Heroes of Might and Magic. Not just Might and Magic, but Heroes of Might and Magic. Awesome game. My wife and I started playing it when it was at number II and now it's at IV and we still play it. It's basically an animated map that you go around and collect resources, build up your castle, when you fight it moves to a full featured fight screen. Awesome game, I highly recommend it. It's really fun to go coop style on maps that support it as we don't care to fight eachother. Download.com has the demo.
Hell, at least your wife does that much! My wife's a set designer for theater, read, she spends most of her time drafting and then building minature models of the set... This means little junk and crap anywhere. If I want it clean, I have to clean it. It's gotten to the point where I don't even throw away what's fallen on the ground by chance I hear 6 months later "Remember that little piece of foam with a rounded edge and...." Sigh. I personally find it much more satisfying to exist, let alone work, in an organized place.
Those cheap, stackable, plastic drawers at Wal-Mart are usually pretty good for storing stuff in and if anyone's overly concerned about static just go somewhere and buy some anti-static bags, open them up, and line the bins with them.
For email I'd definitely recommend Eudora as it can be used free (ad based, but small add window) and isn't suceptible to propagating the many viruses that target Outlook.
As someone previously mentioned, I'd also recommend Opera, again, ad based, but a solid browser and mouse gestures rule!
Someone else also mentioned AVG for antivirus, probably the best option for free antivirus.
CDEX is a great MP3 ripping program that I've always used.
We can't forget Sonique and WinAmp for playing your MP3's. I prefer Sonique but that's just me.
Then of course there's Winzip, Adobe Acrobat, QuickTime, VNC, and ZoneAlarm or BlackIce (all available at download.com). These are all (except perhaps VNC) must have utilities for a Windows box.
This seems vaguely reminiscent of the swap for their own protocol ipx/spx for the more robust and powerfull tcp/ip. Once they fully realize what Linux can do for them I think we'll see Netware fade away more and more.
I bought it and it works ok. The horizontal scrolling tends to not work as well as it should though. For instance, when scrolling through my mp3 folder if I scroll up and down MS interprets it as side to side scrolling which works fine (view set as list) but if I scroll horizontal it scrolls 5-6 lines at a time even though it's set at 2 in the IOGear s/w. Works great in Opera though.
H/W... -I picked up a screw driver with replacable bits (standard size) that has an extendable magnet and a flash light with 2 little lights. Awesome tool, found at Pep Boys (automotive store around Philly) for about $7.
-Cat-5 crimp tool and a couple of rj-45 connectors.
-A 4 or so chamber pill carrier for screws, jumpers, and rj-45 connectors.
-Other replaceable bits for the screw driver including star bits.
-Needle nose plyers
-A paper clip or two for opening cd-roms.
S/W... -Copies of whatever o/s you use normally and associated codes
-WinZip or some equivelant
-Adobe Acrobat
-Major patches for your s/w that are too annoying to d/l
-Some kind of h/w diagnostic s/w as mentioned above
Anything more is just overkill if all you're doing is day to day stuff with pc's and servers. Add a cordless drill if you work with servers and racks esp.
The cash paid by the Defendants, after the payment of attorneys' fees, litigation and Settlement administration costs, shall be distributed to consumers who purchased Music Products. The number of claims filed will determine the actual amount of the individual refund but will not exceed $20.00 per claimant. If the number of claims filed would result in refunds of less than $5.00 per claimant, there will be no cash distribution to individual consumers. Rather, the cash portion of the Settlement shall be distributed to not-for-profit, charitable, governmental or public entities to be used for music-related purposes or programs for the benefit of consumers who purchased Music Products.
So now that this is on/. we all know the # of claims filed will result in a refund of less than $5. So now what happens? The money gets donated to pro-RIAA groups, yipee!
Honestly, 40% of these questions are answered in his book, i.e. the "what are your top 10 favorite..." or "what's a good way to learn..." or even a question about salt. It's a great read and not that expensive, I suggest those of you who are interested pick it up.
How can a pretty bad cook learn the essentials of good cooking?
That's the whole idea of his book I'm Just here for the Food. I suggest you buy it for her.
Slashdot Mirror
The link I left was a link to the 3rd one though.
