Simon G's Blog

I decided to upgrade to Windows 7 Professional on the HP Mini 5101 from its base install of Windows XP so sent off for the "free" upgrade from HP which requires US$19.99 for postage and handling.  From the time I placed the order until the DVD arrived in my hands in New Zealand was 9 days. Since I do not have a DVD drive for the HP Mini I copied the Windows 7 installation files to a 4GB USB Stick using WinToFlash (which had been recommended by a work colleague) on another machine that did have a DVD drive.  WinToFlash creates a bootable Windows install on the USB Stick, was reasonably intuitive to use, and took about 30 minutes to complete (I suspect my Anti-virus program slowed things down).  Upon completion I noticed there was 409MB remaining on the USB Stick. I checked in the Bios on the HP Mini and by default the option to install from a bootable USB device was turned on but changed the ordering so that USB Hard Disk and USB SuperDisk were prior to the Hard Driv...

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book from Richard Branson.  This is a good inspirational and motivating book that is very easy to read.  I knew that there were a number of Virgin companies prior to reading this book, however I was not aware of how many different industries Virgin is involved with (music, mobile, space travel, planes, trains, finance, health clubs, …). The culture of Virgin is a key component of the why the Virgin companies have been successful.  Whilst there is not a step by step guide for how to build a successful company, there are many useful insights and lessons learnt.  Caring and Encouraging your people, Customer-focus, Innovation, Embracing leadership, Fun, Learning from mistakes and Social Responsibility are key attributes I now associate with the Virgin brand.

I have just gone through the process of setting up a new Windows PC and thought I would jot down the current applications I have installed: The machine came with XP pre-installed and, for now at least, I've decided to keep it. Downloaded the latest Windows Updates Installed Firefox, with the add-ons of Delicious and IE Tab Tweetdeck (which also installed Adobe Air) Upgraded the Flash Player (when prompted by the browser) Installed AVG Anti-virus Free and removed the previous anti-virus solution Irfanview In terms of other software I expect to install in the imminent future: Notepad++ Open Office Video viewing software and codecs as required Canon Camera Software WAMP Server (for if I decide I want to do development on the machine)