this one's to Javier at Dell

[aruan]

Okay, so, yeah, everything that stood to be lost was lost. *lights a candle for her painstakingly organized bookmarks and fics* However, I need neither a new computer nor a full version of Microsoft XP, as it seemed at separate times this morning. Lesson learned: By upgrade, what they really mean is reformat. Why did no one tell me that I'd be losing everything no matter how successfully the OS change went? Anyway, I now have functionality again, a spiffy firewall and a perpetually licensed version of McAffee.

Tech-savvy people, I'd love some input before I go any further about remedying anything. I installed XP with a Product Key I was led to believe was valid, when in fact it was not. Now, I have come to understand, through many conversations with many people over the course of today, that my Product Key for Windows ME is still valid for upgrading to XP.

However, at this point, I'd no longer be updating but entirely reinstalling my operating system. Will my Product Key for ME work for a complete (re)install of XP?

Or can I change my Product Key without reinstalling XP?

Or do I not even need to bother because the contents of Service Pack 2, which Windows refuses to install because of my invalid Product Key, will not make or break my newly with-the-technology existence?

And not much else of anything.

Seriously, my computer is so naked I want to buy it booties or something equally cutesy and small to keep all its empty little folders and bare little menus from catching cold. And while starting over with a truly blank slate is somewhat thrilling, there is nothing in the way of programs besides Media Player, Movie Maker, and Wordpad. That's the height of my sophistication at moment present.

How can you help, you ask?

Well, you can contribute some meat to the anorexic bones of my born-again computer by recommending your choicest programs, favorite Web sites, most beloved fics (in pop, HP, LotRips, and vintage Star Trek) but for starters, a word processor would be fab (and, you know, necessary). iTunes covers music playing and CD burning, I have PhotoShop on a CD, and the rest - WinZip, Realplayer, Mozilla, HTML-Kit, WS FTP, AIM, Ad Aware, and Thunderbird - are to the best of my knowledge freeware. Thanks in advance.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, how are you going to make a movie of Goblet of Fire without the actor who plays Percy Weasley? No, really, what?!

Comments

[halimede.livejournal.com]

My ISP offers secure AIM (encrypted, as opposed to the really loud and potentially audible yelling across the ocean that most of us are doing now) as an experimental service, *not* limited to their own customers. The instructions are in Dutch, but also short and to the point, so I'd be willing to be help there if you want to try it. If you want to cut your teeth on Dutch, the info is here (http://www.xs4all.nl/allediensten/experimenteel/jabber.php). ;)

I like roughdraft (shareware) for writing, it's a very simple text editor with lots of lovely features for writers (auto-saving notes in separate file but same window, good search and replace, multiple clipboards, that sort of thing). It save in Rich Text & plain text.

Open Office is free, but when generating .doc files it wasn't *completely* compatible with MSWord when using indexing & things like that (same goes for macros in the Excel equivalent). Note that it was a while back, so I don't know how it is now.

I like the Opera Browser, but I've heard really good things about Firefox too.

Ooh! Yes, big one: Zoom Player is the best player for .avi & .mpeg and the like that I've seen. It's free, and the same files look better in zplayer than they do in mediaplayer or any other that I've tried. It also plays DVD's --*also* with better image quality. Impressed marycrawford no end when she saw the difference. It just does the image decoding better, I think. Find it here (http://www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_download.shtml). I've occasionally had to search for and add codecs (which is very easy), but it plays pretty much every file I want it to.

Oh, and the biggest one of all: Zonelabs (www.zonelabs.com) Zonealarm firewall. It is really, really, really good stuff. Note that it's free for personal use, though you have to be sure to check the right version in the download dialogue (though I think the pro version will revert to the free version anyway).

This site (www.grc.com) will show you how open to attack your computer/network is without it, on this page. (https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2) They also have some other nifty tests worth checking out.

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

That service seems to be something called Jabber, not AIM. It's fine, AIM as it is is only marginally annoying and just ends up being the most convenient, given its universality.

Roughdraft, got it. The HTML editor, besides a word processor, is my most immediate need given my classes.

Hm, and most of my documents are .doc files. We'll see on that. As many and deep a flaw as Microsoft Word had, it had page breaks and spellcheck and word count and being able to modify any text inline, features I haven't really seen all together in other editors.

Eh on Firefox (using it right now). It's like a beta version of the browser I was using before, MyIE2. I'm not sure if it has anything at all to go with IE, but its functionality is excellent, as are the features. Tabbed browsing, man. When did we ever do without?

