New Laptop - Notes

I'm going to log more notes about my new laptop experience.
HP Pavilion dm4-1065dx

Blogged here first.

Dual Monitors
I hooked up my old
17" 1704FPT Dell Ultrasharpe Digital Flat Panel
to my laptop for photo editing purposes.
Google it for documentation online.

AND
HP Pavilion dm4 monitors multiple
Google it for documentation online.

I was using the DVI cable on my old computer, so all I had to do was hook up the VGA cable to monitor and laptop.
Then use laptop keyboard function 4 key for switching to dual monitors modes.
Also, right click desktop in Windows 7 and choose Graphics Properties
Tweak:
General Settings
Multiple Displays
Color Enhancement

My old monitor has a warmer color tone and is brighter than my laptop screen. The colors are more washed out on my laptop. Turning gamma down enriches the colors.

Sometimes I had to press the minus (-) button on my old Dell monitor to get it to display what was on my laptop. So the dual monitor modes are a little quirky to work with. I haven't quite figured out the Extended Mode. I think I should be able to work with two different views in that mode. Duplicate Mode displays same on both.

PaintShop Photo Pro X3 (PSPPX3)
I installed the trial version and the first hurdle I had to get over was the black background white text interface. Extremely difficult to read on my laptop. I looked in File, Preferences first and tweaked settings there, but could not find anything on the interface. But alas, I found where I can switch the interface. View Menu, and uncheck Use Graphite Workspace Theme. I haven't used PSPPX3 much yet, but so far I like it. I kinda like the new Organizer. I can view the EXIF info from there and I like that for my photography. I have the old Browser in Paint Shop Pro 9. I've heard so many negative things about Paint Shop Pro since Corel bought it from Jasc, I was real hesitant to try it.

Microsoft Office 2010 Home Edition
I have Word, Excel, Powerpoint, One Note, and Tools
So far I've only worked in Word and I'm liking that quite a bit too. At first the ribbon interface looks really busy--too much info squeezed on there and it took some time to find things. But after I found out I can right click anything and add it to the Quick Access Toolbar at top left of screen, that made things a whole lot easier and faster to access.

I really like all the added features under the Insert Menu. I can do a lot with photos right within Word. I looked in File, Options and tweaked those settings quite a bit. Turned off all the automatic stuff, so no surprises. I created a macro to paste unformatted text with ctrl/alt/v key combo.

Windows 7
So far Windows 7 has been easy to use and I like it. With Windows Media Player 12, I missed the Advanced Tag feature right away, gasp. And a whole lot of tags are just simply gone and no longer editable. Wow. I thought the album art was kind of a train wreck since it wasn't accurate and didn't work when I tried to change it. I'm still trying to figure it out. I think if I paste in my own album art, I still have to update it for it to take effect maybe? It's quirky. I'll go in and change some album art on one song and WMP12 will add that same album art willy nilly to a bunch of songs with different artists. Hello? It kept doing that. I finally just gave up on it. I usually just click on the Title Column to get a compact list of all songs. The album art icon shrinks down to tiny size and I can just ignore it.

Laptop Speakers
The sound is noticeably "tinny", not the best speakers.
Click volume icon on Taskbar and select Computer icon to get Speakers and Headphone Properties.
Under the Enhancement Tab, checkmark Boost Base and then tweak the settings. This helped the sound quality somewhat.

I may edit and/or add to these notes later.