I purchased and installed Linspire the other day. I have two laptops both running XP. My thought was why not setup Linspire (aka Lindows) on one of the laptops.
So my Dell laptop, being the older of the two, was nominated for this task. I figured the HD could use a good formatting anyway. The install was a no problem at all. I was able to attach to our network without a problem as well. I was also able to retrieve files from the storage server (a windows server) without any sort of challenges. I was impressed that all this worked without me having to configure anything.
I toyed around with Linspire pretty much all day and some of the night. I couldn't actually come up with what I would use this OS for. I develop using .Net and have a "play server" running Mandrake Linux. So I did what any geek would do. I reinstalled XP.
Since I purchased Linspire I didn't want to be out the money for something I wasn't going to use. I wrote Linspire an email stating that I used the OS for a day and really didn't see how it would be of benefit to me and then I asked for a refund. I expected that this was going to be one those situations of sending e-mail's back and forth. I was wrong. Linspire replied with "your card has been credited". Again I was impressed.
While I don't see myself using Linspire I will say they do have a nice and easy install and based on my short experience they have pretty good customer service too.
Now since I do have a port replicator for the Dell laptop I am doing the "multiple monitor" thing using the display on the laptop and a View Sonic View Panel monitor..so far I like it. I plan on hooking my second laptop up to it as well. I have a KVM switch. What I don't get why don't laptops have ports for hooking up a keyboard AND a mouse. I guess you could if you have a USB mouse and USB keyboard..but the KVM doesn't work with USB. Don't worry...I have an idea.
Why am I doing all this? Well I was bringing two laptops back and forth everyday...another geek thing
We will talk about my Dell laptop experiences another time.
We had a fire drill today. Our building consists of 10 floors. We are on the 8th floor. Of course during a fire drill (or a real fire for that matter) you cannot use the elevators so we had to walk down. Walking down isn't that bad. For a fire drill they evacuate all 10 floors.
We stood outside for about 30 minutes, of course I am thinking of all things I could be doing instead of standing outside. At the time of the fire drill I was working on our email server and had a reboot to do. Time to go back in. Somehow we are amongst the first back into the lobby. I thought I was lucky no waiting for an elevator. Well we get into the elevator, the elevator is packed, the doors close and we realize that the elevator is not letting us pick floors. Then the elevator slowly drops (thank god) half-way between the first floor and the basement. We are stuck. Luckily the building staff is on the first floor and can hear us. They open the doors and turn off the elevator. Now we all have to climb out. I felt bad for the females with skirts as this was a BIG step out....they maintenance folks had to help each of us out.
Now of course the lobby is full would be forever to wait for an elevator and I have a server that needs to rebooted..soooooo..we take the stairs. You never realize how out of shape you are when you have to take the stairs to the 8th floor. My legs still hurt!
The thing that is annoying they are constantly having problems with the elevators in this building. People are always getting stuck. Think they would do something about it!