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Offline franksolich

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found one
« on: October 15, 2008, 03:19:44 PM »
Okay, about 3:00 p.m. central time, 2:00 p.m. mountain time, I got shown a computer tower, and got it.

It's the same size (32 gb) as the one that got Rice-Krispied, and includes all this other stuff too (the usual monitor, keyboard, mouse)--I had to take the extraneous parts to get the tower and hard drive, the whole batch for twenty-five bucks.

Now, on the Head of St. John the Baptist, this computer was used by a little old lady, and only on Sundays.

Really.

I kid you not.

It still has Windows 98 in it, but I assume the guys at my internet service provider will take care of that.

I didn't want to go all the way to the big city today, and so that will have to wait until tomorrow (Thursday).

If this is successfully upgraded and renovated, then I can finally get around to installing a Kodak printer/copier/scanner that wouldn't quite "install" on the now-smithereened tower and hard drive.

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Offline Thor

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Re: found one
« Reply #1 on: October 15, 2008, 04:27:15 PM »
Frank, what are the other parameters of that machine ?? Memory, hard drive capacity and processor speed ?? 98 is WAY outdated.
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Offline GOBUCKS

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Re: found one
« Reply #2 on: October 15, 2008, 04:42:47 PM »
Quote from: Thor on October 15, 2008, 04:27:15 PM
Frank, what are the other parameters of that machine ?? Memory, hard drive capacity and processor speed ?? 98 is WAY outdated.
Of course you are right, but I'm still running Win98 on my desktop and see no reason to upgrade.

Granted, peripherals you buy now don't support Win98, my machine only has two USB ports. But if you mainly use the computer for e-mail, the internets, and your digital camera, and have a printer already installed, I don't see any great need for upgrade. I've had XP at work, and Vista on my laptop, and cannot see their advantage, except for new software and peripherals that require them. In fact, I have Explorer crashes with Vista that never ever happen on Win98 or XP.

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Offline CactusCarlos

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Re: found one
« Reply #3 on: October 15, 2008, 06:15:17 PM »
Quote from: GOBUCKS on October 15, 2008, 04:42:47 PM
Of course you are right, but I'm still running Win98 on my desktop and see no reason to upgrade.

Granted, peripherals you buy now don't support Win98, my machine only has two USB ports. But if you mainly use the computer for e-mail, the internets, and your digital camera, and have a printer already installed, I don't see any great need for upgrade. I've had XP at work, and Vista on my laptop, and cannot see their advantage, except for new software and peripherals that require them. In fact, I have Explorer crashes with Vista that never ever happen on Win98 or XP.

Are you still getting OS updates for that Win98 machine? 
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Offline Thor

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Re: found one
« Reply #4 on: October 15, 2008, 07:35:02 PM »
Quote from: CactusCarlos on October 15, 2008, 06:15:17 PM
Are you still getting OS updates for that Win98 machine? 

I'm pretty sure that M$ stopped supporting 98 a couple of years ago. XP is a little more secure IF the hdd is formatted to NTFS. FAT32 has some major security issues. OF curse, Windows has some major security issues. A newer machine will render web pages a bit more quickly.
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"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."- IBID

I AM your General Ne'er Do Well, Troublemaker & All Around Meanie!!

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."-Thomas Jefferson

Offline GOBUCKS

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Re: found one
« Reply #5 on: October 15, 2008, 08:01:11 PM »
Quote
Are you still getting OS updates for that Win98 machine?
Not in a long, long time.

Still, though, for the normal stuff I do, it's not noticeably slower than this Vista machine.

I added a second hard drive, since when I bought the computer 10GB was big, so now I have plenty of room for MS Office, Photoshop, a brazillion photos, music, everything.

I'm sure I'd be unhappy with it if I did 3D rendering or some such geeky stuff, but I don't. One thing I don't like when I use Win98 is IE5 without tabbed browsing. I don't think IE7 will run on Win98.
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Offline Woody

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Re: found one
« Reply #6 on: October 15, 2008, 10:15:06 PM »
Holy mackeral... Win98?  You realize that it's just DOS with a pretty face, right? 

Seriously, go XP.  Like all MS products, it was launched prematurely, but it's very mature and stable now.  I leave my XP system on for a month at a time.  (No, it's not as stable as Linux, but I can also use wireless with it.)  Back when I was running 98, I rebooted every morning, whether or not I needed to.

The security holes in 98 vs XP are huge compared to the missing security descriptors in FAT32 vs NTFS.  Simply put, a Win98 system is wide open.

