Rodent Regatta

Don’t buy a computer, particularly a notebook PC, with Windows XP Home on it when you expect to upgrade it to Windows XP Professional. The hassle is simply too great. I don’t need all of the whirlygigs that came with the HP zt1290 Pavilion. However, the effort to locate all of the appropriate drivers and install them on XP Professional has been enormous and is ongoing.
A wonderful discovery – HP has a BIOS download for the Pavilion. It produces a bootable floppy which can be used to flash the BIOS. A typical discovery in the IT industry – the zt1290 Pavilion does not have a floppy drive! Ain’t computers fun?

HP works to reverse its PC slide. The computing giant, facing an eroding slice of the PC market, says it intends to reverse the downward trend in the coming fiscal year. [CNET News.com]