Years ago I confronted my daughter's teacher who had given her an A+ on her paper. The paper had misspelled words, incorrect punctuation, improper grammar, and poor sentence structure. The teacher very assuredly explained that she was not concerned about any of those issues but rather that she had the concept of her thoughts on paper. This was tenth grade. I recall from my days in school that no matter the class, points were taken for misspellings, improper grammar, and advice given on sentence structure. A science teacher would correct a student's writing no less than an English teacher would.

With regards to news articles, yes, I am surprised and concerned about the poor writing skills that seems to permeate the articles. It is also disconcerting that people will read these articles, and over time, the inferior communications skills will propagate to be normal as people repeat and copy the articles as references within their own writings and discussions.

In some schools they have also stopped teaching cursive handwriting.

Yep, twisting and turning every control dial, knob, or ring to get the shot...

Very nice photographs! We encountered a coyote within the city limits of Tacoma, south side, a few days ago and were surprised to see on in town. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me, but also, she wasn't sitting still for any portraits.

True. One would think they would move forward with a better approach especially in cases where a smaller SSD is used for the OS and a larger spindle drive is there for data. In such cases, the default install should populate the spindle drive with the appropriate documents, pictures, videos, music, and etc., folders typically found on Windows systems. This would have mitigated Marg's issue from the beginning.

Marg,

Follow the instructions that Trix laid out for the majority of your data.

As for your photos, create a folder on the D drive titled, "Pictures" or "Pictures on D" or simply "Photographs". Open Lightroom and move your photos using Lightroom to the new folder on D. Once this is done, any images still in your "Pictures" folder on the C drive can be moved by the approach that Trix laid out. Taking this approach will keep your Lightroom catalog properly referenced to your images and will keep your catalog file on the C drive. For performance sake, you want to keep your catalog file on the SSD which is your C drive. Your catalog should not pose a problem on your C drive once you have moved everything and you will also have plenty of room to install DPP and other applications as you need.

I would caution against performing a full scale move of all data unless your are comfortable with redirecting Lightroom to where ever the photos are stored. It is not a difficult task but can be a bit of a problem at times.

And, yet, the manufacturers continue to configure their systems such that the general user ends up putting everything on the C drive.

Now that's a good one...got a chuckle out it.

I watched Tony a while ago upon a friend's recommendation and came away with the perception he is more about the show than photography itself. I haven't been back since---don't like his videos and put very little stock in his opinions.

Jeff,

No worries on the pestering. I am glad to help where ever I can. I have answered your private message and continued with further information there.

Indeed, it does. This means that the laptop monitor will be driven by the UHD620 and the external should be driven by the MX150. In essence, once the external monitor is connected, your system will be running two GPUs, one with shared system resources, the UHD620; and one with dedicated resources, the MX150. Running the external monitor on the MX150 will reduce the performance impact to the whole system. This one of the reasons I added a graphics dock to my Yoga when I am at home.

In all the material I have reviewed regarding this model, it appears that Acer may not have implemented the integrated graphics GPU in addition to the MX150. If this is the case, then the only graphics GPU you will be able to use is the MX150. There are two ways to validate this. First, you could go to Device Manager and review the list of display adapters the system says it has. If both are available, you will see the UHD 620 and the MX150 listed. Secondly, you could right-click on an empty space of your desktop, go to display settings, scroll to the bottom, and select "Advanced Display Settings". This will display the graphics card to which your laptop display is connected. If it is showing the MX150 then the UHD 620 is not implemented. A lot of what will limit your capabilities will be the hardware implementation surrounding either of the graphics cards. This is why I highly recommend going to a shop and just performing some tests. Remember to use "Extend" for your display selection when you perform these tests.

By the way, I am open to walking through this with you remotely if you wish. Just send me a private message and we can arrange a way to accomplish this.

I completely agree on the quantity of BS out there. Whenever I hear stories that what someone has been able to do with their system, my thoughts immediately turn to the questions of; What was the configuration? What parameters were used? What modifications such as overclocking, super cooling, etc. were used?

On the matter of taking the laptop to a store, do be mindful of the experience level of the person working with you. Many times I have walked into shops and overheard the sales reps try to oversell on the customer's requirements by using a lot of jargon. After the salesman walks away I often will ask the customer if I could speak with them and get them set up with what they need at a far less expensive price tag. I really detest selling for the sake of selling rather than meeting the customers needs.

