Want to buy a used PC and update the OS on it to XP or Vista? Forget it, unless you want to buy a new license. Translation–an additional $100 or so. As you know, you can’t install your Windows OS on more than one machine. You have to have a unique license for each and every one. I have three older PC’s sitting around, minus hard drives (or non-working drives), that need an operating system. I actually “borrowed” an XP CD that didn’t require registration, as my first attempt to revive them. And that worked fine, except the first machine (let’s call it alpha), only had 4 gigs of hard space, and Windows took up 3.5 gig. After adding Office, I had almost no space left.

On to plan B–Linux. This is a free, open source OS, that I’d read about, but never paid much attention. Now it had my attention. It sounded perfect:

• Free
• Readily available
• Has a small footprint–meager disk and memory requirements
• Runs a free, open source version of Office (Word, Excel, Power Point, etc.)
• You can test it with a Live CD version (you don’t need to actually install it to use it)

It sounded perfect, but turned out to not quite be true. Here are my attempts.

Trial 1

I bought a magazine with a version of Ubuntu on a Live CD. Ubuntu is a distribution of Linux that’s been more or less standardized and packaged so you have a core system that only needs to be updated from time to time with improved versions.

It ran fine on my primary PC with Vista. Except that the wifi connectivity didn’t work. I consulted with a friend of mine who is handy with Linux, and we ended up installing it on my machine with VMWare, a free PC virtual machine. That let me run Linux with all of my Windows hardware, including the wifi card. I was up and running, but not with the machine (alpha) that I wanted to run it on.

So, I figured I just needed to run the Live CD on alpha, and I should be good to go. Well, the first problem is that if you run from a Live CD, none of the changes you make to get something working, like wifi connectivity, will get saved to your next session. You need something called persistence, so any changes get picked up when you run it again. I solved that problem by finding a download of Ubuntu that will load and run from a USB drive, and has the persistence property. Basically, it just saves any modifications to another file on the drive, and the OS looks there for add-ons whenever it loads.

But uh oh, a new problem surfaced. Most older PC”s won’t boot from a USB drive. So, I did more googling and found a solution for that. There’s a neat little program called PLOP that will load from either a CD or a floppy, that will give your OS the option to boot from a USB device. I had CD capability on alpha, so I burned an ISO image to a CD, and joila, had the ability to boot from my Ubuntu-on-a-USB stick.

Except it ran and ran and ran, and would never finish loading. I did some more reading and discovered that Ubuntu needs at least 512 meg of RAM to run. I only had 128 in alpha. But, a smaller version of Ubuntu, called Xubuntu, seemed like it would solve my problem. I tried that, and Eureka, it loaded. But, it ran woefully slow. So slow, that it was impossible. to use.

Now, here’s the irony–XP was a resource hog, but it ran fine in 128 meg of memory. It was hardly slow at all. Yet, Linux, which has an incredibly smaller footprint, was like watching molasses flow. Argh.

Fortunately, memory is cheap ($40), even for older PC’s, so I ordered 256 meg of memory, and moved on to a still smaller version of Linux, called DSL (Damn Small Linux), while I waited for it to arrive.

DSL installed fine, but I still had the problem with wifi connectivity. That was, of course, a minimum requirement for alph–it had to have browser capability. After fruitless hours trying to find a Linux driver for the Belkin card I had in alpha, I tried a technique built into Linux (and DSL), called NDIS wrapper, which lets you use the Windows driver that came with the card. And miraculously, it worked. I had a browser that worked. It was an older version of Firefox, but it worked fine. I thought.

I could browse pretty much any site I wanted to look at, including FaceBook, so I thought I had hit pay dirt. But, of course, it was too good to be true. Hootsuite, a FaceBook and Twitter add on, crashed the browser. And when I tried to use the chat capability of FaceBook, I found it wasn’t there. And I couldn’t get the chat icon to show up, no matter what I did. I think there probably is a Flash add on, or something similar, that this version of Firefox doesn’t even know about.

