Been staying up really late the last few nights. Well, besides being in the middle of some project, I also have MLB's father's laptop to work on which is the top priority since it's due to be returned back to him later today.

In my mind I was under a lotta pressure coz obviously a lotta faith have been put in me by some key people and I don't intend to disappoint. Otherwise there'd be one BIG pot of mutton rendang this afternoon and the *gulp* prospect doesn't excite me at all.

It wasn't easy working on it. It's a Pentium 2 machine to begin with and it's only got like 6GB of hard drive capacity, 192MB of memory space as well as a turtle of a processor with 0.3somethingGHz speed. To add to that, the keyboard was a Japan-version and not the standard US one. It was, there's no better way to say it, a 'cekik darah macam nak mampos' machine.

Choke on blood as though about to die. It's like trying to get to China in 36 hours on a skate scooter. Thank goat it is running on the Windows XP OS though. That saved me some time coz I'm not so proficient on any other OS.

Here's what I have done with the laptop.

System checklist:

1. Set up hisname@email.com personal email address.

2. Set up hisbusiness@email.com business email address.

3. Installed Mozilla Thunderbird email client and set both his emails up so he could check his inbox with just one click.

4. Set up his business website. Well he didn't ask but I thought it's a great idea to set it up as his homepage for the WOW factor (and more brownie points for me, why not).

5. Installed Mozilla Firefox. I figured that any form of online protection would help. If Firefox could eliminate some of that threat away, why stick with Internet Explorer?

6. Set up hisbusinesswebsite.com as Firefox's homepage.

7. Installed antivirus program.

8. Installed MS Office so that he could do some work from his laptop should he want to.

9. Installed MSN messenger so he could keep tabs on MLB (hahaha!) who's the first and only person to be added in there thus far. Thank goat I don't have one myself, whew.

10. Freed up the laptop's disk space to get rid of the useless gunk.

11. Currently defragmentizing the hard drive to make the laptop run faster (for crying out loud).

12. Currently running the antivirus program coz I was surfing some porn sites on it last night and now desperately trying to get rid of all the evidence, hohoho.

Accessories checklist:

1. Got an AM/BM cable (the package MLB passed me didn't include this item) so he could run his external floppy drive whenever he wants to save his work.

2. Got a box of 10 floppy disks otherwise where else is he gonna save his work?

3. Got a wireless PCMCIA adapter and set the laptop up to be able to connect to the Net. But this also means he cannot simultaneously utilize his external CD-ROM drive while he's on the Net coz the dang thing connects via the single PCMCIA slot. It's one or the other at one time.

4. Got him a 4-port USB hub because the machine's only got one pathetic USB port. These days, everything runs on USB so this thing I feel is important.

5. Got him an optical mouse coz using the touchpad is annoying business.

6. Got them a microfilter so that they can use the home telephone and Internet at the same time without getting disconnected. They're on Singnet broadband.

At this stage it's not crucial yet, but at some point in the future I intend to get him a:

7. USB notebook coolpad coz this machine is old and could die anytime so anything that helps to extend its life like keeping the hard drive cool would help.

8. USB thumbdrive coz frankly, who uses floppy disks anymore?

9. External USB CD-ROM drive so he could do away with the PCMCIA one and not trouble himself to switch between the two all the time (damn I'm such a considerate goat).

10. Earphone or headphone with mic so her parents can make overseas calls on Skype cheaply.

Anyway, I didn't accomplish these things alone. Although much of the stuff was left to me, MLB contributed too in ways that she could. And then there was the help I got from my friends at work who let me use their workstation, electricity, offer advice and gave outrageous discounts on the stuff that I purchased with regards to this mission.

No one wanted to see me screw up with my ahem, future father-in-law's laptop.

I must also highlight the fact that I'm no IT expert. Except for the Windows 98 course I took way back, I have no paper qualifications whatsoever in this line.

Much of the stuff I learned along the way was by doing and I have:

- my sister Banana to thank for convincing me back in the late 90s that the Internet rocks (you see how it snowballs here, sis? Wouldn't have met MLB for one).

- not to mention my numero uno brother in law Wanker for giving me a headstart on the serious aspects of IT.

- Sam my boss for putting me in a situation where I have no choice but to learn stuff about IT (although I detest the other situations he put me in).

- as well as my colleague (albeit in another outlet) Jack of whom I learned from by watching him work.

Last checked, beef rendang is the most popular variation of rendang around. I hope MLB'S father doesn't have any other ideas this afternoon, ah ha ha *gulp*.