The new hard drive has afforded me an opportunity to experiment. I'm using Firefox almost exclusively (someday my bank will realize that Internet Explorer is not the only browser).
I have to admit I'm really happy with Firefox. I especially like that men of the cloth feel that they should recommend it. "A minister in Kentucky is even exhorting his flock to switch to Firefox because it blocks those pesky Viagra ads".
I'm also trying to use Thunderbird as my mail package. I'm not as impressed with Thunderbird as I am with Firefox. Part of the problem is that I had an extensive hierarchy of folders when I was using Outlook Express and rebuilding this in Thunderbird will take a big effort. As for the other differences in how the application works, I can't say whether it's a matter of getting used to it or it's not as good. It may be that in a week or so, I'll think Thunderbird is much, much better.
I have also installed OpenOffice, SUN Microsystem's free rival to Microsoft Office. I haven't used it much yet and I'm a little concerned that I might find that I won't be able to work on other people's Office documents and spreadsheets or that they won't be able to work with mine. From what I've read this shouldn't be the case, but still it worries me. I'll probably go very slowly with this. One good thing I noticed right away was that creating PDF files didn't require any other downloads (as Office does).
