Since the resurrection, the laptop has been the exclusive property of my wife for some unknown reason. I acquired a new (used) laptop, preloaded with Windows XP, much to my chagrin. Sure, it's a laptop, but was I ready for Windows again after more than a year?
Booting into Windows again after so long gave me the mother of all piss-shivers. The random crashes, freezes and such were all right there where I remembered them. After a few days of that, I decided to install Freespire linux and dual boot. I'm NOT a linux geek at all, and having had some experience with the Lindows/Linspire product, I figured what the hell.
I really had no desire to learn all the geekery of Linux just yet, I simply wanted a nice looking, more secure OS that worked with a minimum of fuss. I set up a new partition, dual booted, and all was bliss for a few days. I realized suddenly upon a failed reboot that I'd made a mistake somewhere down the line, and had lost both my Windows and Linux partitions to the wind.
So, I bucked up and reinstalled Freespire, this time taking over the entire hard drive. Thirteen minutes and I was back in an OS, two more configuring my wireless setup and internet surfing recommenced.
During the crash, I lost several albums worth of MP3s I'd saved in my Freespire partition, and I was rightfully upset. I stewed for a few minutes and then remembered I'd set up an account on the Mp3tunes.com site and registered for one of their free 'Oboe' music lockers. I'd synced up all my songs the night before the crash, so hope flooded back into my heart.
I opened the built in Oboe-Sync utility in Freespire and boom...all my music came right on down those big fat data tubes and into my hard drive. I have now officially learned that:
- Backups are a GOOD thing
- Oboe is a very, very nice little app
- Linux is more fun than Windows, if only because it's NOT Windows
- I am a recovering Apple snob
- My wife is oddly tolerant of my uber-hot Charlotte Church wallpapers
