![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Oh, look, it's been two months since my last post. I guess I still suck at blogging.
Three exciting things happened last week. My MacBook Pro died, I bought an HP desktop, and I got my wisdom teeth out.
Thus far, only the new computer is inspiring bloggery. I've had it for a week, and I'm finally finding time to sit down and look at the stuff that came pre-installed. This has caused a desire to rant, which in turn caused me to remember that I have a blog.
First up: Some random PDF viewer. It was halfways decent. And I do like seeing an alternative to Adobe Reader. But it didn't support CTRL+scroll wheel to zoom, which I apparently use more than I realize when I'm viewing PDFs. Plus, that's a pretty standard shortcut: Firefox uses it, OpenOffice uses it, Adobe Reader uses it. So Adobe Reader wins. The only problem is that I don't think I've uninstalled this, but I can't find it at the moment, so I guess it gets to stay on my computer for now.
Next is the things that I have desktop icons for, starting with something called Blio. I figured the fastest way to find out what it was would be to open it. It turns out it's an e-book reader that opens in full-screen mode and has non-standard window borders and such. The first things it presented me with were a modal dialog with the EULA and a modal dialog telling me that an update was available. There was no way to dismiss the second dialog without starting the update. So while it was downloading the update I went looking for more information about why I might want it.
It turns out that Blio's claim to fame as an e-reader is that its e-books have the same layout as the corresponding print books. So, like PDF e-books, but with DRM. Apparently there also isn't much selection in their format. The review I read was a bit old, so maybe it's got better, who knows. I wasn't inspired to keep it. I denied the upgrader access to the hard drive (thanks, UAC!), started it again to confirm that I wasn't imagining things about there being no way to postpone the upgrade, killed it with task manager, and uninstalled it.
The next two icons aren't for programs. One is the HP Support Assistant, which I'll leave for now in case my computer suddenly breaks. The other is for HP+, which turns out to be a website with special offers. How special? It doesn't say; the website has links to things you can buy, but little info about how much they are or whether you get a discount for finding them through HP+.
The first thing linked to is a streaming video service from Rogers, which has a mix of free, free-for-Rogers-subscribers, and for-pay content. It's kind of cool to know about this, because I hadn't realized it existed, but it wouldn't be likely to get me to subscribe to cable, even if Rogers was available where I live. Also, there's no sign that getting to it through HP+ results in any kind of discount, so it's not so much a special offer as an advertisement.
The second special offer links to a streaming music service that won't let you look at the plans, prices, or catalogue until after you create an account. Surprisingly, I'm not interesting in paying an unspecified amount of money to a company I've never heard of to get an unspecified level of access to a music collection that might not include anything I want to hear.
If those are the top two HP+ offers, I'm not going to bother looking at the rest.
Next is a trial version of Microsoft Office 2010, which is welcome to hang around my hard drive for now, in case I run into something LibreOffice won't open. It's followed by a trail version of Norton Internet Security, which is welcome to hang around my hard drive until the trial license runs out and I replace it with AVG Free.
The second-last icon is titled "Play HP Games". Well, that makes sense. HP is a well-known game publisher. It's another program that starts with a EULA, but at least it's in a standard dialog. It reveals that the games are actually from somewhere called "WildTangent!" Once the games browser thing comes up, it doesn't exactly look bad, but I've never heard of any of the games, and they cost money. So this is really just another advertisement.
Wait, no. There are some games pre-installed, including three that I've heard of: Bejewelled 3, Pac-Man, and World of Warcraft. But they're trials. There are some that don't appear to be trials, but I've never heard of them. I guess I'll keep this around until I run out of games with trials available and/or get bored with the free games.
The final icon is for Snapfish. The mouse-over text for it says "Personalize gifts using your photos with Snapfish!" So it's nice that it tells me that it's another ad without me having to open it.
Ok, that's everything on the desktop. On to the Quick Launch bar, which has an icon that says "HP LinkUp Viewer".
When I start HP LinkUp, it tries to bully me into turning on automatic updates. Why would I want to update it when I don't know what the hell it is? Unlike Blio, though, it does let me skip the updates for now. Once I get past the updates screen, it says it "allows you to connect to other home computers on your HP PC." Which could mean file-sharing or something, but the accompanying diagram makes it look like similar to VNC. That might be useful, except that actual VNC exists. Actual VNC supports a wide variety of operating systems and can be encrypted pretty easily. If LinkUp can do either of those things, they haven't bothered to mention it in the intro screen. Besides that, I don't have another computer to connect to. Goodbye, LinkUp.
Well, that was exhausting. All the crap that is pre-installed but less obvious to get to will have to wait for another time.