Don't blame XP for Vista's problems.  Vista is in that "unstable due to premature launch" state right now.  I use Vista on a laptop, and only because I need to know how to fix Vista for my clients who didn't take my advice to stick with XP. 
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Those who see their lives as spoiled and wasted crave equality and fraternity more than they do freedom. If they clamor for freedom, it is but freedom to establish equality and uniformity. The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic; one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority.
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Offline Thor

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Re: found one
« Reply #7 on: October 15, 2008, 10:36:39 PM »
Woody, try buying a NEW PC without it having Vista as an OS......  :hammer: :hammer:

It can be done, but it has to be special ordered. I absolutely fell in love with XP, even in it's beta days. 98SE was pretty good, for a DOS Emulator, but XP has won, hands down. Of course, wasn't it Bill Gates that stated that NO computer should EVER need more than 64K of RAM ?!?!?   :rotf: :rotf: :rotf:
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"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."- IBID

I AM your General Ne'er Do Well, Troublemaker & All Around Meanie!!

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."-Thomas Jefferson

Offline Woody

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Re: found one
« Reply #8 on: October 16, 2008, 01:18:13 AM »
Get a Dell.  Trade secret: Any Dell install disk will work on any Dell system.  So your old green WinXP CD will install to any Dell out there, and it won't ask for an install code. 

I imagine it's the same with any manufacturer who uses standard install disks, but I know it works with Dells.

Another option: Buy used. :p  The half-life on a computer system's price is about 9-12 months.

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Those who see their lives as spoiled and wasted crave equality and fraternity more than they do freedom. If they clamor for freedom, it is but freedom to establish equality and uniformity. The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic; one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority.
-Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer", 1951

Offline LC EFA

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Re: found one
« Reply #9 on: October 16, 2008, 02:34:22 AM »
Quote from: Woody on October 16, 2008, 01:18:13 AM
Get a Dell.  Trade secret: Any Dell install disk will work on any Dell system.  So your old green WinXP CD will install to any Dell out there, and it won't ask for an install code. 

I imagine it's the same with any manufacturer who uses standard install disks, but I know it works with Dells.

Another option: Buy used. :p  The half-life on a computer system's price is about 9-12 months.



Packard Bell and HP have a neat little DMI Hardware Tattoo that they hash to another tattoo on the EXTHS and another on the Install media.
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Offline thundley4

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Re: found one
« Reply #10 on: October 16, 2008, 06:22:42 AM »
Quote from: Woody on October 16, 2008, 01:18:13 AM
Get a Dell.  Trade secret: Any Dell install disk will work on any Dell system.  So your old green WinXP CD will install to any Dell out there, and it won't ask for an install code. 

I imagine it's the same with any manufacturer who uses standard install disks, but I know it works with Dells.

Another option: Buy used. :p  The half-life on a computer system's price is about 9-12 months.



Interesting about the Dell install disk. Here's a question though. I have an older Dell with XP that I still use, can I use that install disk to put XP on the newer Dell that came with Vista pre-installed or would that cause licensing issues?
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Offline LC EFA

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Re: found one
« Reply #11 on: October 16, 2008, 06:39:39 AM »
Quote from: thundley4 on October 16, 2008, 06:22:42 AM
Interesting about the Dell install disk. Here's a question though. I have an older Dell with XP that I still use, can I use that install disk to put XP on the newer Dell that came with Vista pre-installed or would that cause licensing issues?

So long as that license is only used (installed) on one computer at any one time I don't see that MS should have a concern with it. If you mean to continue using the old Dell after installing that license on another machine, then it is a indeed a breech of license.

That said, depending on how Dell do their install, and how different the hardware in the two machines it, could mean for some interesting crashes until the correct drivers are installed, or that the install won't run at all.

I would think that Dell would have a hardware tattoo system to prevent the install being used on non-dell machines but don't know that for sure.
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Offline thundley4

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Re: found one
« Reply #12 on: October 16, 2008, 10:09:32 AM »
I think the license thing would cause a problem, as well as the drivers. Hopefully Mickey$oft gets around to making Vista more stable and less of a problem.  :banghead:
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Offline franksolich

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Re: found one
« Reply #13 on: October 16, 2008, 12:33:51 PM »
Quote from: Thor on October 15, 2008, 04:27:15 PM
Frank, what are the other parameters of that machine ?? Memory, hard drive capacity and processor speed ?? 98 is WAY outdated.

Well, excresence, Thor, sir.

I'm on my way to the big city in a few minutes here.

The parameters "seemed" to me, to be about the same as my now-Rice-Krispied tower and hard drive, if not exactly so.  I didn't know what was important, so just looked at the gigabytage to remember.

Anyway, I'm sure the guys in the big city can put in a newer version of Windows and all this other stuff; if it's impractical, they'll tell me.
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Offline Thor

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Re: found one
« Reply #14 on: October 16, 2008, 03:34:30 PM »
Since I don't know what parameters your old system was....... it's a crap shoot. At the moment, I'm running an AMD Athlon 1.4 GHZ processor with 1 Gigabyte of RAM. My video card in an old GeForce2 MX 400 with 64 Megabytes of Video RAM. I have almost  250 Gigabytes of hard drives. ( I have a LOT of music and stored programs, with room for more). This old workhorse I built myself some eight years ago and it keeps going and going. It does everything I need, but is considerably outdated. I'm running windows XP SP2 without any problems. The ONLY time it gets rebooted is when the power fails or I add/ remove a program that requires a reboot.

