Making The Technology Pieces Work Together

I have been undergoing a long, very slow process of getting all of my new technology to work together.

 

I have started my new Windows 8 computer, installed a couple online poker sites, and watched a hand on each to site to make sure that everything works.  That doesn't mean that I'm ready to use it.

 

I recently purchased another piece of technology, a one terrabyte external hard drive, to be used both for backing up data, and moving data from the old to the new computer.  After a lot of my own reseach and posts in both poker and computer forums, I still wasn't satisfied with the answers.  I finally went to my local computer shop, and one of their techs told me how to go about it.

 

This isn't about turning things on and making sure they work.  They have to work very well, and I have to do the right things in the right order.  For example, I have to partition the external drive before I use the drive for backup, because data can be lost during partitioning.

 

Everything has to work seamlessly, and there are a lot of moving parts.  I have to transfer my antivirus subscription to the new computer.  I need to install my poker database and heads-up display.  I need to partition the hard drive, back up the Windows 7 data and move the hard drive data to the Windows 8 computer.  I have to move files around on the Windows 8 computer, so that my data (mostly business) and my wife's data (mostly family and home related) will be stored under different master folders.  I have to get my hand histories from the poker sites, and put them in my database.

 

I also have to make sure that all of the different parts work together.  I have to make sure that the database and heads-up display work together.  I need to make sure that my very aggressive antivirus program recognizes and allows both poker sites, the database and the heads-up display.  And all of these steps have to be done in the right order.  I just got an idea that will make this simpler--I'm going to flowchart everything, so that at a glance I can see how everything fits together!

 

You get the idea. I said in a previous post how important it is to make sure that all of the technology works well, all the time.  I keep running into new problems, both small and large.  Last night it took me 20 minutes of googling to find an online manual for my external drive.  The picture on the brochure didn't look anything like what I saw when I opened the drive's dashboard display.  The URL on the little brochure that came with the didn't take me to a manual.

 

I've been working on this for quite a while, but everything has to be right.  If it takes me another month, then that's what it takes. I certainly hope that that is not the case.