Tortorously Long

[davecobb]

I'm in a boring meeting in Charlotte; flying home later this afternoon. Thank goodness the conference room table has an ethernet jack.

A friend online just sent me an instant message that included my new phavorite phrase, "torturously long blow job". I snickered a bit loud, so I'll probably have to shut the laptop and actually participate in the meeting. Harumph.

On a different topic, Firefox is a *really* great new browser.



So far, I like it a whole lot -- even more than Safari on OSX. Snappy, snazzy, safe!

Comments

Re: JFirefox

[cpratt.livejournal.com]

Changing browsers isn't going to fix an unstable Windows 98 PC.

The only that that's really going to fix that is a new PC.

You can get a very decent, brand spanking new HP computer for about $340 shipped directly to your home. That's probably cheaper than hiring someone to try to figure out how to fix your old PC, and it's probably a hell of a lot faster than whatever you have now.

Re: JFirefox

[ciddyguy.livejournal.com]

If I had $350 bucks to spend I'd do it. However, I built my PC from scratch based on the Asus A7V mother board, 800Mhz Athlon processor and 512M of RAM. A going machine in 2000-2001, and granted, it's dated by today's standards.

I'm thinking perhaps try replacing the MB in this current box and within a few months (by January or so) upgrade the processor.

A friend can "slip" me a working copy of XP and knows how to get it installed despite it's install limitations. :-D.

I can get a pretty good MB for less than $100 if I shop around - even if it means going integrated for AGP and audio.

Re: JFirefox

[cpratt.livejournal.com]

Look, if you honestly want a stable PC, buy a new complete system from a reputable vendor like Dell or HP. Replacing parts in dribs and drabs or building your own from scratch isn't going to help anything - and it'll probably wind up costing about the same amount of money if not more.

I'll spare you the lecture about how stealing is wrong, but you should probably be aware that it's really, really tacky to tell Microsoft employees about how you're going to steal their software. Not cool.

Re: JFirefox

[ciddyguy.livejournal.com]

When I built the box originaly, it was pretty stable for the longest time and yes, it does not cost any less to do, but the fun of building it was fun. Normally, I'd just do the board, processor and RAM all at once, problem is, lack of useable credit at the moment keeps me from doing it all at once and the problems I've had have been more to do with stuff getting onto the box in the first place, which may have precipitated this whole problem I'm having now, and a slight bump with my chair (accidentaly) caused the computer to reboot for the first time, and it's been that every since.

I did have to borrow a copy of Win98 to get it going since all I had at the time was Win95 and it would not recognize the bios on the Asus board.

The idea was to upgrade to either Win2k, or XP but did not have the cash for the longest time to purchase. I don't normaly advacate stealing, but I've always been a bit angry at this install limitation thingy that MS has implimented - to the point of forcing users to repurchase rights to the software if a major upgrade is made. That to me is just not smart or good.
All it serves is to piss off the customer, the end users who rely on MS products and please, MS should drop the price of their old OS when a new one comes out. That makes no sense at all.

Excuse me for ranting, but I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Re: JFirefox

[cpratt.livejournal.com]

I'm not clear what XP installation limitation thingy you're referring to.

Are you talking about product activation? Maybe you're misunderstanding something?

Jeez, John, it sounds like you don't even have a valid Windows 98 license, so why are you pissed off? You've been getting a free ride for years by the sound of it...

Re: JFirefox

[ciddyguy.livejournal.com]

I just remember that when they did the beta testing for XP that only 11 installs were allowed before one had to shell out for a renewel of the liscense. And that if you had to replace the MB for instance, it would not let you install without a new registration, that kind of thing. I was never sure if that made it to the final retail versions or not. And lets not forget it was only for the computer you orignaly installed it on, and that was it. I recall reading about that in computer magazines at the time.

I did try to find a second hand copy of 98 through Second Hand Books and they had been hard to find and while I've not looked in the past year. I've been busy and have been doing other things. When I had my old P133 box, it came with Win95, which as you know, won't work on later pc's, so had to borrow, originaly for short term stop gap measures, but financial hardships at the time prevented me from purchasing anything like that for the longest time. Now, I've got a decent job but had to purchase a new printer, a new monitor and am now having to deal with the main box and do intend to things more ligitimaly.

As for the free ride, since 2001 and like I said, was only meant to be stop gap, but life interviened and had to hold off much longer than orignaly planned.

Re: JFirefox

[cpratt.livejournal.com]

The "11 installs" bit doesn't sound remotely accurate... probably another instance of bad PR/marketing devolving into bad info. But yes, XP is typically licensed only for the hardware it ships on, unless you've paid the $$$ for a different copy that allows you to transfer it to new hardware.

Tell you what: E-mail me your shipping address [that would be cpratt at microsoft dot com] and I'll get a copy of XP Home [full version] shipped out to you on my own dime. Deal?

PC Help Desk

[e-ticket.livejournal.com]

Ummm... maybe you can help me. The cupholder on the front of my PC has broken off -- can you fix it for me?

Re: PC Help Desk

[cpratt.livejournal.com]

You bet! Just send me $180 for the plane ticket and $20 for spare parts...

Thank you for reading Dave Cobb's journal, where the elite meet to diagnose and solve PC problems... :)

Re: JFirefox

[ciddyguy.livejournal.com]

Deal, Email on it's way.

Re: JFirefox

[cpratt.livejournal.com]

Package'll be shipped this week.

If you run into me out and about, I demand a Guinness. :)

Re: JFirefox

[ciddyguy.livejournal.com]

You're on. Mmmm, love a Guinness too. :-)

Re: JFirefox

[themonkeybear.livejournal.com]

There's this little company called Apple that sells nice computers, check them out. :-)

Re: JFirefox

[cpratt.livejournal.com]

Let's see... this guy can't afford the $340 for a new PC. What makes you think he'd want to spend $870 on an eMac?

Re: JFirefox

[e-ticket.livejournal.com]

Girls, girls... you're both pretty.

Take it outside. :)

Re: JFirefox

[cpratt.livejournal.com]

Hitler!

Re: JFirefox

[genxcub.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it's because of the enormous amount of "blowing" that M.E. does, but when cabearcub ran an upgrade to XP from ME, all issues went away. He'll eventually do a clean install, but it's the first time I've done XP as an upgrade, and I really can't tell any difference in performance from a fresh XP install (did it even convert the disk to NTFS?)