It has gone from a dog under vista to a speedy machine. The difference was instantly noticeable.

What surprised me, was how easy it was to upgrade the ram. I was inititally worried that I might break the laptop. I’ve never taken the bottom off a laptop, ever. The only ever time the rear of my laptop has been off is when IT was getting the data off my hard drive before it went back to Acer for two new motherboards.

But after a few false starts last night trying to get the rear off with my set of jewellers screwdrivers, I dialed a 3Bitch. But that was another false start. I got to work and had a brainwave – I keep a small screwdriver at work for repairing my glasses. Its spent a few weeks in the carpark at work when it fell from my keys, but it did the trick. I was in!

So at noon, well, 12.20pm to be precise, I was at my desk here at work, with the back off my laptop, figuring out and getting the ram chips in there. I will advise tonight how its running with the extra ram, but its done the trick.

Its not easy to dispose of an unloved linux/ubuntu partition. Simply formating the partition from Vista leads down a nasty path with GRUBB not found, Error 22. I know, I went there. I had to reload Linux onto the 20gb partition and start again.

Once there, I found a nifty little app on the net, EasyBCD. Using that, you can put Vista back in charge of the booting process, eliminating the GRUBB.

Using the write MBR and reinstall vista bootloader, I was able to eliminate the GRUBB and put Vista back in charge. This had the effect of that familiar dual boot screen you get when you have two windows partitions sharing a computer, yet you can select Linux as well, with a few additional settings.

Once I put Vista back in charge, a reboot and yes, it was showing me the windows vista and linux partitions. Once in Vista, I deleted the linux partition and remove the linux entries from the EasyBCD, saved settings and rebooted.

Now my system reboots just like a factory vista install.

And whats the reason for all this extended nonsense? See my post tomorrow for more details.

Given the recent purchase of my television and its connection to the Satellite STB being in a different room to my computer, I made the decision that regardless of the house being on the market, I want my computer to be near my new television.

After talking to the husband, and dragging him away from the reglious debates happening on the History Channel, he helped me move everything down here to the back bedroom.

So here I am with my Laptop, connected to a Hyundai 19″ LCD and my desktop connected to my sexy AOC 17″ DVI monitor I got for Christmas one year.

What does one do when they have a collection of LCD screens? Try and do something different on each! One thing I wanted to do was sort out the wallpaper on my Laptop, which is connected to the 19″ LCD. Now my laptop is a 16:9 and the Hyundai monitor is 4:3 so everything looks a little odd.

After a quick google, I came across a really awesome utility called DisplayFusion. This handy piece of freeware allows you to have different wallpapers on each monitor while still connected to the one computer. You can also adjust the opacity of your task bar in Vista (assuming you pay for the pro version)

The bit I like about DisplayFusion is there is flexibility. With Windows 7 you have the ability to have changing wallpapers and this can be done in Vista with DisplayFusion, not just from your hard drive, but it can retrieve images from Flickr or vladstudio.com

Other options include changing the desktop to greyscale or sepia tones as well. So how do I rate this nifty software – I give it full marks!

1. Twitter

Fantastic time waster. Brilliant. But I found out how really handy it can be today. I was having some trouble signing up to Vodafone Broadband Lite (more on that further down) and getting no where with customer services. So I twittered a tweet to @vodafoneNZ and the lovely man there asked me for a DM (Direct Message) with my mobile number and within 5 minutes, I was sorted. This is verses the 20 minutes I had ripping my hair out with their customer services desk the old fashioned way.

2. Dandy Warhols

Dear Vodafone, please change your hold music. They were a one hit wonder and 10 minutes of the same song, Bohemian Like You, is too much and drove me near suicidal. Thank you.

3. Vodafone Broadband Lite

I have noticed an increase in my mobile broadband data useage. I am lucky enough to have a nice Nokia 6121, while not the coolest phone, and lacking QWERTY sophistication, it does the few things I want. Lately I have noticed more and more, I rely on Mobile Broadband. Be it accessing my facebook page while I’m at the racetrack, using IRC while travelling to Hamilton (NOT while driving… ), or uploading funny photos to Flickr. Yes. I have become so internet addicted that I can get it all on my mobile.

Now until Vodafone brought along this nifty new plan of 100mb of Data for $10 a month, I was using their casual useage plan of $1 / Day, limited to 10mb. This was all good, but I rarely use 10mb a day, but I use my mobile interwebs most days a month, resulting in bills of around $20/month for mobile data. At least now I have the added bonus of not having to pay for expensive hotel data when on the road as well. Doubly awesome!

So from now until eternity, or whenever I buy a laptop with bluetooth, I will have to ensure I travel with my Nokia Data Cable!

