You use the computer and see the same old Windows XP screen everyday. Apart from toggling its theme between Windows XP Classic style and Windows XP style, sizing up / down desktop icons and menu and customizing the wallpaper you probably can’t do much with the interface.

Pretty boring isn’t it? Few years back, Winamp (Windows Media Player equivalent) skins were already very popular. I believe the same could be done to the operating system. With deliberate searching, I came across WindowBlinds – a simple to use software that allows us to customize almost every single component on the Windows XP display.

I use Microsoft Windows XP at home and at work. Not to say I’m a 100% Microsoft supporter, but by far this operating system is one of the most widely used.

My users at work tend to exploit (which company’s users don’t?) my services as an IT administrator cum technical support. It’s hard to draw a line between work and personal favors. More often I help them out. Through this, I realized many people do not know what programs are installed on their computers at home apart from the Microsoft Office suite. Some can’t tell me what operating systems versions they use.

A friend of mine recently installed Microsoft Office 2007 after his PC crashed from a power failure (no power supply is 100% reliable). Before this Office 2003 served him rather well, fulfilling all wordprocessing needs (MS Word) and all the complicated calculations on his spreadsheet (MS Excel).

Moving on to the new MS Office 2007 – Microsoft’s latest Office serial suite. Noticably, the interface looks better (new things always look better don’t they?). The big difference between this new version and previous MS Office suites lies in the menus and toolbars.

Your current desktop is 3 years old. You find your applications lagging after upgrading to newer versions, Internet Explorer takes ages to complete loading websites, the harddrive spins with occasional cranking noise, lagging display when playing games etc, etc, etc.

In this fast changing technology era, computer lifespans are getting shorter. Like it or not most gadgets “expire” after 3 years due to emerging new technologies, faster processing speeds and of cause obsolete hardware. Hence be it procrastination (I’m a victim of this) or not, it is an excuse to start hunting for a new one.

The previous post discussed some basic computer definitions. Let’s go a bit more in this post for part 2.

Chassis

The chassis is really the shell of a PC which usually does nothing but acts as a cover for the other components (MOBO, CPU, RAM, harddisk etc) inside it. Prices of chassis come a wide range factoring the design, manufacturer and the form factor (full tower, mini tower, small form factor etc) it comes with. My personal favorite chassis maker is Cooler Master.