Bookworm's Musings

Well, I finished one of the projects on my Winter Break list: Setting up the Kitchen Computer.
We had an old IBM ThinkPad laptop ( 533 mhz CPU, 256 MB RAM, 10 GB HD) that belonged to mom for a while, but the screen broke so she upgraded to a more powerful desktop.
So, we picked up an old flat screen monitor on eBay for around $60 and hooked it up to the laptop.  Works great.
I installed Windows XP on the laptop, added an external mouse & Keyboard, and a wireless card. Result: new computer for the kitchen. I installed Google chrome, created application shortcuts to our Google docs recipes account (Google documents has turned out to be the perfect recipe collection solution for us: search-able, simple, and accessible anywhere), Freezer Board Spreadsheet (also Google docs; we have a chest freezer, and the only way to know for sure what is in it is to keep a list), and cozi.com shopping list (allows us to send the shopping list to our cellphones, and to access and edit it from anywhere). While the computer is slow overall, the Internet Apps in Google Chrome are quite fast, so the system should work well for our needs. Since we all have our own computers, this computer is simply to allow us to access recipes, shopping list, and tracking sheets in the kitchen. No more printing out recipes or forgetting to add things to the shopping list.
For those who care, here's how I setup the computer:

1. Installed and updated Windows XP Home Edition, drivers.
2. Deleted the Service Pack and Hotfix Uninstall Folders.
3. Edited the Registry to get rid of Balloon Tips. Applied the desired wallpaper.
   
4. Installed and Configured ZoneAlarm Free Firewall.
5. Installed A Squared Commandline & Spybot - S&D.
6. Used compiled AutoHotKey scripts and TaskScheduler to have Asquared & Spybot run silently and automatically in the wee hours of the morning on a schedule.
7. Installed and ran SpywareBlaster.
8. Installed Google Chrome (and Mozilla Prism, but found that Google Chrome was faster).
9. Installed Java, AdobeFlash, AdobeShockwave.
10. Installed and ran Secunia PSI to make sure that all programs had the latest patches.
11. Ran Disc Cleaner.
12. Created Desired shortcuts/Internet Apps.

Done. All I need to do is manually update Spybot at least once a week, and it's good to go.
It's not blazing fast, but it's not hideously slow either. I wouldn't want to use it as my main computer, but for an internet workstation, it works quite well. It might have been faster with Windows 98, but neither Google Chrome nor Mozilla Prism support 98, so XP was necessary.