So you may recall that I recently had a run-in with Linux that didn't end so well (in the end, I shed a tear for the wanna be nerd in me and quietly re-intalled Windows XP). The result wasn't so bad in that:

1) It reformatted my drive which means all those pesky troublesome bits that were causing me problems went away;
2) I get to start from a clean slate so all of the programs that I used a few months ago that I no longer have use for but have yet to un-install are gone. *poof*

As the install was completing, I had a thought that I wanted Windows to look different than the typical install that I'm used to using so I did a little research and uncovered a load of great utilities and applications and the final result is pretty spiffy.

This is what the desktop looks like when the computer loads up:

I know what you're thinking: where's the start bar? It's hidden! When you right click on the start bar, there's an option to autohide the bar. Put a check mark next to that baby and voila - the bar will auto hide whenever you move your mouse away from it. I also decided to hide the icons on the desktop to give everything a nice clean look. To do this, right click anywhere on the desktop and from the "Arrange Icons By" sub menu, remove the check mark from "Show Desktop Icons". This will hide any icons on your desktop but worry not - to bring them back just add the check mark by following the same steps.

And yes, for those that might be curious, that desktop image is my own design. I created it late last year and it's not great (mostly because my photoshop skills are limited) but I love the image (though that's not the one I *really* wanted) - will be working on another one when I have some more time.

So how do I access all of my programs? I installed a Nexus Dock which creates a Mac OS type of doc for Windows. It's highly customizable - you can change the size, location, icon set and even the animation of the icons and adding items to the dock is simply a matter of drag and drop. To make it all the better, you can also have the dock auto hide when not in use and the result is the clean appearance above. This is the desktop when the dock is active:


I tried a number of other docks but I liked the functionality of this one the best.

Hubby also helped me figure out how much memory I was eating up with everything I was running and how much I should be running for the PC to perform at its peak. Sadly, my little baby is a few years old and a tad on the slow side. After some diagnosing, I discovered that I can't have Skype running in the background at all times because it consumes too much ram. Same goes for Yahoo! Widgets which I recently discover and quickly had to uninstall due to my wimpy computer; if you have a fast toy, be sure to check out the Widgets though - they're awesome and run on XP!

And there you have it. A spiffy new install of XP which also happens to look pretty nice!

Or so we hope.

Learning something new is never easy but a wrench is thrown in when that something new has quirks.

I’m not an expert in computer technology but from my experience, Vista was a bit of a disaster. We held back upgrading our PCs at home and hubby only migrated over when he had to (for work purposes). At the office, we have 3 PCs running Vista and for the most part, they work great. It’s the compatibility that sucks the big one. My biggest issue at the office is the fact that previous versions of Outlook don’t work correctly which means for at least one computer in the office, we had to unload $300 for a copy of Office 2007.

The biggest complaints I’ve heard are that it’s slow and for those used to previous versions of Windows, hard to get used to. I can see that – the menus are different, settings are located in different places and even I’m still getting used to a few of the changes. There are a couple of nice upgrades – notably the Media Center software which allows you to connect all of your Microsoft devices together (PC, Xbox and Zune). Did the Vista release bomb? I don’t think so but I’m pretty sure the transition wasn’t as smooth as Microsoft would have liked.

So what do the geniuses at Microsoft do? They start working on a new release. I haven’t been following this too closely but Windows 7 is coming and according to Lifehacker, it’s coming very soon: by midyear 2009 and pre-bundled with PCs for the 2009 holiday shoppers.

Again, I haven’t been tracking the updates and of all I’ve seen, the coolest is the Apple-like dock menu.

I’m actually looking forward to hubby getting his hands on a test copy (being a computer tech has its perks). The thing won’t run on my little laptop but I’d love to see how it handles on our home/media PC.

I managed to get a couple of extra days to recover (read-REDO) my English paper. Thank you to a very kind professor. D and I have been trying to recover the PC since Sunday. I had decided that I wanted to install Linux on my traveling companion but the initial install of Mandriva proved to be a bit of a nightmare. Then on Tuesday, I thought I'd give Fedora a shot but, for whatever reason the bloody installation stalls on disk 1. I'm thinking perhaps the ISO I downloaded was corrupt but I couldn't wait anymore so last night I broke down and performed a Windows clean install. Everything seems to be back to normal but I'm still a bit ticked off that Linux systems are so difficult to either 1) install or 2) find. Sure, I can find them online no problem but it took 3 days to download 2 different OS's and neither of them worked for me. I haven't given up all hope yet, I would like to leave Windows behind but it hasn't been easy for me.

In other news, I'm tired, my eyes hurt, I need sleep and I have class tonight. I hope the second wind is coming. Soon.

And I'm VERY thrilled to bring you today's installment of stupid things said in video! Enjoy!