June 2008 Archives

Yesterday was my first time to try Windows Vista -- and I instantly hated it. I wouldn't have bothered so much, since all I use my computer for is office work, e-mailing and going online. But when I compared Vista's performance against my five years older Windows XP system, the results brought me to the conclusion that there was no choice but to get rid of Vista. Compared to XP, Vista used about three times as much system memory -- in idle state! This is especially harmful to a small laptop like the Acer Aspire 2920, which heat up quickly. Also, higher hardware demands of the operating system translate into shorter battery life. I therefore decided to install Windows XP again... continue reading

About a year ago I was looking for an alternative to the original QQ software, the biggest chat network in China. One programme I stumbled upon was LumaQQ. But recently, when Gaim was renamed to Pidgin, its developers have re-introduced a working QQ plugin for this free and popular multi-protocol instant messenger. Pidgin is not the most friendly programme in terms of usability, though, and frequently causes problems for users who need to exchange messages in languages that don't use latin characters. I therefore decided to give a few hints on how to make Pidgin more equipped for this type of task... continue reading