Continuing my saga for my [New Laptop], let's recap my progress so far:

• [Day 1 afternoon], I received the laptop from shipping on Wednesday, took a backup of the factory install image to an external USB drive, and re-partitioned to run both Windows and Linux operating systems.
• [Day 2], I spent Thursday using the "Migration Assistant" tool, and completed the operation sending the rest of my data over to the /dev/sda6 NTFS partition.

So now, Friday (day 3), I get to install any applications that were not part of the pre-installed image. Thankfully, I had planned ahead and figured out the 134 different applications that I had on my old system. I printed out a copy of my spreadsheet, and used it as a checklist to systematically go through the list. For each one, I determined one of the following:

BUILD

If I could find the application already installed, either the same version or newer, or functionally equivalent, then I would mark it down as being part of the factory build. Of those programs pre-installed, I am quite pleased that the settings were carried over during yesterday's file transfer. For example, my bookmarks and bookmarklets on Firefox are all in tact. However, it did not carry forward all of my Firefox addons, so these I had to install separately.

ISSI Download

IBM Standard Software Installer is our internal website for IBM and select third-party software for the different operating systems supported. Many of the ISSI programs were already included in the factory build, such as Lotus Notes, Lotus Symphony, Firefox browser, and so I had very few left remaining to do manually from ISSI.

INSTALL from D:\Install-Files

As I mentioned in my previous post, I saved the ZIP or EXE files of installation, as well as any license keys, URLs and other useful information to re-install each application.

COPY over from D:\Prog-Files

Many programs don't have installation files, because they don't need to update the registry or create Desktop icons or Taskbar management buttons. For these I can just copy the directory over to C:\Program Files.

WEB Download

In some cases, the Install-File was fairly downlevel, so I downloaded a fresh copy from the Web. In other cases, I forgot to save the ZIP or EXE, so this was the backup plan.

DEFER for later install

I worked down the list alphabetically, but some programs needed other programs to be installed first, or I needed to find the license registry key, or whatever. This allowed me to focus on the most important programs first. Others I might defer indefinitely until I need them, such as programs to access Second Life, or to build software for Lego Mindstorms robots.

SKIP those applications no longer required

Some programs just don't need to be on my new system. This includes software to manage printers I no longer have, drivers to attach to gadgets and devices I no longer own, and software that might have been specific to the old ThinkPad T60. This was also a good time to "de-duplicate" similar applications. For example, I have decided to limit myself to just three browsers: Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer IE6.

The planning paid off. I was able to confirm or install all of my applications today and have a fully working Windows XP system partition. I celebrated by taking another backup.

technorati tags: , IBM, Lotus, Notes, Symphony, Firefox, Opera, IE6, ThinkPad, T410, T60

Tags:  symphony firefox ibm t60 thinkpad notes lotus ie6 opera t410

Continuing my saga for my [New Laptop], I have gotten all my programs operational, transferred and organized all my data, and now ready for testing. You can read my previous posts on this series: [Day 1], [Day 2], [Day 3], [Day 4].

At this point, you might be thinking, "Testing? Just use your laptop already, deal with problems as you find them!" In my case, I need to sign off that the new laptop meets my needs, and then send back my previous laptop, wiped clean of all passwords and data. I have until the end of June to do this.

The value of testing is to avoid problems later, perhaps an inconvenient time such as a business trip or client briefing. It is better to work out any issues while I am still in the office, connected to the internal IBM intranet on a high-speed wired connection. Also, I plan to do a Physical-to-Virtual (P-to-V) conversion of my Windows XP C: drive to run as a virtual guest OS on Linux, so I want to make sure the image is in working order before the conversion. That said, here is what my testing encountered.

• Of the 134 applications I had identified as being installed on my old laptop, I determined that I only needed about 70 of them. The others I did not bother to install on the new.
• I had not thought about "addons" and "plugins" that I have that attach themselves inside browsers or other applications. I made sure that Flash, Shockwave and Java worked correctly on all three browsers: IE6, Firefox and Opera.
• One of my "plugins" is an application called [iSpring Pro, which plugs into Microsoft PowerPoint. I thought I had Microsoft Office installed, but found out the standard IBM build had only the viewers. I installed Microsoft Office 2003 Standard Edition with PowerPoint, Excel and Word. I then realized that I did not have the original V4.3 installation file for iSpring Pro, so I downloaded the latest v5 from their website. However, my license key is only for version 4, so a quick email got this resolved, and the nice folks at iSpring Solutions sent me the v4.3 installation file.

  Shameless Plug: We use iSpring Pro to record our voices with PowerPoint slides to generate web videos for the [IBM Virtual Briefing Center] which we use to complement face-to-face briefings. This allows attendees to review introductory materials to prepare for their visit to Tucson, or to stay up-to-date on products and features in between annual visits. If you have not checked out the IBM Virtual Briefing Center, now is a good time to see what videos and other resources we have out there. You can even request to schedule a briefing in Tucson!

• Testing out iSpring Pro, I realized that there are no jacks for my headset. On my old ThinkPad T60, I had two jacks, one green for headphone and one pink for microphone. My headset has two cables, one for each, which I then use for the recordings. I also use this for online webinars and training sessions. Apparently, ThinkPad T410 went for a single 3.5mm "Combo" audio jack that handles both roles. Fortunately, there is a [Headset Buddy] adapter that merges the two cables from my headset to the combo jack on my new laptop. I ordered one which will arrive some time next week.
• My new laptop doesn't fit my old docking station either. I had set the docking station aside while I had the two laptops latched together for the file transfers, but now that I am done with the old laptop, I discovered that my new T410 doesn't fit. I ordered a new one.
• Using find, grep, awk, sort and uniq, I was able to generate a list of all the file extensions on my Documents foler. I was able to find old Lotus 123, Freelance Graphics, and Wordpro files. I thought Lotus Symphony would handle these, but it does not. I was able to install an old version of Lotus Smartsuite that includes these programs so that I can process these files.
• I also found in the extensions list pptx, docx and xlsx files, which represent the new Microsoft Office 2007 formats. I installed the "Format Compatability Pack" that allows Office 2003 read these files.
• Lastly, I installed a few programs that support a wide variety of file formats. VideoLAN's [VLC] plays a variety of audio and video files. [7-Zip] packs and unpacks a variety of archive files. (Note: Another program, BitZipper, also supports a variety of archive formats, but the install will corrupt your Firefox and IE browsers with new tool bars, change your search engine default, and install a lot of other unwanted software. Cleaning up the mess can be time-consuming. You have been warned!) I also installed [MadEdit], a binary/hex/text editor that will open any file to see what kind of format it has inside. From this, I was able to determine that some of my extension-less files were GIF, RTF or PDF format, and rename them accordingly.

With the testing done, I am ready to go wipe my old system of all passwords and data!

technorati tags: IBM, ThinkPad, T60, T410, P-to-V, Flash, Shockwave, iSpring, PowerPoint, Headset Buddy, audio jack, Lotus, Symphony, SmartSuite, VideoLAN, VLC, 7-Zip, MadEdit

Tags:  thinkpad vlc ispring videolan lotus powerpoint t410 symphony 7-zip flash headset+buddy audio+jack ibm shockwave smartsuite p-to-v t60 madedit