I am changing over to a new hard drive. I
will boot from it and no longer boot from my current drive. But there are
a few problems.
First, I installed to a new hard drive on the
same computer. The hard drive went bad. I tried another new hard drive and
installed my XP again. (I should have known better than to get it from the
same store and the same batch.) It was bad. So I returned two hard drives.
Finally, I got a 3rd drive (a different kind
from a different store this time). It worked, but when I went to install
my Windows XP, it told me that I had already installed Windows enough
times and it refused to activate! Argh!
I am ONLY using this version of Windows on
ONE drive. I did not share it. I could not help having two bad hard drives
before this and trying to install and activate XP a few times. What does a
person do? I hate this activation garbage. It hurts honest people.
Some time ago, we bought two 300G Seagate
hard drives from CompUSA. As it turned out, both drives were bad. We did
not buy them at the same time. We were still within our 3-week window on
one of them so CompUSA exchanged it and the new one works fine. The other
one sat in storage for beyond the return time.
It turned out to be bad. (That was a long and
horrible story and posted here a couple of weeks ago. It was a mess.)
After trying every other option (software upgrades and even buying a new
motherboard), it turned out that the new drive was bad after all.
So, we sent it back to Seagate. Ta-da! About
a week or so later, another drive arrived -- today, in fact. We couldn't be
happier. We sent them a 300 g drive and they promptly sent back a 400 g drive.
Seagate is all right in my book. (Well, if the drive works, that is.)
This seems to be a growing holiday here in
the the U.S. - people like to party or, at least eat out in Mexican style on
this day.
My daughter and I went to local Mexican
restaurant for lunch. We got there early and watched the place fill up.
Workers carried out food, balloons and posters to customers waiting to
take them to work, etc.
Banners were strung all over the inside and
outside of Casa Blanca (the best-furnished Mexican place in town). Lunch
customers poured in. It was great food, with a great atmosphere -- fun!
Both of these guys produce useful
informative
podcasts about tech topics of interest to most computer owners (at least of
interest to me). Leo recently got back together with Patrick, Kevin and
others from the old Screen Savers show (that G4 ruined) to produce a new
weekly, hour podcast. They are great to listen to and have much useful
information.
I can't begin to tell you what a big
influence Leo has been on me (after my husband who got me started with
computers in the first place and continues to keep my hardware operating).
The information here is helpful and up-to-date.
Leo's Podcasts - His twice-weekly
KFI radio
call-in help show (download from any link here) and TWIT (from the old Screen Saver buddies who are currently
calling their show - "This Week in Tech").
One thing my 86-year-old friend complains
about is how his name and address, etc., appear all over the Internet. I just shrug,
but then I have a very common name. In way, that makes it harder to find
me without more detailed information to narrow down that name.
Chuck Bobo sent this link to many peoples'
private information. He said it was
scary -->
http://www.zabasearch.com.
My friend also said that, if you give to one
charity, they send your name to every other charity and you get inundated
with money requests. This is true.
Upload any two photos and this company will
make it into one of those changing images -- the image changes as the
photo is moved around. I just wish it was not so darn expensive ($69).
Still, I love the idea - it would make unique Christmas presents for a
parent, etc.
Oh, this is a great link! Look at a
large
list of the best podcasts, listen to 30 seconds of any one, and view a
description of what it contains.
As you probably already know, a podcast is
generally an mp3 file. It can be downloaded to your computer for using
later. Programs exist to automatically download these to an iPod or
anything that plays mp3 files. I listen to them while walking or driving,
etc.
I especially love Leo Laporte's podcast news
(at
leo.am) and helpful information and, since I walk 5 miles a
day, its like reading a book and exercising at the same time - so-o-o-o-o
convenient.
The host for my photoblog has just released a
redesigned front page. They now offer a keyword search through their
database. This will make it useful for anyone needing a photo on a certain
topic.