Ooh, better? Somehow, XP improved my monitor resolution, which is interesting. It also changed the quality of the colors displayed, which are now somewhat less warm. I'll look into changing that, but a good universal player that improved the look of media files is just a grade-A idea.

The Dell gent had me download a firewall and modify my Windows settings, plus whatever the university has going on already. He said any more and it would slow things down considerably, but all the same, thanks for the rec. Safety is always smart.

*hugs* Thanks so much for all your help. If I'd had my phone (left it in lab on Wednesday afternoon and didn't get it back until yesterday night) I would've said screw it to overseas charges and called you right away.

[halimede.livejournal.com]

No, jabber is the program that makes it secure, it can handle the other 'regular' services. You just use a different program, but it does actually recognize your regular ID. :)

it had page breaks and spellcheck and word count and being able to modify any text inline, features I haven't really seen all together in other editors.

As far as I know Open Office has all those features. It's pretty much the same kind of thing as MS Word. As is Wordperfect 8 or 9 or whatever version it's up to now.

If I'd had my phone (left it in lab on Wednesday afternoon and didn't get it back until yesterday night) I would've said screw it to overseas charges and called you right away.

You're welcome. :) And good. Trans-atlantic phone calls aren't nearly as expensive as they used to be anyway. :)

[saturn92103.livejournal.com]

Switchknife's Rec Page: http://notquiteroyal.net/switchknife/index2.htm

Ink Stained Fingers Archive: http://inkstain.slashcity.net/password/main.htm

My rec page: http://www.a-thousand-words.org/moonshot/hprecs.htm

Post Hogwarts Harry/Draco: http://www.queerasjedi.com/emma/recs/posthw_hd_fics.html

Kai's HP recs: http://www.squidge.org/~kali/hprecs.html

Walking The Plank Harry/Snape Archive: http://www.subumbra.com/plank/

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

I'll never have to hurt for HP fic while you're around, and that's great to know. *g* Thanks for the links. I might be on a harcore Harry/Remus kick, but rest assured Snape is never far from my thoughts (in either direction of that pairing, as a matter of fact).

[saturn92103.livejournal.com]

I'm just recently starting to read Harry/Remus. Any good recs?

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, none at all. Miranda sent me a single good story, which remains the only one I've read worth bothering with:

http://archive.skyehawke.com/story.php?no=664

And even that isn't something I loved unconditionally. It's a really dismal state of things for that pairing, namely that the stories are too short, usually involve Sirius in some vaguely necrophilic way, and have Harry acting much younger than he should. Did we mention the next person who uses the nightmare scenario answers to me? Anyhow, hope you like it, but be careful with anything else that comes your way.

[nopseud]

I like Opera as a browser, although it isn't freeware (ad-supported, or ad-free with a licence).

For writing, I use NoteTab Pro, which is a .txt and HTML editor -- not fancy formatting, however. The Pro version isn't freeware, but there's a Lite version which is although it lacks a few features.

As I found out when I tried to reinstall on my new HD a while back, WSFTP no longer have a freeware version (bastards). However, this lead me to discover Core FTP Lite, a great freeware FTP program which supports SSL and is actually better than WSFTP.

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

Oof, the ad stuff is definitely a big caveat. I've been using Mozilla for the past day, but I'm not impressed and will probably switch back to MyIE2, which is fantastic. Tabbed browsing, excellent navigation, nothing but love.

Excellent. I need no fancy formatting - I'm old school (or you know, control freaky) and very happy with writing my own code.

Aaw, and that's a shame. However, hooray for better alternatives! Thanks for all the tips, much appreciated.

[nopseud]

Oof, the ad stuff is definitely a big caveat.

The advert system is extremely well behaved and very unobtrusive -- it's just one bar at the top of the browser, with no pop-ups or anything like that.

MyIE2, which is fantastic.

I think the problem with things like that is that underneath it's still IE, with all the IE security holes. I just hate IE, though :-)

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

Hm. Well, I checked out the reviews on download.com, and yeah, they mentioned it having the same vulnerabilities as IE (which, you're absolutely right, is a Bad Thing), which I didn't know about before. Most of the reason I'm not loving on Firefox is for the toolbar buttons and navigation - otherwise it's good. For a little security on the Web, I'd be willing to cope. Thanks for your input.

[halimede.livejournal.com]

Most of the reason I'm not loving on Firefox is for the toolbar buttons

Are they not customizable? They are in Opera. Try right-clicking on the toolbar area between the buttons and see if it has a 'customize' option in the menu.