4. Firefox

How I lived so long without this browser, I have no idea. I have a fantastic add on called ‘Yoono‘ which sits on the left hand side of my browser window and updates me with new tweets and facebook happenings like pokes and status changes. I can also use MSN Messenger on it, check and read my gmail and it also gives me my RSS feeds – something I was looking at useing to keep up with the play. I haven’t had a look at any other Firefox addons, but I will soon.

5. Ubuntu on the Acer Laptop

I took the plunge and gave Ubuntu its own 10gb partition on my Vista “powered” laptop. I put powered in quotes as running vista, it is a complete dog. Its very slow and painful and whilst I disable most of the pretty vista features, it was not designed for Vista. But just for booting up for an internet surf, quick internet check, Ubuntu serves me just fine. I’m still attached to MS Office tho. Read No. 6

6. Kudos to Warehouse Stationery

I got a flier in my local paper last week from the Papakura Warehouse Stationery. $49.00 to buy a copy of Microsoft Office Home & Student Edition. Limited to 15 copies only. So I was there before the store opened. I got one of those 15 copies and am now very chuffed to finally own a legit copy of Office. I will save up now to buy a legit copy of Outlook.

Phone telecom. 15 minutes on hold at midnight. Get hold of call centre in Manilla/Vanilla/Ice Ice Baby and explain whats happening. Reset modem (#4, #5 & #6) check settings. Man promises my a 12 hour pro-rata credit on phone bill. He says will get the pvc server reset in the morning.

Get up at 9.30am (sleep in!) and look at internet. Still not going. Reset modem (#7). Check, still no IP address issued from Telecom. Call Telecom. Manilla Ice much faster to answer this time. Explain it all again. Reset modem countless times, including factory reset.

Factory resets are where the modem is retored to well, its factory default. Doing this erases all Telecom settings. Later on in the afternoon it will dawn on me that the settings have changed and that the Manilla Ice has assumed I have a telecom standard modem (I dont). He says that he will get a technician to call me ater 3pm. Its now 10am. hmm… 3pm is a long way to go if you’ve got no broadband.

I tell him my credit better be worth it because as I’m on the top level residential plan, I expect better than this for my $$$ (40gb per month for $80 with free static IP address, unlimited speeds in both directions… currently pulling 6.8mbps and not even on ADSL2+ yet – another story for another day) He told me I would get one months credit on my broadband bill. Yay!

3pm and the technician calls. Go through with him all the same stuff I had been through with the Manilla and Vanilla Ice Ice Baby. He establishes I’m making a DSL sync (I could have told him that, I did, he didnt listen) and so the fault must be in the grey pillar beside the road, in the cabinet or at the exchange. Hes escalated the issue and will send a technician tomorrow. Tomorrow is Monday. This is a day of work, where one earns wages to pay the broadband bill. I point this out to him.

Right now, I am wanting to cry. Break down in tears in my computer room and sob because I cannot cope without internet for 12 hours, how can I cope without internet for two nights? Its unheard of!

Anyway, after some #geekzone intervention, we’re back online, although the connection is difficult and misbehaving like a kid in a toy store, but oh gosh its nice to be back online. Just not sure how long for. I will make sure I get that credit on my phone bill too. I will hold them to it by gosh.

On another note, Windows 7 is still impressing me. I have not yet installed any software (been playing games) but have made the decision that when it comes up for sale as a finished OS, I will upgrade my desktop and most likely my laptop. I was going to switch my laptop to Linux, but seeing how fantastic W7 is with its power settings, It would be worth it. Again, I haven’t had W7 and Vista running on the same machine, so I cannot make direct comparisons, but may for fun, do a dual installation on my laptop so that I can.

1. Back up and create restore disks of your main OS (XP Pro SP3 in my case)
2. Burn whichever ISO you’re going to use to a bootable DVD.
3. Install separate HDD in PC (I installed a 2nd 80GB Sata drive)
4. Boot into XP. Still boots? Good! Check drive there. Yes? Even Betterer.
5. Shut down and boot off DVD
6. Follow the prompts. Select the drive you wish to install W7 on.
7. Follow more prompts. When rebooting for the 2nd time, remove DVD from drive and at the boot selector – Select Windows 7. It will restart again.
8. Repeat above.

I can’t remember past here, its a bit of a blur. I have never run Vista on this machine, so direct comparisons on this hardware are not really fair. But my initial impressions are excellent and I am impressed thus far with the themes, GUI and speed of which the machine runs. I also enjoy the lack of interruption from the UAC that youget with Vista. However, it is now 11.30pm and my shoulder is killing me. I will end this entry with a screen shot of my Windows 7 desktop as it stands tonight!

Virgin W7 Desktop