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Cheryl's Tablet PC Diary - Day 13
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| About Cheryl Wester
Cheryl is a high school teacher that recently won a Tablet PC. This is the beginning of her diary based on using the Acer Tablet PC she won. |
Day Thirteen with my Tablet PC - DVDs on My Acer?
As I use my Acer more and more I find that I want it to do more. The more it can do the less I will need my laptop and the more fortunate my daughter (she will get the laptop) will be. I wanted to be able to watch DVDs and burn CDs on my Acer.
I went shopping and all the players I found were big-I didn�t want something that weighed a ton-I wanted something that was nice and lightweight. I purchased a couple of different CDRW drives and promptly returned them as they were simply too heavy and bulky for my needs. Finally, I went to Fry�s and that is where I found success. They had several different options for me and I really had to do some thinking. The Sony was really nice-it was small and could double as a MP3 player. It was also the most expensive at $299. Although, I liked what I saw, I didn�t like the fact that it needed the included cradle to connect to my USB on my Acer. Further shopping found a model by EXP. It is called the Slim CDRW/DVD Traveler. I liked the sound of that-it was made for traveling. The box was small, the picture was nice, and it said that it was Plug and Play. At $229 it was also priced more in the range that I had in mind.
It said that it could be connected by USB, PCMCIA, and IEEE1394. Of course I didn�t see that it was the PCMCIA version until I took it home. That was my error. I still decided to try it, though, as I have the PCMCIA slot and don�t use it. I followed the directions and oops-it had a floppy for driver installation. My Acer doesn�t have a floppy drive. It would not work without the drive so off to the Internet I went. At www.expnet.com I found the driver and downloaded it. Before I installed I did a quick restore point, as I didn�t want to crash my Acer. After that I didn�t have any problems installing and I was off and running.
I quickly installed the Nero software that came with it and the required software for playing a DVD. So far so good. I grabbed a DVD and inserted. It started beautifully and appeared, to the inexperienced eye, to run correctly. My problem was that I couldn�t hear it! Even when turning off all background noise and raising the volume to 100% it was difficult to hear. I then tried it with a headset, turned down the volume, and was then watching my DVD. What a perfect life it is. How fun to have access to all I need no matter where I am. The CD ROM drive that came with my Acer went into the closet and my new EXP took its place.
It forever amazes me as to what technology can do. With every day I wonder what tomorrow will bring.
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