This weekend I was reminded as to why I use a Mac as my main computer. After Windows Vista crashed without anything major being added to the system, it made me mad as hell. After several restore point sessions it came back up, but I am still not sure if the problem is fixed. If it keeps happening then I will need to do a full re-install of Windows. This is an option I was hoping I would not need to go through. The good news is that I do have almost all my critical data backed up to my external drive or to Dell’s Back server.

There was a funny message from Firefox after one of my crashes that I had not seen before. Here is a screen capture for your amusement.

Well I hope that my trouble with Windows Vista is over for the day. The problem started while I was using Firefox so I am trying Google Chrome as an alternative and see if I still get this crash. All I can say is if you do not own a Mac then you need to look into it if you depend on your computer for any type of business need.

It is not often that I need to send a fax. The times I do need to send a fax I just go over to the post office or staples and just pay a few buck. Then I kind of felt silly that I had to pay about $3.00 to send a fax on average. In a year I guess I could spend about the same amount of money that it would cost to buy a fax machine. The other thing about sending a fax from a public place is that your information is seen by the person handling the machine, which can also make a copy of your document. That has all sorts of issues attached to it on it’s own. You would figure buying a fax machine would be easy. With a little research I noticed Staples was selling a machine for $59.99, so I went to the store to pick up this machine. When I got to the store I thought I would look into a USB fax modem(New Mac’s and PC might not have a built in modem). There was a US Robotics model that cost $79.99, I figured it would take less space then a fax machine and was one less big item in my office. The box said it should work with Mac PC and Linux. Well I got home and tried to install it on my Mac, nothing on the box mentioned which version of the OS I needed. The result was that I could not use it on my 2 year old mac with out an upgrade. Option two install on the new Dell with Vista Premium. Again I had a problem. The modem installed, but this verison of Windows does not have a built in fax sending program, you need to buy a $20.00 program on the Internet. After spending about 30 minutes looking for information I found the program and downloaded a 30 day free trial. This option worked and the software was very easy to use, I had a 2 pages fax sent in just a few minutes of installing this software. The last option was to try and install it on my Asus EEE PC with Linux.

This also encountered some problems. The Linux OS did find the modem, but I had no clue how to set the fax program. Still looking into this just in case I ever need to send a fax on the go. Well in the end Vista Premium and the free trail program were the only option to make this work. Why Microsoft took this feature out and added it to only Ultimate and Business versions show another cash grab from M$. Still wish I could get this to work with my MAC with out having to upgrade the OS.