I almost titled this New Toy, but then you might not take me seriously. And I do so want to be taken seriously.
I am not a tech junkie. I don’t carry any electronic devices, not even a cell phone. I have my PC, which, for entirely practical purposes, I couldn’t live without. Yes, I would continue breathing, but you know what I mean. So it’s big news when I take another technological step forward. And I have big news.
I just bought my very first laptop, and, as the kids say, it’s a pretty sweet machine, and it’s pretty much the opposite of everything I’ve done computer-wise to this point. In the past, I’ve usually gone for the biggest and best that I could afford. My first purchased computer (I had previously been given an antique with a HD measured in megabytes and Windows 3.1) was the top of the line at the time, with a 120gb hard drive, 512mb RAM (I updated to 1gb a couple of years later), an 18 inch flatscreen, and Windows XP. The price was obscene — I’d be embarrassed to publish it here — but it was the best, so I had to have it. It irked me to no end when the next year’s upgrade of the same model came with a 160gb hard drive, 1gb RAM, and a 19 inch flatscreen, all for $500 less. After my first colossal purchase, I knew it would be a long time before I traded up, and I still haven’t, although I did buy a 24 inch widescreen a couple years ago, once again paying a premium price — three times the price of the same screen today.
My new laptop is not the biggest or most expensive by a long shot. It’s the Dell Mini-10 — that’s right, a 10 inch widescreen — with Windows XP, which starts at $279. Mine came to $444.26 with Microsoft Office, upgraded processor and battery, and Bluetooth. It’s a “bigger” machine than my boondoggle of a desktop, and I could almost hide it under my shirt.
Why you would want to know all that is beyond me, but maybe I can add some useful facts and tips that might interest you.
Right now I’ve got my desktop monitor, keyboard, and mouse plugged into the laptop, so it’s better than the old monster in almost every way, plus I can unplug it and take it with me. I don’t know if I’ll ever buy another desktop PC.
I used to customize everything, but I’ve toned down a little.
The first thing I did is download Firefox. Then I began customizing it. There are tons of things you can do to make Firefox behave as you like it by typing about:config in the address bar. You can really mess things up if you get carried away experimenting with this, but the worst that can happen is that you might have to download Firefox again and start over. The one customization I really like is getting rid of the tab close button (the little red x at the right corner of the tab) and placing a single close button at the far right of the tabs bar, like it was in older versions of Firefox. I don’t know how many times I’ve accidentally closed a tab when hurriedly clicking on it. To fix this, scroll down (in about:config) to browser.tabs.closeButtons, double click, and enter 3 for Value.
I also added the Google Toolbar for Firefox. I don’t have much use for the toolbar itself, but it comes with a Gmail notifier and an autofill function for one-click filling of online forms. Since those are the only functions I use, and I don’t like giving up screen space to another toolbar, I just right-click the toolbar, click customize, and drag those two buttons up to the main toolbar. Then I click view>toolbars and uncheck the Google toolbar.
Forcastfox is a favorite Firefox add-on. Monitor the weather without ever leaving your parent’s basement. One caveat: if you’re running a low-powered machine with little RAM, Forecastfox will freeze your machine momentarily every time it updates, so if you’re playing a DVD, you’ll want to close Firefox first.
The following customizations might lead you to believe I’m a bit pedantic, but that’s only because I am. At least the half-dozen or so CDOs* reading might appreciate these.
I don’t like being nagged to restart my computer to install updates. I’ll do that when I’m good and ready, thank you very much. If that irritates you too, press Windows-R on your keyboard, and in the Run dialog that should pop up, type “sc stop wuauserv,” click OK or hit Enter on your keyboard, and then go thank Dan Phillips for this tip. The bad news is that you’ll have to run this every time you reboot, but after the first time the command will appear in the dropdown of the dialog, so it’s just a 3-second inconvenience. Or, if you forget, just do it the next time the restart nag pops up.
The next tip is also courtesy of Mr Phillips. Are you obsessive about the order in which programs appear on your taskbar? Taskbar Shuffle is your friend. Drag-and-drop to rearrange your taskbar and tray icons at will.
I like a clean desktop. I mean really clean. But there’s that pesky Recycle Bin shortcut that you just can’t move. Well, now you can at least hide it.
Copy the following code into notepad and save the file as Recycle.reg in My Documents (or elsewhere). Go to My Documents (or your preferred folder) and double-click it. This will import it into the registry, and a new option will be listed in the Folder Options dialog box that will let you configure the Recycle Bin icon.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00To hide the Recycle Bin icon, open Windows Explorer, click Tools> Folder Options>View, and uncheck the newly-available “Show Recycle Bin icon on the desktop.” Voilà! Clean desktop!
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\Folder\RecycleBinOnDesktop]
"RegPath"="Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Explorer\\HideDesktopIcons\\NewStartPanel"
"Text"="Show Recycle Bin icon on the desktop"
"Type"="checkbox"
"ValueName"="{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}"
"CheckedValue"=dword:00000000
"UncheckedValue"=dword:00000001
"DefaultValue"=dword:00000000
"HKeyRoot"=dword:80000001
And that is all for today. Have a good Saturday and a blessed Lord’s Day.
*That’s OCD to you normal people.
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3 Comments:
#1 || 09·12·05··15:35 || Tim Etherington
The really cool thing about this netbook is that you can run Mac OS X on it too.
#2 || 09·12·05··17:11 || David
I half expected some Mac fan to show up, but I didn’t expect anything resembling approval!
#3 || 09·12·09··17:05 || Daniel van de Laar
Well, ... actually the end user license agreement for Mac OS X does not allow for running the OS on non-apple products. So while you *could* physically install Mac OS X, and while you *could* physically run it... you would not be able to use it under license - meaning, you would have to knowingly violate, abuse, and ignore the license agreement.
In Canada, when you use a product that you haven't licensed, we call that pirating.
As a computer programmer, a Mac user, and again, as a stalwart "there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-gray-area" Christian, I cannot endorse the thought of running an unlicensed (and therefore illegal) copy of Mac OS X.
Notwithstanding - that *is* one of the cool things about that netbook... it means, above everything else - that it is a pretty solid set up.
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