Get Away from Windows - Use Ubuntu

I'm now waiting for my Windows Vista upgrade. It's supposedly on its way from Dell. Who knows when it will get here.

But the point of this post is Linux, specifically Ubuntu.

Maybe I've been out of the loop, but this OS seems to be all the rage these days. Maybe because it's "Linux for human beings."

There's an awesome blog I found that has some great tips and ideas for Ubuntu. If you haven't seen it, check it out and see what this OS can do for you. There's even a great post on switching to Ubuntu.

After you install it, you can tweak your installation easily. Flexibility might be one of the draws to this OS. Perhaps you can tell me.

Nightmare Upgrade to Office 2007

Back in January I bought my spiffy new Dell Inspiron. I love the laptop, but I'm having software issues.

The laptop came with Office 2003 Small Business Edition. Along with that, it qualified for an upgrade to Office 2007, but that has to be redeemed through a special website.

I've been trying to redeem that upgrade since January 12th, with no luck.

I've tried the online form, the phone number, and the email address. I've called Dell several times, I've called Microsoft, and I've called the 3rd party company who is handling the upgrade redemption process. No luck.

For some reason, nobody can find my Certificate of Authenticity in the upgrade system. It appears that my copy of Office 2003 doesn't exist in the appropriate database. What a load!

We'll see how it goes. Maybe I can get somebody to fix this mess.

Tweak Your Windows Settings

Have you noticed that Windows XP lacks a lot in the way of customization? Are there things you always wished you could do?

You should try out Microsoft's PowerToys. In a nutshell, these are awesome little programs that you can install to give added features to XP. Honestly, I think they're things that should've been in the OS from the start.

My favorite PowerToy is TweakUI. It provides settings to tweak lots of things in the user interface itself. You can set your machine to auto-login a certain user, you can change some of the default Start menu behaviors, the "places bar," and much more.

If you're looking to do something in Windows XP, you might check out the PowerToys first. They're pretty cool.