High Profile
Dictionary
TV Programs
WhatIsMyIP.com
Yahoo! Home
Yahoo! Mail
Search Engines
Google Search
MSN Search
Yahoo! Search
Banks & Finance
Bank of America
Bankrate.com
Capital One
Citibank [+]
MyCiti
MSN Money
The Currency Site
Real Estate Value
Washington Mutual
Wells Fargo
Yahoo Finance
Directories
WhoWhere?
Four11
Bigfoot
Aust White Pages
UK White Pages
USA White Pages
Shopping
Amazon
BizRate Shopping
Buy.com
CNET Shopper
eBay
Froogle
Shopping.com
Yahoo Shopping
Weather & Radar
Adl- Buckland Park Radar
Adl- Sellicks Radar
Intellicast Weather
Oakland Radar
Oakland Weather
Featured Sites
Money Health Relationships
Bookmarks
AOL Home [+]
AOL Webmail
Arnold Watch
ARRL Home
Comcast
Consumers Checkbook
Consumer Watchdog
Craigslist
digg.com
Download.com
Drudge Report
Ecuador Newspapers
FactCheck.org
Fark.com
Go Daddy Software
Health Central
Junk Science
Kelly's Hot Links
Med Page Today
Microsoft
Mister Poll
Netcraft
NetYP Home
Privacy Rights
Quack Watch
Salon.com
Snopes Urban Legends
Spam Abuse Net
Spam Cop
Staged Homes
StarDate
Symantec (Norton)
The Onion
The Smoking Gun
Truth or Fiction
World Atlas
World Wide Words
Zillow Real Estate
More......
More Search
About.com
AltaVista
Anzwers (Australia)
Ask.com
Dogpile
Excite
Gigablast
HotBot
iLOR Search
Info Please
Infoseek
Kosmix
Lycos
Mamma
Meta Crawler
MultiCrawl (UK)
search.com
snap
WebCrawler
Sam's Page
on sammm.com
| Product Links
The following
sites |
Documentation AS/400 Library
iSeries
Information Center |
Links
| Odds and Sods | Guest Book
|
Last Updated
Wednesday, October 28, 2007 |
My old faithful GQ computer
After using a Dell 750 running Windows 2000 as my main PC for a few years, I installed Windows 2000 on a new Great Quality (GQ) PC from Fry's Electronics in January 2006. I built the software environment from the ground up and felt I knew all about it. I was totally in control of what was happening on the computer. An all around good experience, the hardware is excellent for the price, the AMD chip is remarkable, and Windows 2000 Professional has evolved into a very stable Operating System. I know Mr Bill Gates and Microsoft have their detractors, but in recent years I have few complaints.
Time to move ahead
But I feel totally out of control. With all that installed software, how is it possible to know what is happening under the covers. I thought buying a PC with Windows XP pre-installed was the way to move to XP without paying a fortune for the packaged product, but have learned there is a price to pay.
One example; I installed my Quicken 2004 without realizing that Quicken 2006 was pre-installed. At the end of the install it ran an automated upgrade to "Version 4". Eventually it turned out to be "Quicken 2006 Basic R 4", from the Help About window. The result is that the two versions appear to have merged. It was an unintentional downgrade, so I can't blame the software for not recognizing what was happening. Was the pre-installed version a trial version? Who knows? Bottom line is that it works and appears to be version 2006, even though the icon says Quicken 2004. But will it expire in 3 months? It keeps asking me to register. Will this cost? Probably. Research is needed here. Maybe it's time to RTFM.
A growing list of
observations
I've worked on and off with XP for several years while assisting other people, but this is the first time I've actually used Windows XP full time for my considerable regular daily activities. Here are some things I ran into in the few hours of normal usage.
Folder and file lists in Open and Save dialogs appear to display in the last Windows Explorer sequence selected for that folder. In my case this is by descending date/time. Very confusing, almost to the point of being unusable. Maybe there's an option somewhere.If a window such as a folder list is open on the desktop, and being used, and that window gets minimized, when it is restored gets repainted, and it is displayed as it was when it was first rendered. Doesn't sound right, but that's what's happening.
The Dell Image Expert has somehow changed the DEFAULT application for some file types to itself (JPG etc), so that if you change it manually and later click Restore Default, it goes back to Dell Image Expert, not to the XP default of the Windows Picture and Fax viewer.The Compaq background on the desktop isn't too bad, but it soon became an annoyance. Changing the background image to None left me with a blood red background. I found a way to change it to the more familiar blue background with "conventional" Windows style windows, more like the familiar W2K appearance. I have retained the XP Start menu, I don't want to be seen as too antediluvian. I am indeed a happy camper.
The mouse pointer continues to hourglass at random times, especially when I go to a Windows Explorer window. Even though the machine itself is noticeably faster, the net result in some areas is slower due to the hourglassing and window repainting. Then I often have to re-navigate to the files I was working with.
The pre-installed Google toolbar popup blocker in Internet Explorer is fighting with the inbuilt IE popup blocker. I guess I need to delete the Google toolbar.
Why do the icons in the bottom right corner populate from right to left?
Unrelated to Compaq or XP
Using Symantec's Norton Ghost to do automated daily backups to a second hard drive is working well. This will allow me to sleep more comfortably at night knowing that my data is safe. I've used older versions of Ghost previously to do monthly backups across the network, but now I don't even have to remember. Life is good!
The Dell All-In-One (AIO) Printer software changes file types and installs other products such as a fax application and Paint Shop Pro without giving any options to not install. The Windows Picture and Fax viewer I have been looking forward to gets lost in the shuffle.
Microsoft Outlook is one of the most difficult applications to set up I've ever encountered. Especially when all I want to do is use the calendar. Frustrating big time!Online News
CNN
American ABC
Australian ABC News
Australian ABC Video
BBC News
Fox News
MSNBC News
Google News
KTVU2 News
KRON4 News
CBS5 News
ABC7 News
NBC11 News
USA Papers
Boston Globe
Chicago Tribune
Los Angeles Times
New York Times
San Francisco Chronicle
USA Today
Wall Street Journal
Washington Post
Australian Papers
All Australian Papers
Adelaide Advertiser
Brisbane Courier Mail
Byron Bay Echo
Canberra Times
Melbourne Age
Perth West Australian
Sydney Morning Herald
The Australian
Computer News
CNET
CRN
Tech News
Tech TV
ZDNet
Potpourri!
Earthquakes
Australian Links
More......
Technical Sites
FTP Files
Broadband Reports
CNET Bandwidth
Gibson Research
Go Daddy Home
Go Daddy Whois
Netcraft
Network Solutions Whois
PC Pitstop
Register.com Whois
More......
Travel General
State Dept Travel
Travel Advisories
CIA World Factbook
Maps- MapQuest
Maps- Multi Map
Maps- Yahoo
NationMaster
Seat Guru
Travel Sites
Airlines Of The Web
Bestfares.com
Cheap Tickets
Cheap Travel
Cheap Trips
Expedia
Faremax.com
Hotwire
OneTravel.com
Orbitz
Trip.com
Travel Zoo
Travelocity
Yahoo! Travel
Airlines (Americas)
Air
Canada
American Airlines
America West
Continental Airlines
Delta Air Lines
Jet Blue Airways
LAN Airlines
Mexicana
Northwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines
Ted (United)
United Airlines
US Airways
Virgin Airlines
Airlines (Others)
Air New Zealand
British Airways
Japan Airlines
Jetstar
Qantas Airways
Singapore Airlines
Virgin Blue