Yay - working internet connection!

[karen2205]

I went to the shop to collect my computer after work yesterday and got them to test the modem, which produced exactly the same error for them as it did for me. I wasn't exactly pleased by this, but it at least made me feel that I was justified in saying 'this isn't working'. They replaced the modem for me and it works!

Went from there to ewtikins's house where I got to play with screws and bolts and shelves and stuff. And she fed me very nice chilli:-) Saw mstevens for the first time in a while too.

Came home and played with my computer till 2am ish - it now has XiRCON and PuTTY installed.

Cutting for questions to get the geeks arguing:

(a) recommend a mail client

(b) recommend a news reader

(c) remind me how to set up the localhost thing on urchin to get a newsfeed

(d) recommend a web browser

(e) my machine has wireless capabilities. I've no idea how to go about using it. When it comes to wanting to download large files would it be worth my while to find a wireless access point and learn how to use it?

(f) recommend a version of linux - the last time I asked this question someone told me the answer was Debian but to ask again when I actually needed the information

(g) I need to get hold of MySQL - would I be better offering beer tokens in exchange for a CD or doing (e)?

(h) The machine runs XP Pro and has Norton anti-virus software already installed. Is this sufficient or should I get different anti-virus software?

Comments

[emma]

Thunderbird for mail, and I'm going to break the mould and suggest Opera for browsing. Just not if you want to edit S2 layers, since LJ has decided not to support Opera anymore. It has many of the features built in as standard that you have to add to Firefox with plugins, and it still loads faster for me than a relatively bare bones Firefox. It has a session saver as default, which is wonderful if the program or your computer crashes, or if you accidentally close it and lose all the many tabs you had open. I don't remember the other reasons I ruled out Firefox due to too many nifty Opera features, but you can probably get a lot of them in plugin form for Firefox. A lot of it is probably preference. I say try them both :)

I don't know much of anything else, except I'd say XP Pro and Norton make a decent combination. Check how long your license is for - my computer came with 3 months of Norton, then I had to either buy a license or get something else (since my university provides free Sophos and Ben's university provides free McAfee, I went with the latter option).

[skibbley.livejournal.com]

I use Opera for my main browser, sometimes Firefox.