Well, no big deal, so I can’t chat I can live with that. However, the next problem I found was that I could post updates on FaceBook. Nothing happened with I clicked on Share. So, that makes this experiment a failure.

I resigned myself to using Xubuntu (the wifi worked on booting), once I had upgraded the memory. Well, you’ll never believe this. When you order memory, the companies always make sure you give them the model number of the PC so they’re “sure” the memory will work. The new chips fit into the receiving slot just fine. Except the physical board was larger in one dimension than the original board in the machine. There wasn’t enough room in the memory compartment. I had to send them back.

We got to Cancun at 11:45 am (CST), on a beautiful sunny day (of course–it’s Cancun), and headed to our condo at the Coral Mar. After checking in, and having a few drinks at the bar, we headed downtown for our favorite Mexican restaurant, La Parilla.

Orientation Sunday morning, then to the beach at Coco Bongo. Rented an umbrella and table for $200. Had nachos and drinks at the table. Then took the bus to Market 28, and ate ceviche at Cejas.

We were picked up at 8:45 for Boca del Puma. KK’s birthday, and she started off by having a wreck on her bike, but then got rejuvenated and joined John and Megan for zip lining through the treetops from a 72 foot tower. Got back to Coral Mar around 4, and took a nap. Fiesta at the pool at 7:00. Dancing, food, and games. It was actually great fun–John and Megan really enjoyed the games and dancing.

We also got contact information from our driver, Jose Sanchez, for a trip to Chichen Itza. We decided to use him for the trip, as it was a little cheaper than the condo’s agency, and it would be customized for us. We ended up saving $40 US over the $300 we would have spent with the agency. But, we were able to control the time of departure and where we stopped on the way.

Slept in Tuesday morning, read and napped by the water. Headed back to Market 28. Ate Yucutan cuisine at Labna downtown. The lime soup was fabulous, and the marinated steak (Arrachera) was good, but the rest was so-so. They did have an awesome guitarist that wandered around the table and played romantic background music.

One of the funniest events was on a cab trip when one of the cab drivers had a working TV on his dash (the antenna was duct taped to the roof), and showed us a Lucha Libre match), with his favorite wrestler, La Parka (The Death). Hilarious.

We used Jose for the trip to Chichen Itza. We left at 7 am, and got there at 11. Just in time for a downpour. We made it all the way through the entrance and were at the base of El Castillo, when the skies opened up. We didn’t even have time for a quick picture. I was very concerned that we would not get out to see anything for the rest of the day, but about an hour later, the rain was reduced to light sprinkles. The day was saved.

Wednesday was recuperation day. Slept late, then decided to head to the local grocery for a cookout. Kind of surprised that these local stores don’t carry hamburger meat, so we settled for hot dogs. We did get the on-site grill functioning though, but by the time we tallied up the price of the taxi to the store, I think we could have had burgers at the palapa for about the same price.

Slept late again Thursday, and then headed downtown for more Market 28 shopping. Then, we decided to try a new restaurant for dinner–La Placita, in the far south hotel zone. Surprise–it was closed. So, we settled (John really, really wanted Hooters) for a small place called El Sombrero. Had burgers, wings, and calamari (so-so).

We decided to finish off the week by snorkeling on Friday. But first, we just had to have a genuine Mexican breakfast. Barbara, one of the front desk ladies (originally from Wisconsin), recommended La Cafe de la Nader, downtown. We tried it, and it was very good–incredible pastries to start off the meal, followed by omelets, enchiladas, and sopas. It was somewhat guesswork on ordering, since the menu was all Spanish, but the waiter was very helpful.

Snorkeling was in the afternoon, with a guided tour to Puerto Moreles, about 30 miles south of Cancun. KK and I did this once before, when Bill and Deanne were in Playa del Carmen. We met them there for snorkeling. It was interesting to see how that same beach have been built up in the years since. KK, John, and Megan saw many fish, and said it was definitely worth going on. I, on the other hand, relaxed on the patio, and read Vince Flynn’s Act of Treason.