Along this note, when a monitor is connected to a laptop, if the system cannot find an appropriate driver for the monitor, it will implement the Windows generic display driver. The monitor will appear to not work. Case in point, my BenQ would not work because Windows kept loading its generic monitor driver. I had to install the software from BenQ before it would work. You may experience this with some monitors and especially if they are more specialized or have feature sets not commonly found in most general use monitors. A television that doubles as a monitor can also present problems. A good approach would be to find the best general use, featureless monitors. These will most likely work immediately and will give you an idea of capabilities. Additionally, don't forget to use "Extend" displays to get the external monitor to operate beyond that for which the system is configured.

Hi Sir Bruce,

You have a very good point on the MX150 output. I overlooked that in my reading. The MX150, I suspect, shares system output resources with the integrated video card. It would be helpful to know the specific model of the laptop. This typically how general purpose laptops are built if they also include a discrete video card. Once an external monitor is connected, taking a peek at the advanced display properties will reveal which video card is driving the monitor.

My Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Yoga 3rd Gen had an integrated Intel UHD 620 graphics processor. This processor is capable of 4K but the display is 2560x1440. Connecting my BenQ to the HDMI immediately gives me a result of the same resolution. However, this is with the display setting for "Duplicate displays". If, on the other hand, I change the setting to "Extend", thus each display is functioning independently, then my BenQ will operate at 3840x2160 while my Lenovo display is operating at 2560x1440. All of this is without my Lenovo Thunderbolt Graphics Dock connected. Looking at the advanced display properties, the video card that is driving both monitors is the Intel UHD 620.

Connecting the graphics dock changes this such that the BenQ is driven by the video card in the docking station, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 while the Lenovo display continues to be driven by the Intel UHD 620. The interesting item here is that is does not matter whether I connect the BenQ to the display port on the graphics dock or the HDMI port on the Yoga, the BenQ continues to be driven by the discrete video card. I found this intriguing as this means that the discrete video card in the docking station is driving the BenQ through the Thunderbolt connection to the Yoga and out the HDMI port on the Yoga. In this case, the GTX 1050 is driving the output through shared system resource outputs.

You are correct in that the video capability is built into the architecture but the limitations are also had in the manner to which the manufacturer implements the architecture. Most often, the laptop manufacturer will not implement the full capability for their system builds but they also do not limit the chip's capability for external outputs. One just needs to know how to manipulate the system and its settings. In reviewing the specification on the Intel HD Graphics 4000, I would say that that you could probably squeak out 4K but I don't think it will be pleasant. There have been people who have used this card with 4K. I think the "HD" given to its name by Intel reflects Intel's intended application. Running at 1600x900 is already red-lining the video card.

Great conversation, Bruce!

Hi Bruce,

That all depends upon the video card in use and the manufacturer's design. Most video cards, integrated or discrete, are quite capable of 3840x2160. However, most manufacturers will use displays of lower resolution to keep the price and performance within their targeted market range. Additionally, the size of the screen often drives the resolution specs the manufacturer will implement. For most, 1920x1080 is sufficient and especially on a laptop. Any desire to go beyond that requires an external monitor. There are some laptops that have a 4K display, more commonly with 17-inch displays, but they are not as prevalent as those with 1920x1080 or some resolution slightly above or below.

Also, if the laptop has a discrete video card, often the laptop display is driven by the integrated graphics card while the external monitor is driven by the discrete graphics card with the discrete graphics card having more capabilities than the integrated card.

My Lenovo runs a 13-inch, 2560x1440 internal display while at the same time running a 27-inch, 3840x2160 external display.

You may be okay with pushing the resolution on this card. I would recommend taking your laptop to someplace like Best Buy or a friend who may have a higher resolution monitor and try it out. You may need to install appropriate drivers to make it work.

Here is a link regarding the performance specs of the MX150 which give some indication of performance capability but these are recommended gaming resolutions. For photography work, I believe it will not be as demanding as a game would be.

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce-mx150.c2959

For a reference perspective, I am run my Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Yoga 3rd Gen with a Lenovo Thunderbolt Graphics dock when I am working at home. The graphics dock has a GeForce GTX 1050 card in it and the recommended gaming resolutions are about the same as the MX150. Yet, I am operating my BenQ SW271 which is a 27-inch, 4K monitor, with no problems at all. In fact, I even play some FPS games with it occasionally.

If your laptop is handling your photography work reasonably now, it should have very little, if any, problems operating with an external, larger, higher resolution monitor.