I decided not to reformat lappy anymore. After a couple days' observation and seeing that whatever is incubated in lappy isn't going to do any more damage, reformatting can be put off at a more convenient time. I'm sort of relieved about it, and I hope lappy is too.
In more tech-related news, the foreboding advent of Windows Vista is scaring both me and lappy. Bad enough that I can't do much with a 1.3 GHz Pentium M processor, 30 GB hard drive, 256 MB RAM, and a dwindling 64 MB video card and STILL work with memory hogging programs like Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 not to mention having hordes of (necessary) background processes running at the same time... and now Windows is out to draw more blood! Now that is just not right.
I believe that technological advancement should not exclude anyone and if possible, be more streamlined to do its job well, at the same time not sacrificing quality of service for aesthetics. Take Google for instance. The simple and neat-looking search engine doesn't have a lot of clutter, but it's one of the most powerful tools one can have on the Internet! The question "wherefore art thou" can now be answered, "Google."
And GMail. It has a titanic space of 2.5 GB and has a very simplified interface to work with. Sure there are advertisements on the side, but they are actually more helpful than obtrusive. Labels and Filters make it easier to organize mail too. And I don't know the technology behind it, but it loads fast, so time is definitely not wasted due to loading and broken links. Plus, the spam filter is quite powerful too.
Also just the other day, Google released the beta version of Google Talk, Google's IM client. It's all skin and bones right now, but it's very promising. Again, very simple and minimal without any other obtrusive features. Very convenient to work with and does not hog up system resources too much if at all.
I've also been a Firefox baby, using it since it was a wee zero-point-something version unzipping program. It has never been a disappointment ever since, and it's also the reason why I got interested with CSS, web design, and a tiny dabble with Web Standards. I can't wait until Firefox 1.5 is released.
For P2P, I use the original client for BitTorrent; and for IM, I use Miranda. Both are very simple and easy to use and most importantly, they don't strain lappy too much.
Sigh. I suppose it may seem pointless and all, since Microsoft has such a strong force when it comes to turning the tides of technology, and people have their own tastes anyway, but still. I don't claim to be such an expert on things like these, but I suppose I know enough. Maybe even more than most people who use and NEED the computer too, which is a bit sad. I guess maybe my point here is I care about lappy and everyone else who loves their own lappy. Whatever is best for us, I'm all for it. And I hope the lords of cyberspace understand that.
