New computer tech stuff

[beandelphiki]

So we finally, FINALLY got our new computer all set up!

(Well, almost. It's lacking a lot of our old programs, like Photoshop and the Windows Office suite. WTF is "OpenOffice"? I don't want compatibility problems with school files, given that all the school computers use the newest versions of Windows Office programs. Will have to rectify this state of affairs soon.)

BUT. Finally, my mother, my sister and I are no longer frantically juggling a single free gig of space between the three of us. Our new computer has about 250 gigs, and our new external hard drive has twice that. We shall never run out of space again! Ha-HA!

So... What I SHOULD be doing is schoolwork, but naturally what I AM doing is playing with Firefox add-ons, since I can finally put Firefox on our computer. (And this eliminates the need to download Orbit Downloader. Which Mom and my sister have been endlessly complaining about, since they don't know how useful it is or how to use it. And they can't be bothered to learn.)

Favourite add-ons thus far:

• DownloadHelper - Obviously.
  
• ColorfulTabs - I'll probably get sick of this, but having the tabs all be different colors is pretty.
  
• TabRenamizer - *COUGH* Of course, if Mom ever gets savvy enough to learn what the add-ons are - and realises I've added one that disguises the names of porn sites in the tabs - I might have some explaining to do. But that's unlikely, since she's terrified of even the IDEA of using a different browser. This after I tried to explain to her that it works just like IE7 - tabs, favourites, search bar, backwards and forwards, refresh, homepages, etc. - but better.
  
• iGoogle Tab Remover - I'm over the MOON about the fact that I can undo Google's shitty, "let's move the tabs from the top of the window to a left-mounted sidebar, thus screwing over every iGoogle user who has a three-column layout," web design. (Sadly though, it doesn't keep the pretty new rounded corners on the widgets. Oh, well.)

I'm disappointed though, that I cannot seem to find:

• An add-on that will just let me put a Google button on my toolbar. I don't really want Google's whole toolbar, I just want a single button that will take me straight to Google/open a new tab with Google. I did find one that added such a button to my status bar, but I don't like it down there. Hmph.
  
• A way to have more than one homepage. Huh? I can have as many homepages as I want in IE7, but not in Firefox? Edit: Just checked my older entry on Firefox and discovered that cacahuate already told me how to fix this! Whoops.
  
• Anything that replaces IE7's really rather irreplaceable, "new tab," button on the tab bar. I'm taken to understanding that older versions of Firefox have this...but Firefox 3 definitely doesn't. I went through every single "tab" add-on and didn't find this simple, obvious thing. I DID find one that adds the "new tab" button from the toolbar onto the tab bar (as well as a button which re-opens the last tab you closed)...but on the far left! (The other button is on the far right.) That has to be the most hopelessly unintuitive design I've ever seen.
  
  There's apparently a way I could switch the coding for the two buttons in this add-on, but I can't decipher the code well enough in the XML file to figure out what I should switch. I was tempted to track down t_eyla for tech help, because everybody bugs t_eyla for tech help, but having the button on the far right isn't actually all that much better, really. I want it right there! Beside my other tabs! And not itsy-bitsy. Duh.

I CAN switch from Firefox 3's usual theme to a theme which imitates IE7's look almost perfectly - right down to a functional new tab button on the right side of the open tabs. But I don't want Firefox to look like IE, because, a) the search bar is black! icky! IE doesn't look like that!, and b) I don't want to run the risk of being confused as to which browser I actually have open.

Trying to decide if I should uninstall that theme or not. I think if Mom wants to try using Firefox it might help to have it, since maybe if Firefox LOOKS like IE she'll find it less scary.

::

Besides all that messing with the internet, I've also been trying to get my iPod set up on our new computer.

Easier said than done. I have it set up for use as an external drive, i.e. it doesn't sync my files. I manually move them on to my iPod. Earlier this was helpful, since it meant that I didn't have to take up our precious free space with music. But it does mean that if anything ever happens to my iPod, I loose ALL my music in one fell swoop.

So I'm trying to put the files onto the new computer. Only, there's not really any way to do that. If I go ahead and sync it, it will just erase all the files from my iPod. Suck.

Previously, I noticed the option to "transfer purchases" FROM an iPod TO a computer. So I just put absolutely everything on my iPod into the "Purchased" playlist. And when I hooked it up today, I told it to transfer purchases.

But ah, no. You see, iTunes is too smart for me!

It transferred purchases. And ONLY purchases. As in, stuff I've actually purchased from the iTunes Store. Which is about 3/10ths of my collection. Everything else - I can't sync it, and I can't transfer it. ARGH.

I can, if need be, re-burn several thousand songs from my CDs again. If I have to. (GAH.) But not everything on my iPod is from a CD. Some of it is just stuff from around the intarwebs. I have no idea how I'm going to get this stuff onto our computer.

Apple, I HATE you! How fucking hard would it be to make it possible to transfer files from an iPod?

(Please don't tell me to buy a non-Apple MP3 player. I have a black/blue 4GB Creative Zen V. It sucks massively, and tech support for Creative products is basically non-existent.)

Change is necessary; but it can be such a serious pain in the ass.