this one's to Javier at Dell
Sep. 23rd, 2004 06:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aruanOkay, 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?!
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?!
no subject
Date: September 24th, 2004 06:08 pm (UTC)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 :-)
no subject
Date: September 25th, 2004 06:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: September 25th, 2004 10:35 am (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: September 28th, 2004 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: September 28th, 2004 04:38 pm (UTC)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*.