Windows 11 and Kindle Publishing

As we approach the new year the weather is clear and cold up in the mountains. Not very good for photography but pretty good for tackling year end administrative details and sitting in front of the old LCD monitor. Yesterday’s big event was the upgrade to Windows 11. In my younger days as a computer geek I would have been all over the new developments but these days I was content to just wait for the announcement. In fact my desktop is now probably three or four years old so I wasn’t sure it was even going to be eligible for the upgrade.

But as it turns out, the other day when I booted up, Windows informed me that I was eligible for a free upgrade, a note which I gave the old “later” response thinking I might not even bother to do it. But after looking into it a bit and discovering that there were actually going to be performance improvements to the multi-tasking software plus some intriguing aesthetic enhancements, I decided to see if my computer really could perform the upgrade.

I checked over the requirements and it seemed that my little Dell actually met the requirements (of course after I had installed 32gb of memory and a 1tb aux disk) so I shut down all my tasks, even though it says you don’t have to, and fired up the download and walked away. A couple hours later the download was complete and the installation started automatically. That too went off without a hitch and I am now running on Windows 11. I have to say I am pleased so far, it seems to be a bit snappier and I like the look and feel. In fact an issue with my graphics card driver seems to have been repaired. One time I was messing with the colors and contrast on my monitor and something got completely jacked up, turning my whites pink along with various other problems. I had to switch my theme to dark mode to avoid the hideous colors on the task bar and backgrounds. There seemed to be no other way around it but now it all looks fine again. All my applications seem to be working well, including my Adobe products and Open Office which are really the most important things I use.  Today I will find out if the printer driver was affected.

I’m also proud to announce significant progress in my newfound book writing career, I have completed the first three short stories in my Photo Adventures series on Kindle! To accomplish this you need at least three stories to complete the three cover artwork displayed for a series. Kindle uses the covers of your first three stories to create a three cover collage. I decided for consistency’s sake I would stick to the theme of wildlife adventures and now that they are complete I have a pleasing three animal cover 🙂 Now I am fiddling around with some new ideas for a more substantial writing including a recounting of the year my wife passed from cancer and a new phase of life began called “Beauty for Ashes”. I don’t know if I will actually be able to deliver on that idea though, time will tell if I can actually get through the first chapter. If I can write the first chapter I may actually come through with that idea.

Today my big task is going to be trying to acquire a new season pass for Eleven Mile Canyon and Manitou Lake and maybe even a Colorado state parks pass, but I’m thinking I should probably have a new windshield installed on my truck first. Seems a shame to put shiny new stickers on a cracked up old windshield 🙁 But then again, it also seems a shame to have to put a shiny new windshield on a 25 year old truck… I keep thinking that there is going to be a Nissan Frontier 4×4 in my future but I seem to keep finding camera equipment taking priority over a new(er) vehicle. Which brings to mind the old saying for parents, “Teach your kids photography, that way they will never be able to afford drugs.” 🙂

As always, the best of these images and hundreds more are available for purchase on my website as wall art on glossy metal or acrylic sheets, stretched canvas and traditional matting and framing. Tons of cool household and gift items are also available with any image you like including coffee mugs, t-shirts, blankets and pillows, battery chargers, phone cases, stationary and much much more! Just click on any image you like and all the choices, sizes and prices will appear! For my viewers interested in images for commercial use, please visit my image licensing portal! Also, if you would like to see a more complete record of today’s images please follow my Instagram account!

Many of my adventures have also been captured on beautiful HD video on my Youtube Channel! If you enjoy my content please subscribe to my channel, subscribers have a big impact on channel rankings! Also be sure to check out my short stories on Kindle in my new series called Photo Adventures!

This post is not sponsored and all equipment used in it’s creation was purchased by me on my own volition.