How Do I… Where Do I… Here Is a Site With the Top Free Windows Utilities

As the support forum administrator and Customer Support Manager for iThemes.com, I am quite often telling people that they need to do various tasks to get their problem or project completed. After over 2000 forum posts and well over 1000 e-mail questions, I’ve begun to form a pattern of users:

  • Mac users with issues are usually just new to WordPress and are unfamiliar with getting things to work.
  • Windows users with issues are usually totally inexperienced when it comes to getting anything cool done on the Internet.

I know that’s a broad generalization, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a Mac user on our forum who was using crappy FTP software, let alone people who were relying on their host’s file manager to upload entire folders. There are exceptions to both camps, of course, but in this market it also seems like there is a good portion of Mac users who have PCs as well and are either using both for web work or have advanced themselves to the superiorly stable platform and program market. Macs just have cool stuff, virus-free!

So, in an effort to aid the Windows users out there, here is a site I ran across that lists a ton of the best free Windows software that have been tried and tested to be what you need to use if you’re on a PC. I direct you to:

http://www.opensourcewindows.org/

(I would be remiss to not point out that there is a missing category: Anti-virus, which I suggest AVG Free Personal)

Not to neglect my fellow Mac addicts now, there is also http://www.opensourcemac.org/ just in case you want all of your favorite sites listed in one place (since you’re already using these programs).

iPhone in the House

My check for the iPhone came in and I made it a half day at work because it was a tad slow, beautiful has the day off, and I wanted to take advantage of the afternoon to set the phone up.

It is awesome beyond description!

I’m looking for a way to import my contacts from my old phone’s SIM card, but it doesn’t seem to like my old card.

Oh, yeah. This entire post was created using the WordPress app on the phone.

iPhone Readiness Program

I’m gearing up for getting my iPhone 3G this week. iThemes.com is doing an equipment purchase for me so I can check my RSS feeds, Gmail, and the Internet without being tied to my computer. When I’ve got class at night, I don’t get Internet until I arrive on campus and have a mad blitz to answer forum threads and e-mails before the professor walks in.

This way, I can check at our notoriously long traffic lights and while I’m at my favorite eatery, Firehouse Subs, which just gets people asking me what network I’m connected to. I just have to tell people I’m being a dorky student writing my paper offline.

I started downloading free TV episodes and apps on iTunes last night, and then I dropped a whole $.99 for a Koi Pond app that was simply irresistable. I heard from a co-worker that AT&T near her house was sold out, so I’ll be going to the Apple store to get the phone and register it, and then drive back to AT&T near home to get it added to our plan since we are both eligible for the “new phone” discount with 2-year agreement.

Windows XP Crap; Not My Fault

Yesterday I finally got around to backing up a client’s laptop hard drive onto DVDs for him. The laptop had motherboard issues and was 4 years old, so I simply removed the hard drive to hook up to my computer and burn some discs. Simple for a geek, right?

That’s what I thought.

Hooking it up to one cable, the computer wouldn’t boot: no operating system found. I tried another, same thing. I tried the last one, and I got a blue screen of death and an immediate reboot before it ever logged me in. I tried going into Safe Mode, and that froze for 20 minutes. Giving up, I slapped my stuff back together and turned on my computer to get my own, permanent error of no operating system found.

I’m sure it has to do with mixing old drive technology and new drive technology and will require a new hard drive to back up all my “little” drives, and then will still require another Windows installation to set everything in place. Gorgeous thought I had done something foolish with my system, and I was starting to wonder myself. Then, when I was lamenting in my chats while trying to get the darn thing back up, a friend said the same thing had happened to their brother when he tried to rescue a laptop hard drive. I didn’t feel quite as bad then.

I was able to get the computer to boot again, though only with the Windows CD in there. I’ll take it, for now. I have too much work to do to be concerned with making it perfect. I guess I’ll just be using my laptop more.

I am seriously considering trying to get OS X on this system after reading Lifehackers’ “Hackintosh” articles: Hack Attack: Build a Hackintosh Mac for Under $800 and
How To: Install OS X on Your Hackintosh PC, No Hacking Required