Comments on: Turning A Sow’s Ear Into A Silk Purse

By: Allen McDonald, El Galloviejo®

Allen McDonald, El Galloviejo® — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 06:55:46 +0000

¡ Hola Don Ray et al !
Long time no read or write.
All is ducky here in The Land of My Dreams –
Costa Rica.
Thanks for the scoop on Yoytec. Wish I had know about it when I was a Boquetian. (:-)
Most computer items here are landed cost plus 50% or more.
Did find a good source in the U. S. tho,
http://geeks.com/
They were the only computer parts store that I found that ships to Costa Rica by U. S. Postal Service. The others, Tiger Direct, Newegg, etc., charge several hundred dollars to ship here by UPS, FedEX +/or DHL.
I was able to build a new compute by ordering a couple of items at a time and shipping to my P. O. box here. Costa Rica doesn’t bother charging tax if the box is small. (:-)
Total cost for the computer was ± $600.00.
¡ The same computer here would be over $2000.00 !
Enjoy Ur time off, Don Ray.

Allen McDonald, El Galloviejo®

By: Don Ray

Don Ray — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 23:33:22 +0000

Running with a bootlegged version is extremely dangerous. I would never recommend for anyone to use such a system. If you run a Windows system, you should keep it current. Doing less is not smart.

By: John Taylor

John Taylor — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 23:24:03 +0000

If you suspect that you have a bootlegged version of xp you can set the system so that it doesn’t prompt you to load updates. It is simple and you can google to find out how it is done. The downside is that you don’t get updates but sometimes Microsoft updates create more problems than they solve.

By: Tuxi

Tuxi — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:44:14 +0000

For Dan Miller,

Sun’s StarOffice is OpenOffice plus some additional goodies which Sun adds in. Sun bought StarOffice several years back (~8?) and spun off the OpenOffice effort (which largely run by Sun).

IBM’s newer Lotus office offerings are also built on OpenOffice, but I’ve read that they started from a version that’s now a bit outdated.

OpenOffice is licensed under the Lesser GNU Public License (link is to latest version, but Open Office may be under an older version). This allows Sun, IBM, and others to provide commercial offerings based on OpenOffice.

By: Don Ray

Don Ray — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:15:08 +0000

If he wants a Laptop in with English Keyboard he can get it in David. I think Alex at INFOX has them or can order them. He might also look at PriceSmart. A lot of times their PCs have the English KB. Most new systems will come with Vista.

If it is a destop that is wanted, Alex can build them with either Vista or XP.English KBs are more difficult to find by themselves, but they are here.

By: dave

dave — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:52:06 +0000

Hi Don. my cousin is trying to find a computer with a keyboard in english. A laptop and XP or vista in english. can he orrder one at any of the stores in David?

By: Don Ray

Don Ray — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:24:38 +0000

Hi Dan. Yes many of the small builders may try to pass off a bootlegged copy. The better shops don’t do that. I really don’t know whay countries like Panama don’t try using more Linux systems. I know that the systems that Optica Lopez has in their stores are on Linux PCs.

By: Dan Miller

Dan Miller — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:04:44 +0000

Don Ray,

A few years ago,I had a computer built by some nice folks in Boquete, with the Microsoft XP operating system. It worked fine, until I tried to do the security upgrades offered by Microsoft. Opps! It seems that the operating system was bootlegged, and the end result was that Microsoft disabled all of the Office software and all of my e-mails in Outlook were lost. I subsequently heard that lots of buyers had the same problem.

I don’t like Microsoft, but haven’t had the courage to switch to one of the other operating systems. The good news is that I found an Open Office package for free, that does everything Microsoft office does, and does it just about as well. Then Sun, one of the Open Office supporters, offered a free version of Star systems 8, which did the same thing as Open Office, only slightly better. There is an upgrade, also gratis, which I plan to download some evening when the internet is a tad faster and I don’t need to do anything.

I completely understand Microsoft’s perspective, but think they would garner less ill will by going after the jerks who sell the bootleg software than after their victims. Sure, I should have known, since I didn’t get a bunch of CDs. But I didn’t.

Would I know better next time around? Certainly. It was a learning experience, and possibly worth the cost and aggravation. Still, I developed a dislike of Microsoft and that may be not uncommon.

Dan Miller

By: Don Ray

Don Ray — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 23:02:22 +0000

I agree. I had set the BIOS when installing the HD and did what I thought should have been there. It ran poorly and I had to research the problem.

I will have to look into VM when I get some time.

By: Tuxi

Tuxi — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 22:28:58 +0000

I certainly would have thought turning on hardware RAID in the BIOUS would have been the wrong thing to do. A person who used to be on the IRC channel I frequent had a signature on leaving, “Google is your friend.” — words to live by.

I’m glad your friend has at least one good operating system. Now to move him to using a VM instead of dual boot ;-).