How many people have YOU converted to PA..?

Sorry Chris. You're right. I almost said I couldn't, then realized Drupal was a rarity among forum platforms that actually does allow topic creators who aren't power users or otherwise have elevated accounts to move their topics to a different board.

Anyway, one of the co-workers I mentioned brought in a microSD card plugged into a memory card reader, and was running the Lite version of the Suite. Menu was 1.5.2 and Firefox was 3.0.7. Firefox wasn't working, so I set it up to use the corporate intranet to get online... then installed Adblock Plus and showed him the homepages of yahoo.com and myspace.com. And copied over VLC. I thought that was included, but I guess not...? If I would have had more time, I would have set him up with the latest Firefox at least, if not the latest menu as well. 1.5.2 is fine, though. Maybe a theme.

Congratulations, Geek Squad is awesome.

I bought a digital camera from Best Buy in CA in 2004. Little over a year later, it broke, through no fault of my own. I took it to Customer Service, and they said that because they couldn't make out the serial, I was S.O.L.. Not in so many words, but they couldn't help me.

Well, I was about to move to NC anyway, so I just took it as a loss. I was almost tempted to just buy another one, and write its serial down somewhere, but I didn't. I drove out to NC for the move, and a month or two later, after I'd transferred my identification and documentation and all that, I went into Greenville's Best Buy. Their Customer Service said pretty much the same thing, but a Geek Squad agent was nearby, heard what was going on, and made it his mission to get the serial number. He put it on a scanner, and used something like Photoshop to enhance the image. He tried a few things in the computer, and finally got my information to come up. I had the option to buy a new warranty -- which I took -- and I had to buy a new memory card, as the new one takes MMC and the old one took CF. Still, I went from a 3.2MP Canon Powershot to a 4MP Powershot, and a 256MB CF to a 2GB MMC for about $60 -- back in 2005. Not bad at all.

The camera acts up (shutter doesn't open fully, gotta prod it along with fingers) but still works. It's a year out of its extended warranty, but we're gonna buy a new camera anyway, and gift the old one, probably to one of the kids (niece or one of the nephews, I'm not a dad yet). There's no question where we're buying it. The Greenville, NC Best Buy is way too small, and cramped, but the people there are very nice and helpful. Opposite from the Santa Rosa, CA one in both regards (though I never messed with Geek Squad in CA).

A really cool setup for a customer with any kind of computer would be a local install of PortableApps (the best apps, kept up to date) as well as one on a flash drive, with all the Data directories synced, so when you plug the flash drive in, the files are all compared, the newer set copied over the older set. Have the local computer use Portable Firefox and Portable Thunderbird as default web and email, and files to open with their respective portable apps. Disable splash screens on the local install, but leave them on the flash drive.

My next convert is my brother. 3200 miles away, back in CA, he uses various computers. I tell him about the greatness that is PortableApps -- he says "**** it". Literally. That's his attitude about, well, a lot of stuff. Same thing when I try to explain the appeal of Rockband. Great guy though, just hard to get through to. He'd rather tell me I need to get an Xbox (the first one) and mod it, either to run Linux, or emulators and homebrew. (That does sound appealing. I just don't see the advantage to doing all that on an Xbox when a PC will suffice.) Anyway, I think if he were to get a flash drive and actually try it, I think he'd be sold. If I can get my hands on a portable hard drive, I'll erase my 16GB Corsair Flash Voyager, load it up with stuff he'd use, and send it on down his way.