ubuntu "hand holding" was a good idea. Today no. Debian just works.
The thing about the lack of Google in Mint amuses me. I have Firefox installed on my Debian machines. Where did I get that? From the Mint package repository. Google is the default search engine!
Wine is cool. If only because one of my most favourite programs "LTSpice" works out of the box under Wine and is a very good circuit simulator.