Three exciting things happened last week. My MacBook Pro died, I bought an HP desktop, and I got my wisdom teeth out.
Thus far, only the new computer is inspiring bloggery. I've had it for a week, and I'm finally finding time to sit down and look at the stuff that came pre-installed. This has caused a desire to rant, which in turn caused me to remember that I have a blog.
First up: Some random PDF viewer. It was halfways decent. And I do like seeing an alternative to Adobe Reader. But it didn't support CTRL+scroll wheel to zoom, which I apparently use more than I realize when I'm viewing PDFs. Plus, that's a pretty standard shortcut: Firefox uses it, OpenOffice uses it, Adobe Reader uses it. So Adobe Reader wins. The only problem is that I don't think I've uninstalled this, but I can't find it at the moment, so I guess it gets to stay on my computer for now.
Next is the things that I have desktop icons for, starting with something called Blio. I figured the fastest way to find out what it was would be to open it. It turns out it's an e-book reader that opens in full-screen mode and has non-standard window borders and such. The first things it presented me with were a modal dialog with the EULA and a modal dialog telling me that an update was available. There was no way to dismiss the second dialog without starting the update. So while it was downloading the update I went looking for more information about why I might want it.
It turns out that Blio's claim to fame as an e-reader is that its e-books have the same layout as the corresponding print books. So, like PDF e-books, but with DRM. Apparently there also isn't much selection in their format. The review I read was a bit old, so maybe it's got better, who knows. I wasn't inspired to keep it. I denied the upgrader access to the hard drive (thanks, UAC!), started it again to confirm that I wasn't imagining things about there being no way to postpone the upgrade, killed it with task manager, and uninstalled it.
The next two icons aren't for programs. One is the HP Support Assistant, which I'll leave for now in case my computer suddenly breaks. The other is for HP+, which turns out to be a website with special offers. How special? It doesn't say; the website has links to things you can buy, but little info about how much they are or whether you get a discount for finding them through HP+.
The first thing linked to is a streaming video service from Rogers, which has a mix of free, free-for-Rogers-subscribers, and for-pay content. It's kind of cool to know about this, because I hadn't realized it existed, but it wouldn't be likely to get me to subscribe to cable, even if Rogers was available where I live. Also, there's no sign that getting to it through HP+ results in any kind of discount, so it's not so much a special offer as an advertisement.
The second special offer links to a streaming music service that won't let you look at the plans, prices, or catalogue until after you create an account. Surprisingly, I'm not interesting in paying an unspecified amount of money to a company I've never heard of to get an unspecified level of access to a music collection that might not include anything I want to hear.
If those are the top two HP+ offers, I'm not going to bother looking at the rest.
Next is a trial version of Microsoft Office 2010, which is welcome to hang around my hard drive for now, in case I run into something LibreOffice won't open. It's followed by a trail version of Norton Internet Security, which is welcome to hang around my hard drive until the trial license runs out and I replace it with AVG Free.
The second-last icon is titled "Play HP Games". Well, that makes sense. HP is a well-known game publisher. It's another program that starts with a EULA, but at least it's in a standard dialog. It reveals that the games are actually from somewhere called "WildTangent!" Once the games browser thing comes up, it doesn't exactly look bad, but I've never heard of any of the games, and they cost money. So this is really just another advertisement.
Wait, no. There are some games pre-installed, including three that I've heard of: Bejewelled 3, Pac-Man, and World of Warcraft. But they're trials. There are some that don't appear to be trials, but I've never heard of them. I guess I'll keep this around until I run out of games with trials available and/or get bored with the free games.
The final icon is for Snapfish. The mouse-over text for it says "Personalize gifts using your photos with Snapfish!" So it's nice that it tells me that it's another ad without me having to open it.
Ok, that's everything on the desktop. On to the Quick Launch bar, which has an icon that says "HP LinkUp Viewer".
When I start HP LinkUp, it tries to bully me into turning on automatic updates. Why would I want to update it when I don't know what the hell it is? Unlike Blio, though, it does let me skip the updates for now. Once I get past the updates screen, it says it "allows you to connect to other home computers on your HP PC." Which could mean file-sharing or something, but the accompanying diagram makes it look like similar to VNC. That might be useful, except that actual VNC exists. Actual VNC supports a wide variety of operating systems and can be encrypted pretty easily. If LinkUp can do either of those things, they haven't bothered to mention it in the intro screen. Besides that, I don't have another computer to connect to. Goodbye, LinkUp.
Well, that was exhausting. All the crap that is pre-installed but less obvious to get to will have to wait for another time.
