I've Sold Out...

I am now using a Windows-based PC. My brother-in-law gave me a server-grade Compaq hard drive. Will now be asking Santa Claus for Norton Anti-Virus.

I will always be a Mac user at heart though.

Welcome to the real world.

Just kidding. I used to use both Mac and PC's at work (printing business), and the only reason I hated Mac's was because they seemed to lock up all the time.

Well Mike were about the same age and I recall a paraphrase of a statement.

"When I was a child I thought as a child and I acted as a child; now that I am a man I must put my childish things away, and think as a man and act as a man. "

I believe it was Paul that said something like that. I was just thinking about that today because I sold my guitar and am selling my bass and my cd's and books and almost all of my possessions of my youth, so that I can move. in life we must all make sacrifices for a better tomorrow, and here's to a better tomorrow for all of us that have to make those hard choices in life.

I've never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Mike, don't wait for Santa to bring the Norton. Study publish by SANS (a compter/internet security organization) found the average time before an unprotected computer was either infected or exploited was 20 minutes.


Birddog, where are you moving?

Odd you speak of Macs locking up. I've started gaining some experience with them now that I'm forced to support them. Biggest problem I've found so far is the error messages are about as informative as Windows is stable and tweakable. As in, NOT!

Well I decided it's time to put up or shut up and me shuttin' up probably ain't going to happen. So the wife, dogs and I are going to New Zealand. I graduate with a degree in Horticulture in June (a shortage job in a country with a strong economy and <4% unemployment) and we will have our house completely re-modeled in the next few months and on the market. We have quite a bit of equity in it so a sale should leave us a bit more than flush. We are basically selling everything except some of our nice furniture, some clothes, a few of my books and cd's. We are taking our time and doing everything right one step after the other and right in its own time.

I am looking foreward to simplifing my life a bit more and stepping out of the fast lane. I have made a big change in the past 3 years whereas I used to work a minimum of 60+ hours a week surveying in the mountains I was on the road to no where and getting there fast, Shancy my girlfriend (now my wife of 2.5 years) taught me to slow it down a little and work to live not live to work.

There ore only a few things I won't give up though. My wife, my dogs, my dreams and a big dose of CR and the gang to put a bit of spring in my step.

You have to make at least one trip to the middle of the state for a farewell get together. Besides, flying out of Raleigh/Durham is cheaper than out of Charlotte.

Are you going to school in Cullowhee?

I try not to leave the mountains too often , usually when we fly we go with Delta which has a carrier here in Asheville then on to Atlanta. Reminding me that Shamalama was offering one-way buddy passes with delta out of the country.

I am in Waynesville going to Haywood Community College which has one of the best horticulture programs in the state just behind NC State.

WCU is only about 25 minutes away.

Not to Lazarus this thread this thread but you can forget Santa, go with AVG. They have a free version that works just dandy. I'd also remind you to head to windowsupdate.microsoft.com as soon as possible and visit it regularly.

Santa Claus did better than the Norton Anti-Virus software. He brought me the whole shebang-Norton SystemWorks. I installed it on my computer and got my email program (Outlook) set up. Now all I have to do get a printout of my old address book and enter it into Outlook. I've already done the ones I know from memory, like my mom & dad, my sister and my friends.

And yes, I have clicked the "Windows Update" icon a couple of times and downloaded the service packs.

Depending on the format of your old address book, you may be able to import it into Outlook. Congratulations on the SystemWorks. It is very good. My only problem with it is when you run the "one button checkup", it dumps all of your cookies for places like Celtic Radio. You then have to reenter them the next time you log on.

I've used Windows for a long time now but here lately I've been pretty fed up with the whole OS after having to support it where I work. It's a floggin' mess!!! I wish they'd come out with something far better than Windows XP (Xtra Poo) and actually make it worth everyone's while.

I also wish (and this is a big wish) that they'd come out with a standard anti-virus that wouldn't eat up all your system resources and cause your computer to crap out worse than a flubbin' virus would!

Now that I've spoke my peace about Microsnot and (cough, cough) Snortin' Anti-Virus, I'll step down from my little brown soapbox...

[the key is, get a MAC or build a Linux system;)]

I'd like to get one of those new Mac minis.