PC setup: Day one  #
Thursday, 05 Feb 2009 11:39AM
Windows XP Pro. How ugly you are when out of the box.

  1. Setup screen properly. Wondering if a 16:9 widescreen was such a good idea. It seems... small.
  2. "Secured" XP by doing probably a little too much of this: http://www.markusjansson.net/exp.html
  3. Fixed TCP IP (broke it with step 2). Disabled unused ethernet ports.
  4. Connected to router, added Mac Address to filter, re-enabled MAC filter. Turned on modem... we can haz Internetz!
  5. Windows Update (including Media Player 11, .NET install failed for some reason...)
  6. Fix Windows Installer (broke it with step 2)
  7. Firefox
  8. Zone Alarm, Avast AntiVirus, AdAware and Spybot Search & Destroy
  9. iTunes
  10. Steam (the whole point of the new computer)

Still to do:

  • Download Half Life 2 + Portal via Steam and play with Google Earth (all need DirectX9 which I now finally have)
  • Install MAudio Audiophile PCI card, hopefully disable onboard sound if I can figure out how (mmmm bios)
  • Transfer data (photos and Picasa, iTunes songs, documents)
  • OpenOffice
  • IIS (eeep!) and mySQL for my CD Database (and try to secure them, plus URLScan and some creative firewalling)
  • FTP, Mozilla Thunderbird, Java, Flash, Adobe PDF Reader, DivX, XVid
  • .NET Framework 1.1 and 3.5
  • WinZip, WinRAR
  • CD/DVD burning software (ImgBurn? Nero?)
  • DVD Playing software (??? Power DVD sucks)
  • CD Ripping software (EAC and AudioGrabber)
  • Audio editing (Audacity)
  • FLAC tools
  • MP3 creating software (RazorLame and LAME)
  • MP3 tagging software (MP3Tag, ID3-TagIT)
  • Get my Canopus Firewire video capture device running (with WinDV)
  • DVD creation software (TMPGEnc 2.5, TMPGEnc DVD)
  • Bittorrent

All of this before I start recording music again. Tempted to use Rudd's free cash to look into some proper recording hardware/software. Something firewire would be nice.

Or I could give it all to charity and claim it on tax. Does that "help the economy"?