So I’ve gone through the rebuild process on my home PC again, formatting my OS partition and reloading Windows2kPro. The weird thing is that this time it didn’t recognize my network adapter and it didn’t automatically configure my sound, like it did last time. Not sure what changed. Once I upgraded to SP4, things started working a little more smoothly.

Anyway, one of the biggest headaches always was installing Microsoft Office. Not only did it take forever to install, it took forever to patch. That’s because I have the dinosaur that is Office97 (got it in an online auction about 7 years ago for $25 - this was before ebay). So I decided to bag that shite and give OpenOffice a try. I only need basic word processing and spreadsheet functionality at home. What a pleasant surprise. The entire suite installed very quick, and so far the programs run very fast on my machine. Looks like that’s one less hook Microsoft has in me. I would leave Windows behind completely in favor of Linux if it weren’t for Photoshop and some of the games I play (Half-Life2, etc.). (Yeah, yeah, yeah, dual-boot machine, yada, yada, yada, whatever…)

Overall I’m being much more picky about what I install. For example, I’m not installing the full suite of DVD tools, just the “recorder” software for playing DVDs. I usually watch TV series DVDs (right now: “Scrubs”) on my computer and feature films on my TV. Also, Firefox 1.5 is da bomb. I’ve easily got over 20 extensions installed, including the one I’m using to type this blog entry, Performancing. The new Javascript Console shows CSS errors, too. Cooooooool…

Well the buzz is finally wearing off so I better go to bed. This post got way longer than I anticipated. Happy new year and all that shite.