PC problems, recommended software, tips and tricks, coding and so forth. Things that make your life in the cyberspace easier.
The Pain of a New PC -
braja - Fri, 05 Aug 2005 02:12:59 +0530
I wanted to set up a pc for use as a backup/media/linux playbox but my old machine kept overheating. I was about to buy a barebones machine or build it myself when I saw a very cheap Presario for sale at Compusa ($200 after rebates). So far I have spent four or five hours on the darned thing trying to remove all the trash they put on it. After removing the virus known as Norton, enough memory was finally freed up so that it responded within seconds instead of minutes. (It should be a crime to ship anything with 256kb ram in this day and age--1gb is on the way.) So much for it being a deal though--I've reached the age where time seems more important than money!
The only good things I can say about it are that it looks decent, runs quietly, and has a well-positioned range of media card readers and jacks. Next step is dropping in my extra 160gb drive ($29) and then waiting for the extra ram. All up it wasn't bad deal monetarily: around $350 for a Semprom 3000, 1.2 gigs of ram, 340gb harddrive space.
Madhava - Fri, 05 Aug 2005 04:38:40 +0530
If for some reason I don't build things from a scratch (well, from components - I'm not that good!), my greeting ritual of a new PC starts with fdisk -> repartition, followed by format c: and a fresh installation.
braja - Fri, 05 Aug 2005 04:48:42 +0530
The problem with that is that none of the major companies seem to supply disks any more so you can't reinstall Windows without having your own copy. Everything needed for restoration is on a partition. And even if you do a restore from there, it'll restore their trash, not a default Windows install (which in itself is bloated enough). It's all a big scam, I tell ya. I guess the lower prices reflect the degree of real estate that has been sold off to the software companies and ISPs.
Madhava - Fri, 05 Aug 2005 05:07:28 +0530
This is why some people who have a license nevertheless use a "borrowed" Windows. I believe there is nothing in the license to say you must use a particular set of media for running your Windows, or even if there is, if the BSA men come knocking on the door of your extra-large software company, I would assume pointing to the sticker on the side of the PC would suffice.
ananga - Sat, 03 Sep 2005 23:03:18 +0530
I'm finally on the brink of buying a new computer especially as my baba/dadaji has said I can use proceeds of the sale of CDs towards it -- It will primarily be used for storing and converting Audio and possibly a bit of video.
Is there any significant advantage of getting a gigabyte of memory rather than 512MB Braja? Madhava? Anyone?