Getting some things done

I finally got an oil change for the car on Friday, and the guy I went to
said he said the threads beginning to show through on the right rear
tire. So knowing that was going to need looked at, I headed right up to
WalFart and got 3 tires.

They really should explain all the extra fees instead of just pricing
the tires one price or include them. The tire I had gotten about a year
ago I don't remember being so much. After it was done, the price went up
another $30 or so. Tire recycling fee? There were fees that got added in
and I was charged sales tax on. If these are state-mandated fees, I
shouldn't have to pay SALES TAX on a FEE. It ended up being another 45
cents on those fees which aren't a product that got sold, but another
form of tax.

My friend's mother in law bought a new 'puter with Windows Vista on it.
Oooh.. bad move. But anywho, her old one made for WinXP he got to have
so I spent some time on it yesterday formatting the HD and
repartitioning it. I was able to use the Dell WinXP Home editon install
CD we had, and we did get prompted for a product key which we also had.
First thing once XP Setup was done was take a bunch of updates. And then
after that some installs and Service Pack 2, and some more updates. Then
I screwed on the lid tight with Spybot Search and Destroy and Comodo
Personal Firewall. These free pieces of software are excellent. I'm glad
I discovered Comodo's software. Locks down access to important system
files and monitors any changes made to the system - new files, folders,
and system keys - it keeps track of it all. Some people may have been
leery of free security software in the past because of getting hacked,
but for once Comodo's firewall is the real thing. The only thing I wish
it did was help block advertising graphics and flash animations. At
least with Firefox 2.0 on there, it can be trained to block cookies from
certain sites as well as graphics. Now to add a flash blocker, too.
Comodo even blocks intrusions. ^_^

I put Xvid in there, WMP10, AVG, Ad Aware, SDP's downloader (need to get
TZD.EXE in there, too). He's got an install for Super(c) but I've not
run it yet. Fortunately, the system will be getting a DVD burner, so
after that I'll be looking for free DVD player software for him and of
course DVD authoring and burning.

I'm not done with their system. There's another partition to format and
a few more pieces of CD rom software to install and then move their
important stuff off the Win98SE system and see about getting it to stop
randomly rebooting. The HD is healthy, so I wonder if the power supply
is acting up.