h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

fg, my apologies. all i can say is that the small person came home, and her grandfolk, came for the weekend.....it's been hectic, to say the least.
i'm glad it went smoothly. and give lucy an extra pet from me.

{[caer csd] had a mini meet up which involved a 140 mile round trip, but it was wellworth it. Helped by the fact that most of the journey I was able to travel at 90 mph and involved some of our loveliest countryside and native breed of ponies. No, I didn't hit any!

It's very hot and humid, currently 20C, humidty of 76% and its 9.15 pm. One of the neighbours has got a huge bonfire so we have had to close all the windows, I am phoning the Borough Council tomorrow to check on the bye-laws!}

[c]

i hate dialup. i really do. i may have to take a THIRD job just so i can pay for dsl/broadband/something faster than 56k.

[Munchkin] Had a fun night last night backing up all my PC data to CDs as I need to re-install my system. Unfortunately this is an all inclusive box wot I bought. It did come with "Recovery Disk" CDs but they only give me two options, re-install every piece of sofware that came with the system or format and re-install every piece of software that came with the system. I only want to re-jig Windoze. I am half tempted to go buy an OS to stick on it to get around this, and hence my question. Does anyone know if XP is worth it, or should I go with a 9X or 2000 flavour?

{[caer csd] Munchkin, I have ME which seems reasonable and stable after large pathces were installed, No1 son has XP, the real drawback as far as he can find is that some games aren't happy running it. No2 son is still running 98 and is restistant to change as he says it works fine. H is away on business at the mo, but when he phones I will try and remember to ask him for his professional opinion.

Have just checked the blog and I see Lil is hoping to have the end in site }

My current box is ME. I put the fact that it keeps crashing down to it being a standard bundle of software. Hopefully a refresh will sort it. But as I have to buy an OS to do said "quick" refresh I'm investigating

My own feeling is that XP or 2000 is scads better than 98 or ME ("scads" really should be made into an official technical measurement), and I lean towards XP for a personal machine. In my office, the complaints and problems coming from people who are running XP (post-98) have diminished considerably.

20° is hot? I was relieved this morning because the temperature finally fell to 20°!

20 isn't hot - on our way back from Switzerland (by train) it was +31 C at 8.30 am in Copenhagen...

On our way down we had a sleeping car that reminded me of the 3rd class cabin in Starship Titanic - a wall with various items that could be unfolded, fit into minimal space ... and I was giggling hysterically when we kept bumping into tables and each other.
"I can't open the door" said my mother. "No, you have to fold the table first", I said, "no, not that table, this one"

When we were having breakfast in the morning, I asked if someone could please fold the upper bed away to give us more space. A young female conductor asked us to step outside (told you it was minimal) and closed the door (it would take up too much space open) and tadaaa!!! When she stepped out, one end of the beds had been replaced by a wall, and the other end by a sofa that didn't look a bit like a former bed...

{[caer csd] On further discussion with No1 son, XP is prettier than ME and if you can afford it/don't already have one a flat screen monitor is very much easier on the eyes. He is very pleased with his.}

I think we're running ME. I can't tell you if it's any better than what we had before, to be honest, though brother seemed happier with our computer than with his. I don't think we could get XP up and doing anything useful at all.

Forest fires outside the city have bathed us all in shrouds of somke today. And it's been the hottest July for a hundred years. They said that last year, too...

Flat screen monitor? But where would I put my inflatable pint of Guiness?
*Thanks for the info by the way *

My considered opinion is that Win2K for most uses and Win 98se for gaming are the way to fly. I have had trouble with XP and don't get me started on ME.

That said, I also like a few flavours of linux for service type needs. I use S.u.S.E. a bit and any *nix installation is scads better for web services etc. (d'E I think that scads should indeed be a technical term).

{[caer csd] Forgot to ask H when he called earlier, sorry Munchkin. He has driven 370 miles so far on a fruitless sales call, so not a happy bunny. But I'm sure he would agree with d'E and Marv, although at heart he is a linux man.

He was passing along the Valley of the Damned whilst he was calling. The A470 apparently passes through beautiful scenery north of the valley; mountains, lakes and lovely views. Perhaps we shall go back and have a closer look, when we've exhausted the rest of the World }

*sees the box of truffles on the coffee table*

I must remember to thank Lil when she returns. *opens box* Would anyone like a truffle?

i have xp, and other than some of my small person's games not running on it (so sad, really....can you tell?), i really like it. it's MUCH more stable than ME, which was designed to be obsolete (a stop gap between 98 and xp). i really do like it, although sometimes i want to tell it that i am *not* an idiot, and yes, i really do want to do that....

Red, One thing that you may consider in teh futre is to let the little one ahve an older machine and do not get it speakers, get earphones. That way you can enjoy some quiet. I know that kids games are often very very loud and annoying. I used to have to sell them.

I have Win2K at work and it has never crashed for me. That is the only reason that I can reccomend it. The best, most stable OS that I ever ran was BeOS but they, alas, are no more. That OS was easy to use, pretty, stable, and very intuitive. I managed to get it online with no prior knowedge on how to configure it. the menues are very easy to navigate and the machine settings were straight forward and easy to set. I loved that OS, then they folded

I've made Win2k crash. I've also made Win XP crash, and Mac OS X, and Red Hat Linux. My personal favorite is Mac OS X (it's BSD *nix with whipped cream and a cherry on top), so if you're going for new hardware Munchkin, I suggest that. I find Red Hat too overwhelming - I think there is a good argument for not including every piece of open source software with the OS.

<-- hungrily eyeing the new digital camera

So I'm lookingout of my window and... or rather, I'm not looking out of my window to any significant degree cos of the smoke. The whole house smells like we've been at the barbque, madly.

spent the afternoon at the beach. it's pretty, and i like what the salt water and sand do for my skin, but man, does the sand get everywhere! the small person asked if she could bury me in the sand, and i was so glad i didn't say yes. YUCK!

the beach we went to had several tidal pools. we found a sea urchin, several crabs, and a small lobster (or a really huge shrimp). very cool. the mussels are toxic for humans right now (red tide and all that), but we cracked a few and fed the seagulls....they loved 'em.

afterwards, we went for dinner. all in all, a very good day. and i didn't even get sunburnt!

*mildly jealous of MR's ability to not get burnt*

which beach did you go to?

Munchkin, I'm running XP and i have no complaints. i can't say i haven't crashed it, but i've been running it for nearly 9 months now and the number of times it's crashed can still be easily counted on one hand. i had ME before, and boy, don't get me started on that! my dad had 98 on his comp before i moved out, and i was able to regularly crash that as well...

though recent experience suggests that the computer's instability was NOT my fault as my father insisted, seeing as his new computer (running XP) is just as unstable as the last, while mine is just fine, thanks. *victorius*

anyway, that's my two cents.