We took our last meal at La Parilla, everybody’s favorite Cancun restaurant. We weren’t so hungry, since we were fed on the snorkeling trip, but the food was as good as ever, and we got a table right next to another great folk dance show. It was a great evening for our last taste of Mexico.

So far, so good, but the trip home was a disaster. Our plane was late leaving Cancun, and we got into Detroit too late to catch our connection. Delta couldn’t fly us out until 5:30 pm Sunday, but they could get us to DC early in the morning, so we opted to try that route. Delta was nice enough to put us up in a hotel, and gave us meal vouchers, so it didn’t cost us anything extra. The plane to DC left at 7:35 am, so (groan), we had to get up at 4:45 to make the shuttle.

It should have been easy to get to Richmond from DC, but our first surprise was finding out that Dollar and Thrift wanted $400 for a rental–they said it was hard to get cars back to DC. I finally tried Hertz, figuring they had a bigger fleet, and shouldn’t have this problem. It worked, and we got a car for $150. However, the car was not on site, and we had to take the Metro to a Hilton near Dupont Circle. We finally got on the road about 1:00 pm. Then, just as I had 395 practically in sight, and was breathing a sigh of relief, we were rudely blocked by a parade on 14th St. Foiled again. We had to head west out of town via I-66, to I-495. We finally got on I-95, and thought our problems were over. Ha. Gridlock on 95, most of the way home. It took 4 hours to go 100 miles.

We were running so late, Megan had to go directly to work in Chester, and she didn’t get to see her mom until after her shift, around 8:30 pm. We couldn’t call because we were stuck in traffic, and my cell phone had died because my charger wouldn’t work in Mexico. After I got home, it worked fine–it must have been something with the difference in AC. My PC though, worked fine in Cancun.

When you install Dropbox, it adds a folder, My Dropbox, to your My Documents folder. Then, you just move your pst file to the Dropbox folder. When you restart Outlook, you will be prompted for the new location. After you’ve done that on one computer, add Dropbox to your 2nd computer. Wait a few minutes, and the pst file will appear. Then rename your pst file for the 2nd computer and start Outlook up. It will also ask for the location, and after you point it to My Dropbox, you’re in businees.

Dropbox takes care of syncing things automatically from that point on. I was dubious at first, but it works great.

Back when podcasting was new, it was easy to find a podcatcher (a site that lets you subscribe to podcasts). I used to use Juice, but it doesn’t work very well with Vista. I’ve tried some others after Juice broke, but they were also-rans. I resurrected my interested after buying a Zune, because it has the built in ability to subscribe to podcasts. Some are video, and since the Zune excels at showing video, that’s nice, but a lot of them just show who’s talking, so it might as well be audio only.

Plus, I needed some filler audio for my car, in between listening to audio books. The search was on for something that would work with Vista. I found it in an unlikely place. I’d had Media Monkey for years, and never knew that it had podcatcher capability. I remembered that I had used it to download podcasts after catching them from Juice, so I checked again, and voila, the capability was there. It works like a charm, and it even recognized my Sansa Clip+, so I don’t have to go back and forth between different software programs. You do have to make sure it’s the newest version, 3.2, as my original didn’t work on Vista.

A really good site to search for podcasts is podcastalley.com. Right now, I have downloaded some podcasts on barbecuing, astronomy, and Dr. Who. Between Media Monkey and Zune, I believe I’m set for a few more years.

It’s all indoor, so it can get pretty hot in the summer, and cool in the winter, but hey, when you’re in the pit, waiting for your turn, all this is immaterial. Both boys got an extra race because it was their birth month, so that made papa happy (less $$).

Grill the wings, but for the last 5-6 minutes, cover them with Masterpiece Marinade–Lemon Pepper. You don’t need to cover both sides, just the top one will do. Yes, the bottle says marinade, but I use these Masterpiece marinades as a glaze. They’re thick, so they don’t run right off the meat. I use the Masterpiece Steak Marinade for… uh, steaks. Again, you don’t need to marinade, just add salt and pepper directly to the meat, and then cover with the sauce. Both sides for steak.