I really liked your first choice that you found at the PC shop. That would do you for quite a while. This second choice, for $25 isn't a bad deal and could possibly be upgraded.

If you go to www.belarc.com and download the free "Advisor", install it and run it, it will show us what exactly you have. Print the screen and paste it into MS Paint works pretty well. Then upload it to photobucket and put the image here.
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"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."- IBID

I AM your General Ne'er Do Well, Troublemaker & All Around Meanie!!

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."-Thomas Jefferson

Offline franksolich

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Re: found one
« Reply #15 on: October 16, 2008, 04:42:59 PM »
Sorry, Thor, sir, no go.

I took the tower and hard-drive to the computer experts in the big city.

They admired that it was pretty new and virtually unused, but apparently I would have to have it upgraded from Windows 98 to a newer version, as Windows 98 won't support IE.7 and Firefox, being nearly obsolete by now.

At a cost of circa $200.

Well, my deal is, I just spent $425 the day before yesterday (Tuesday) on new tires for the motor vehicle, which pretty much consumed all of my disposable spending until January when income tax work starts coming in.

(Not for anybody to worry; I of course cover all necessary expenses all the time; what I am talking about here is disposable money, throwaway money.)

I'm thinking about just taking something short-term, a job, to get the dough for something considerably better, but that takes a couple of weeks before anything materializes.

Which doesn't solve the problem at hand, at least right now.

Anyway, so I posted at the local grocery store a message I'm interested in buying a used tower and hard drive, but this time specifying that it apparently must be Windows XP or Windows Vista, to Hell with its gigabytage (which I had always thought, apparently erroneously, was the most important thing).

It's been a very exasperating day, a wearying one.  I also spent a long time looking into cellular telephones.

I resent this, having to pay for things one can't use or doesn't need; this "tax on the deaf" thing which I whined about some days ago.  We all, including everyone here, of course has to pay for things we don't want or don't need--the subway cat and her support and maintenance come immediately to mind--but that's a tax that applies to everybody.  I'm describing more specifically those things the deaf have to pay for, even if one doesn't need or use them.

When I was still living in Omaha, one time I computed that 30% of my disposable non-grocery spending was for things I didn't want or couldn't use.  I'm really tired of this shit.

The hard-of-hearing and deaf primitives of course deserve all the misery they get, because of their attitude that they"re "entitled" to all things hearing people get.....and "entitled" to society in general paying for these things.  Which is of course the opposite the way I feel about the matter.  Worthless rectal apertures, the hard-of-hearing and deaf primitives.

I don't want "things;" I just don't want to have to pay for things I can't use or don't need.

Okay, whining over.

I'll be in touch tomorrow (Friday).
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Offline GOBUCKS

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Re: found one
« Reply #16 on: October 17, 2008, 12:22:20 AM »
At least now we know the reason for coach's computer problems.

Quote
Callie McAllie  (433 posts)       Thu Oct-16-08 04:15 PM
Original message
Is it over yet?
Today's the 15th, right? Mercury is moving forward again tomorrow, right? What a horrible day I am having! Computer problems, errant emails, miscommunications, missed connections. I know it's always worst right at the end of the retrograde period.

All that's left is for my car to break down on the way home!

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Offline Wineslob

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Re: found one
« Reply #17 on: October 20, 2008, 02:30:52 PM »
Quote from: Thor on October 15, 2008, 10:36:39 PM
Woody, try buying a NEW PC without it having Vista as an OS......  :hammer: :hammer:

It can be done, but it has to be special ordered. I absolutely fell in love with XP, even in it's beta days. 98SE was pretty good, for a DOS Emulator, but XP has won, hands down. Of course, wasn't it Bill Gates that stated that NO computer should EVER need more than 64K of RAM ?!?!?   :rotf: :rotf: :rotf:

Hell I've got 3 gigs and want more. (I gots room for 1 more 1 GIG stick)
The other problem with Win 98 (I believe) is it wont "see" more than 512 MB of RAM.
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Offline LC EFA

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Re: found one
« Reply #18 on: October 20, 2008, 05:31:52 PM »
Quote from: Wineslob on October 20, 2008, 02:30:52 PM
Hell I've got 3 gigs and want more. (I gots room for 1 more 1 GIG stick)
The other problem with Win 98 (I believe) is it wont "see" more than 512 MB of RAM.

Windows itself was running in 32bit protected mode, but the kernel was still a real-mode 16 bit app. IIRC. Thus all sortsa interesting issues were possible.

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