Windows 7 Starter Thoughts

I keep searching for a different OS for my netbook. I don't know why, either. My Asus Eee PC 1005PE came with Windows 7 Starter. It's fast booting, so far no crashes, and works well. No idea why I keep looking at alternatives. Not froggy about anything just yet, but looking.

The netbook has quite a few features I really like - there is a great touchpad that allows me to do things and do them well. Multi-touch gestures allow me to open new tabs, scroll, zoom, and many other handy features. The function keys allow for page navigation and the like, and also ways of adjusting volume, killing the touchpad, changing screen brightness, killing wifi to save battery, etc... I like it.

Hulu, web, email... all work.

Stuff

I just straightened up the man cave. Things get thrown in there as a storage area and the pile got out of hand. Still has a way to go, and I really need to clean it out and organize it, but it will do for now.

Still haven't had a whole weekend off in a very long time. It's getting to the point where I hear the work cell's ring in my dreams and wake to look at who called, but it is blank. Been there before, but it was in a war zone, and it was a duck and cover response instead of a cell phone.

Watching Battlestar Galactica and drinking tea. Kara Thrace has been outed as an Angel by Gaius Baltar.

I participated in a good thread in Facebook about music. It felt good to have an interaction there. Most of the time I feel that I "type" the wrong thing and get taken the wrong way. I do have a potty mouth and a weird sense of humor that translates better when accompanied by visual gestures and someone hearing the inflections of my speech.

Busy week coming up. I hate paperwork.

But - speaking of the paper - I subscribed to the e-edition of my local paper. $3 a month. I can access it on the work computer, or my netbook, or whatever.

Watching...

Buffy The Musical!

Local E-Edition Paper

We get the local paper delivered daily to the house. Unfortunately, it usually is there after I am looking for it. I looked into just dropping the home delivery and just doing their E-Edition - it is cheaper and ready to go when I am. I just didn't want to pay for both, because the wife likes the regular paper variety.

Just found out that you can get the E-Edition for half price when you also get the home delivery paper, as well. Now I got BOTH! I figure I can log into the paper at work or where ever I am, and enjoy. It also seems to allow access to the last month or so worth of papers.

I also started customizing my Firefox. I killed the Menu Bar, Status Bar, Button Bar, and slid the search form to the Bookmarks Bar. Sweet! Allows for much more screen real estate.

Just Uninstalled IE8

I use Firefox. I have tried many other browsers, but I always come back to Firefox. I have always hated that you couldn't uninstall Internet Explorer - till now. In Windows 7, drill down to: control panel>uninstall a program>turn off Windows features. Uncheck IE8 (and I added Windows Media Player to the mix, as well). Reboot. Zorched. SWEET!

In a Beatles mood. Listened to "Magical Mystery Tour" and rolling "The White Album" now. Yeah - I know that isn't the official title, but that is what everyone knows it by, so that is what I call it.

Learning about spreadsheets and the like, lately. I use Open Office at the house, but Office at work. For simple stuff it crosses over well, but a complex spreadsheet OO has problems. That's OK. I am just playing here, learning the basics. Most of the spreadsheets I play with at work are already set up. I was going to roll with Office 2003, but I can't find the wife's disk (read the license - can be installed on up to 3 computers in the same household). Oh well. Maybe it will turn up.

The new South Park was hilarious - "There's a turd in the punchbowl". Also enjoying "Big Bang Theory" and "Caprica". I downloaded Hulu Player and like the fact that you can default to low-rez with it and have no stutters with it. Nice.

Looking for a strategy game for the netbook. Maybe a tower defense game or something.

Tweak Tweak

After I got the Netbook I decided to take the desktop I was using and have another uninstallfest and tweak and optimize and then let the wife use it. It's faster than the old XP box she was using and should get her through to Christmas (she wants a Mac for Christmas). This is a cell pic of the box running Defrag for the first time in about a year. Interestingly, just uninstalling my shit and zorching a bunch of dead files TOTALLY sped the system up a bit.

And speaking of the Netbook, I am liking it more and more every day. Nailed a 2 gig memory card and things are speedier. I also downloaded a beta version of the Flash plugin and online video seems slightly less choppy. I was going to install Office 2003 because I started getting into spreadsheets and things at work and I need to play some. Unfortunately, I couldn't find our disk. Open Office, here I am. Maybe it will be enough to get my feet wet.

Watched all of Band Of Brothers recently - HBO was rebroadcasting it, so the DVR has all 10 episodes on it now. Might not delete them. I like... Also started recording The Pacific, and so far, I like. Not as much as BOB, but still a good watch.

Still rolling through BSG - on Season 4.5 and it's getting good. Got the original series of V to go to next. I already had the pilot miniseries and enjoyed it, and found the whole series for $14. Not bad.

Drinking tea, now.

Nurture or Nature?

Reconfiguring the Raiders on Battlestar Galactica Season 4 is the classic nurture or nature drop. When Boomer, the 8, decided to vote against her line - it was from applied experience.

BSG Season 4 Underway

This is a pic of me taken from my webcam on my netbook. Need optimal light to get a good pic (this is not one), but at least it takes pics and video.

A friend offered to loan me a USB CDRW to load up Office 2003 - SWEET!

Watching Battlestar Galactica Season 4 as I blog. I missed that. Once I started using the LCD TV as a monitor I could either PC or TV. It's nice to do both. Again.

Loaded up the Times Reader and played awhile. I'd still like to get a digital periodical reader going - looked into Kindle for PC - it will do books, but not periodicals. Bahhh...

Once more, into the breech...

I just spent the better part of the last 3 hours uninstalling shit from my netbook and tweaking things here and there. I need to find a way to get Office 2003 on here - maybe sharing a DVD-RW drive over the network. I did download the latest Open Office, but I need to get familiar with M$'s Office because they use that at work.

I updated the bios on the Netbook - Asus has a program made for just that purpose. I had a bit of pucker factor, as the battery didn't recognize as 100% charged on reboot, but another reboot sorted that out.

Killed many start up programs. Seems very slightly faster. Still want to get more memory. Maybe I'll Amazon up in the next few days.

While playing with the Netbook, I was watching the last of Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica. They just showed 4 of the final 5 Cylons and Baltar was acquitted of treason and crimes against humanity. Need to roll season 4 now.