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

Only to a very limited extent. And whenever you open a new tab, it opens at the end of the row of tabs, not right next to the one you have open. Also, there's no scrolling of the tab bar. It's little things, but the kind of ease of navigation I got spoiled by with MyIE2.

[halimede.livejournal.com]

All those things are possible in Opera too: Where a new tab opens is an option you can set in the preferences. At the end of the row is default, but with on check box you set it to next to active tab. Also Opera takes up less space on disk, loads faster and navigates faster than IE, and it doesn't have all those security vulnerabilities that IE has.

I just switched to Opera's mail client, M2, and it's fabulous. It's not the most intuitive interface, it did take a little fiddling to work out how it works, and how to make it work best for me, but now that I have it working I find it takes me far, far less time to organise my mail than ever before. I imported a couple of tens of thousands of messages yesterday (probably about 30000, yes, I counted the zeroes, that number is correct) and I have less than a thousand messages left unsorted (930, to be precise). That's 30 *thousand* messages sorted neatly into folders and virtual views in *one* evening.

So take this as another recommendation: If you're willing to take the time out, read a getting started guide or two, import some backed-up mailboxes and play around to get to know it, it *rocks*.

[madame-d.livejournal.com]

As far as I know, SP2 is a bitch that won't die and will mess up your computer. You're better off without it.

If you want MS Office, I'd be more than happy to share. Um... if you need any CD-ROMed software, email me. Chances are, I have it. 'Kay?

}:)

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

Good to know then, thanks. Though I think the question I missed asking is whether I should update in the first place. I'm trying not to regret it, but it's just a thousand little things you'd never think of all topsy-turvy right now.

Ooh, MS Office would be fabulous. As deeply flawed as Word is, it's got its place. Can't think of anything I might possibly need, but if there's anything you're particularly fond of, I'd appreciate the recs.

[madame-d.livejournal.com]

Email me with The Stuff (er... your addy, that is).

As for recs: I could just send you my entire pop folder. I tend to bookmark by author rather than story, and there's a *lot* of stuff in there.

Also, do you want Partition Magic?

}:)

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

Oh, the recs folder would be much appreciated. And ...Partition Magic?

[madame-d.livejournal.com]

In light of all the recent computer problems that I've seen, Partition Magic seems to be what everyone needs these days.

It's a small program (that you can probably grab on Kazaa, latest version is 8.something) that splits your hard-drive into chunks. So instead of one huge C drive, you'll have 2 or 3 drives (C, D, E or whatever). That way, only your programs go onto the vital system drive (C), and the rest (fics, personal folders, files, porn) can go on the rest of them, so that when you need to reinstall OS, or if your computer crashes, personal stuff won't be affected. Unless your actual hard-drive crashes, the C drive (and its issues) woon't affect the other drives. It's as if you have two separate hard-drives on the computer.

Unfortunately, bookmarks will still suffer, so I made a separate bookmark folder on my D drive and I just update it every 2 days or so.

Er... more info than you wanted?

By the way: it *was* My Prerogative that I heard. *facepalms*

}:)

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

Aah, yes. That's exactly what the technician had me do with the botched install is delete the existing partition of my hard drive. *meep* It still scares me to think about it.

Definitely not more info than I wanted. More you know and all that, which I surely wish I did without jumping in headfirst. Useful little program, I'll definitely look it up.

Catchy, no? I'm not a fan of the video, but the song is kicky.

[tallories.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... well, first off, sorry about all the trouble, hon. Here are some goodies:

Web sites: Amazon.com, CNN.com, download.com, eBay.com, jumptheshark.com, livejournal.com (heh), themoviespoiler.com, tshirthell.com, TVGuide.com, weather.com, Yahoo.com

Would you like me to just e-mail over my pop fic bookmarks? That might be easier than typing them all here...

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It's pretty lame as it is, but I've mostly no one but myself to blame - lost both things for simply not remembering to transfer them. Also, it could've been worlds worse, so at the end of the day, I'm just grateful it wasn't any of the ominous alternatives that I was facing earlier this morning.

Dude, with Mozilla, I get a latest headlines toolbar which pulls down to list all the most recent headlines... at the BBC. !!! How cool, eh? jumptheshark.com sounds promising. *g*

Oh, you'd be an absolute doll to do that. It's the fic I mourn, really, a lot of stuff by Helen and Amber and others that's no longer online even though a lot of their other stuff is.

[tallories.livejournal.com]

It's on the way, with the same caveat I attached when I sent the list to mickeym - I have eclectic taste. ;)