Heroes of Might and Magic. Not just Might and Magic, but Heroes of Might and Magic. Awesome game. My wife and I started playing it when it was at number II and now it's at IV and we still play it. It's basically an animated map that you go around and collect resources, build up your castle, when you fight it moves to a full featured fight screen. Awesome game, I highly recommend it. It's really fun to go coop style on maps that support it as we don't care to fight eachother. Download.com has the demo.
Hell, at least your wife does that much! My wife's a set designer for theater, read, she spends most of her time drafting and then building minature models of the set... This means little junk and crap anywhere. If I want it clean, I have to clean it. It's gotten to the point where I don't even throw away what's fallen on the ground by chance I hear 6 months later "Remember that little piece of foam with a rounded edge and...." Sigh. I personally find it much more satisfying to exist, let alone work, in an organized place.
Those cheap, stackable, plastic drawers at Wal-Mart are usually pretty good for storing stuff in and if anyone's overly concerned about static just go somewhere and buy some anti-static bags, open them up, and line the bins with them.
My suggestions for the Windows side...
For email I'd definitely recommend Eudora as it can be used free (ad based, but small add window) and isn't suceptible to propagating the many viruses that target Outlook.
As someone previously mentioned, I'd also recommend Opera, again, ad based, but a solid browser and mouse gestures rule!
Someone else also mentioned AVG for antivirus, probably the best option for free antivirus.
CDEX is a great MP3 ripping program that I've always used.
We can't forget Sonique and WinAmp for playing your MP3's. I prefer Sonique but that's just me.
Then of course there's Winzip, Adobe Acrobat, QuickTime, VNC, and ZoneAlarm or BlackIce (all available at download.com). These are all (except perhaps VNC) must have utilities for a Windows box.
This seems vaguely reminiscent of the swap for their own protocol ipx/spx for the more robust and powerfull tcp/ip. Once they fully realize what Linux can do for them I think we'll see Netware fade away more and more.
4-D Optical Mouse
I bought it and it works ok. The horizontal scrolling tends to not work as well as it should though. For instance, when scrolling through my mp3 folder if I scroll up and down MS interprets it as side to side scrolling which works fine (view set as list) but if I scroll horizontal it scrolls 5-6 lines at a time even though it's set at 2 in the IOGear s/w. Works great in Opera though.H/W...
-I picked up a screw driver with replacable bits (standard size) that has an extendable magnet and a flash light with 2 little lights. Awesome tool, found at Pep Boys (automotive store around Philly) for about $7.
-Cat-5 crimp tool and a couple of rj-45 connectors.
-A 4 or so chamber pill carrier for screws, jumpers, and rj-45 connectors.
-Other replaceable bits for the screw driver including star bits.
-Needle nose plyers
-A paper clip or two for opening cd-roms.
S/W...
-Copies of whatever o/s you use normally and associated codes
-WinZip or some equivelant
-Adobe Acrobat
-Major patches for your s/w that are too annoying to d/l
-Some kind of h/w diagnostic s/w as mentioned above
Anything more is just overkill if all you're doing is day to day stuff with pc's and servers. Add a cordless drill if you work with servers and racks esp.
The cash paid by the Defendants, after the payment of attorneys' fees, litigation and Settlement administration costs, shall be distributed to consumers who purchased Music Products. The number of claims filed will determine the actual amount of the individual refund but will not exceed $20.00 per claimant. If the number of claims filed would result in refunds of less than $5.00 per claimant, there will be no cash distribution to individual consumers. Rather, the cash portion of the Settlement shall be distributed to not-for-profit, charitable, governmental or public entities to be used for music-related purposes or programs for the benefit of consumers who purchased Music Products.
So now that this is on /. we all know the # of claims filed will result in a refund of less than $5. So now what happens? The money gets donated to pro-RIAA groups, yipee!
Honestly, 40% of these questions are answered in his book, i.e. the "what are your top 10 favorite..." or "what's a good way to learn..." or even a question about salt. It's a great read and not that expensive, I suggest those of you who are interested pick it up.
How can a pretty bad cook learn the essentials of good cooking?
That's the whole idea of his book I'm Just here for the Food. I suggest you buy it for her.