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.TITLE Hidden gold in a full re-install
.AUTHOR James Booth
.SUMMARY Eventually, everyone has to do it… a full system re-install. It’s a horrible task, but if you look hard enough, you may just find some hidden gold.
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At some point, just about everyone has to do a full re-install of their system. Whether it’s a Palm, Pocket PC, desktop, or laptop, it’s a major pain in the butt. And don’t even get me started on severs.
The restoration process is long and frustrating, usually involving at least a day of continual software installation and system resets. But if you look hard enough, you may just find some hidden gold.
What is that hidden gold, you ask? Updated software!
If you’re anything like me, keeping your software up-to-date isn’t really uppermost in your mind. I’ve got too much going on, and not all companies send out a notice when they update an application. Although, they should. At least to existing customers.
A system restoration is the perfect time to update your applications. You may just find that a feature you’ve been longing for has been added.
Like what features? Well, since I installed it, the software I use to read ebooks has been updated several times. It now runs from a storage card. Whereas before, it didn’t.
My map program has been updated, although I don’t know what could have been improved. I’ve been using either the Palm or Pocket PC version for the last five years, and they’ve all worked fine. My cookbook program has been updated too. It’s now fully compatible with Windows Mobile 5. Previously, it was running a kind of patched beta.
So the next time you’re sitting there waiting for your OS to re-install, make a list of the apps you’d like to check for updates. You never know what you might find.
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