Archive for July, 2009
Windows 98
Windows 98 is bad news.
Adding software device drivers, say for usb support of a memory stick, can take ages or not be possible (the usb spec was not finalised in time for Windows 98 first edition, and even Windows 98 SE had problems).
Often such machines have a write only CD, so without a working usb port you are stuck.
You can fit a PMCIA broadband wireless adaptor, or Ethernet for a wired connection to a router, if you get lucky with the device drivers.
I once spent 7 hours working on a Windows 98 machine, including:
- Download from Microsoft and install XP Service Pack 2 (90 mins)
- Download from Microsoft and install 48 off security updates for XP SP2 (20 mins)
- Remove obsolete Norton with removal tool
- Installed and then updated AVG anti-virus software
- Scan PC, found 37 infections, 30 spyware programs and 120 warnings
- Clean up and tune performance with Ashampoo Winoptimiser (90 mins)
- Defragment hard disc (30 mins)
and that was before the time and expense of upgrading the memory!
The customer was not well pleased, and we negotiated an arrangement.
So this means that any PC with Windows 98 and older than about 2000 is probably not worth maintaining. Sorry about that.
Except that next time I would like to try Linux Xubuntu, but that is another story and you still need 256 KB minimum.
Memory
Low Memory is the most common and critical cause of poor performance on older PCs.
256 KB might have been enough for XP on its own but as more and more startup overheads accumulate the whole system slows down, exhibiting multiple symptoms.
Even with 512 KB you might find that the system slows down when you have more than one application running, even say Word and Internet Explorer.
And for an numeric analysis (say Excel) or graphic manipulation (say Photoshop Elements) you should really consider 1024 KB or more.
Luckily memory prices have crashed since the days of penny pinching, and you can get 1 GB of SODIMM memory for £43 including shipping, plus a fitting charge if yo need help.
So I won’t even look at a machine with only 256 KB without upgrading it first.
WordPress Evaluation
I am using this site to evaluate the applicability of WordPress for a relatively staic site of a few pages and an interactive blog.
Pages can be used for static content, tied into a menu via a suitable Theme. And you can set a Home page via Admin | Reading Settings.
WordPress Theme Shortlist
There are suppposed to be thousands of WordPress Themes avaialable, but just try and find a suitable one!
My shortlist is:
Artisteer theme generator, also works with Joomla and Drupal
Vigilance – seems OK but would need CSS tweaking
Blix – OK, but see attached Post
Discarded
BluePrint – not updated since 2007
SF BluePrint
Company Website
Cubismo – 2007!
Hybrid
Popular
Salmon – 2007
Deep Blue
Blix WordPress Theme?
The Blix WordPress Theme looks good, but it is not possible to show the Sidebar on Pages such as Home, About, Content…
This might be OK for most Pages, but I would need a sidebar on the static Home Page as an essential part of the navigation.