Frugal Mania

Okay, so technically speaking I’m late to the party, but let me set the scene for you here.  Bear with me, this is going to be long-winded.

I received a new Dell laptop about four months ago.  Beautiful machine, lightning fast and has all the bells and whistles. Needless to say it wasn’t something I would have bought myself.  A few days ago - last Friday to be exact - I was working on it as usual when suddenly I got it.  The dreaded Blue Screen of Death.

Then darkness.  Nothing.

I took a deep breath and tried to reboot.  Again, nothing.

A two hour call to Dell Tech Support later (which was an absolute joke, I might add) and I am being sent a new memory card, though that "won’t fix the problem".  I am told that I will need to reinstall Windows Vista.  Thankfully I have a roommate who is tech savvy enough to help me retrieve all of my data before I attempted such a feat.

Well today after installing the new memory I am trying to reinstall Vista.  Still trying at 8:35pm when I started at 1:30pm.

Lovely.

Okay, now on to the point of this meandering post.  While surfing around for alternatives to the various CPU-intensive Windows software programs that come automatically with PCs and laptops these days, I came across an open source program that allows me to access my instant messaging software from AOL, Yahoo and Gmail (and ICQ, MSN and others if I used them).  This software is lightweight, easy on the memory and lightning fast, though it does lack all the incredibly unnecessary bells and whistles that have become attached to AIM and Yahoo Instant Messenger these days.

This program is called Pidgin and it is open source freeware.  If you are so inclined, I strongly encourage you to download it and give it a whirl.  It took all of 2 minutes for me to become a believer.  I have uninstalled the other IM programs and feel completely safe in doing so.

That’s all I had to say, though it took me a while to say it.