Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Dell Unboxing #2

So I have been reinstalling software on my new computer for the past three days.

As you can see, I have a lot of software.



And when I staged this photo, I accidentally forgot to include the Mrs.'s copy of Visio and MS Project - software packages I really need on my home PC for certain projects when I work from home.

And the Oscar Wilde book gives me something to read while the software loads.

Here are some interesting things I learned from this experience.

1) Microsoft deserves its reputation for being evil. To install the latest Service Packs for MS Office, the website would not give me the software until I let the "Windows Genuine Advantage" application scan my computer to determine if my software is legitimate or pirated. It determined that my software is legitimate, but STILL wouldn't install the updates until I put the original CDs in the drive and let the installer verify the legitimacy of the software again.

2) iTunes lets you use one account on up to five computers at a time. Because I did not plan on my computer crashing, I did not get a chance to deactivate my old computer. So I am now up to my limit of five (the desktop, the laptop, the work laptop, the dead desktop, and one mystery machine (it is either my wife's laptop or my computer at my previous employer). In case you wind up in a situation where you have a dead computer still listed as an active iTunes account, you can deactivate all five computers and start over. You get to do this once a year.

3) Sony Media Software is AWESOME! I log into my account and can download and reinstall my registered software directly from the website. So I don't need my CDs (even thought I have them), I just need my account and my registration numbers.

4) Final Draft and Final Draft AV are also pretty good software packages as far as re-installation goes. The website lets you download the latest version of the software from the website if you are a registered user (which is awesome!). You are only supposed to have this software on two machines (a desktop and a laptop) so you need to activate the software. Of course, my activation did not work because I am at the 2 machine limit. The software gave me a 1-800 number that I had to call to deactivate my software to reactivate my software. Call wait time was less than 90 seconds and the phone rep was awesome. Everything is working fine now.

5) Starcraft apparently doesn't care if you register the software or not. When you click "Register Starcraft" after installation, you get a nice juicy 404 error on the Blizzard site. Same goes for the PC version of Halo. Not that I use the computer to play games. No. It is to be productive and nothing else.

Still working on the data recovery. I will try to write about that. Haven't configured Outlook yet. Probably won't write about that.

7 comments:

Nate said...

EEK! That's why I kicked MS Office out of my life. One false claim by MS that my software wasn't legitimate.

Contrary to popular belief, you can interact just fine with an office of MS .doc and .xls users without having that damned software on your computer.

alex said...

I don't care about the "Mrs.'s copy of Visio and MS Project." I care about the Mrs. sexy-toes.


How am I to view this staged photo without a pointy appendage guiding the way? I am lost, adrift on a sea of confusion.

heather said...

so scooby had access to your i-tunes account? cool :)

NoRegrets said...

Which is your favorite Oscar Wilde?

Tera said...

Sounds like things are moving right along! And I so love it when you and Gyuss talk geek!!! Grrrrr!

P.S. I am quite perturbed that you were like commenter number eleventy on my post yesterday. Hmph!

M. Robert Turnage said...

Gyuss, I haven't gotten into all of the downloads yet. Open Office is on the list, as well as Skype.

Alex, the Mrs. is camera shy. I can't (nor do I really want to) control her. She does what she does.

Heather, yes. Although this drives up the play count on all of my Pink Floyd albums.

NoR, I am fond of the plays more than anything else. "The Importance of Being Earnest" is the real standout - almost every line is laugh-out-loud hilarious. Back in the dark dark depressing days of the Ghost of Girlfriends Past, I thought it would be fun to ignore all of the accompanying mental and emotional baggage and focus on dating actresses. One Actress Ghost of Girlfriends Past loved to sit with on the couch and we would read Oscar Wilde plays to each other with me doing all the male roles and her doing all the female roles. This is the only positive memory I have of that relationship.

Tera, if I weren't a challenge, I wouldn't be as interesting.

heather said...

nah, floyd wasn't scooby. that must have been shaggy. scoobs is more of a doors kinda guy. :-)