SRF Heavy Industries

…I’m having enough trouble getting XP drivers that are happy with my 2GHz Intel Centrino Core Duo. It’s a Dell notebook, for Chrissakes. Bluescreens from video drivers? Why did you sell it if it wasn’t ready? It’s been months and I’m fairly religious about updates and patches….

In any case, I haven’t heard many good things about Vista yet. The bad things I’ve heard include “it’s slower” and “some shit doesn’t work”. That’s bad, since I use a lot of stuff (i.e., “shit”) that might not be rewritten for Vista anytime soon.

Instead, I use:

• Otaku Software’s TopDesk 1.4.2 ($15, free 30-day trial)
• Stardock WindowBlinds 5.01 ($20, not just eye-candy. Has a few extra controls for windows. Free version sucks quite a bit. Love that per-pixel alpha blend.)
• R2d2 Software’s Virtual Desktop Toolbox 2.72 (free, keeps me from paying for whole $50 Stardock Object Desktop, which includes virtual screens, WindowBlinds, and a thousand other things)

So hey, $35US for Vista-like eye candy without the software crashes and slowdown? Extra usability, too? And, for you lucky goobs with extra monitors, all of the above supports multiple monitors.

And since VMWARE server is now free also (Yes, I’ve enabled the virtualization stuff in BIOS), I can flip over to a virtual screen where a VNC session is open to my free CentOS 4.4 install (XFCE, why do you ask?), where I have access to my true hack-o-matic tools.

Yeah, sure, whatever. If I can’t smell my CPU sweating, it’s not working.

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