I have a sweet little Dell Studio XPS 13″ laptop that performs infrequent and intermittent service, mostly as a reminder of the PC world as viewed from my elevated pedestal as a hardcore Macintosh fanboy. There but for the Grace of God, etc. Without a doubt, Windows 7 marks a fine advancement over Vista—although, truth be told, Vista wasn’t exactly a tough act to follow. However, Windows 7 remains Windows. And we all know what that means.
Today I awoke the Dell from sleep, upon which it spewed forth this Zen-like message, not once but twice:
A 65W AC Power Adapter has been determined. Your system will operate slower and the battery may take more time to charge. Please connect a 65W AC adapter or higher for best system operation.
Such an intelligent machine.
Besides, I do believe that the message should have read: “Your system will operate more slowly and the battery may take more time to charge.” Furthermore, “the battery may take more time to charge” is a bit imprecise. I suggest “the battery may require more time to charge.”
However, I do not expect Microsoft to exercise care with English grammar and syntax. Why should prose be an exception to their culture of slapdash mediocrity? Besides, it’s possible that the message box emanates from Dell, not Microsoft.
Anyway: Windows Remedy #1 (system reboot) vanquished that little whiff of the Diamond Sutra.
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On another front, even the posh Macintosh OS X isn’t immune from oddball problems. I had been having problems with video synching to external monitors ever since upgrading to Snow Leopard. Sometimes the doggone thing just couldn’t manage the trick without a reboot. However, the recent service upgrade to Snow Leopard 10.6.2 has done the trick, and now my beautiful MacBook Pro 17″ handles external video with the same crisp, trouble-free professionalism that characterized it under 10.5. Perhaps the past six weeks of inconvenience might have been avoided, but there it is.