There are lots of pluses to self employment and/or working from home. Not having to shave for days on end, wearing sweats and a t-shirt on a daily basis, showers-optional, etc. On the other hand there are some definite negatives like bad-smell-syndrome and anything related to technology.
This morning my router was fried (me thinks it had something to do with the crackling I heard emanating from my power strip) so without the convenience of tech support it was off to the store to buy a new router. The router that was fried was a Linksys Wireless G router that I purchased when the G standard had just been produced, I think around four years ago, and this morning as I was driving to Circuit City I had a vivid recall of the decidedly non-automated set up procedure for the old router. In other words I remembered how painful an experience it was for your average non-tech-geek to install a wireless network.
I bought the next version Wireless G router (with speed and signal booster!) and ran back home. I popped open the box and saw these magic words on a big red sticker: "RUN CD FIRST: Do not unplug any existing PC or Networking Equipment". For once I followed instructions and two minutes later the router was up and running, the security settings were set up automatically without me having to re-learn all that crazy lingo (WEP, WAP, whatever) and my computer, which is the only one cabled to the router, had a nice internet connection.
Next I was asked by the install program if I wanted to install other computers on the network. When I clicked yes it asked if it was wired or wireless. I clicked wireless and then it asked me if I could temporarily attach it by cable to the router for the install. I said no and it then asked me if I had a USB flash drive. I said yes and it prompted me to plug in the drive and then it installed a setup program and said all I needed to do was plug the drive into any other computer I wanted to install on the network and the program would automatically configure the computers for the network (assuming they’re all running Windows XP). SWEET!
I went downstairs to Celeste’s office and kicked her off her computer so I could get it back on the network. I plugged the flash drive into her USB port and then waited, and waited, and waited. What the hell? So I pulled up Task Manager and saw her CPU at 100% usage. I looked at what was running and noticed a butt-load of memory being chewed by Google Desktop and other Google Pack goodies. I shut them off and she instantly went to 23% usage. Hmm.
As soon as I turned off Google the Linksys install program launched and we had her online in about 60 seconds. When it was done loading and I’d confirmed her connection was good, and that she had a much stronger connection than she’d ever had with our old router, I uninstalled all of her Google stuff.
All told my tech support job cost me about an 1 1/2 today, but the result is we seem to have a much stronger wireless network and I’m coming to believe that Google really wants to be like Microsoft.
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Befuddled 
The reason why Google Desktop was chewing up resources was probably because you don’t have it set to index your filesystem on the fly. If it was a recent install, then it wasn’t finished with indexing your system.
There’s a reason why Google Desktop runs fast for searching. It uses indexes. Has nothing to do with trying to be like Microsoft.
Thanks for the background Ben. I’m not sure when she downloaded Desktop, and I didn’t check her settings because she hadn’t been using it and didn’t want to keep it. When I downloaded it on my own computer I didn’t get the value out of it I expected so I uninstalled it as well.
Now I was being a little snarky with the Microsoft comment, but I do think they’d like to be Microsoft in that I think they would like to dominate the online experience of the average user much the same way Microsoft has dominated the desktop experience of the average user. I think Google Pack is a kind of Web 2.0 bloatware that average users like me and Celeste will struggle to control and/or realize any value.
Search? Still love ’em. Maps? Better than the others I’ve used. Gmail? Better than the other freebies I’ve tried. Chat? Eh. Base? Don’t get it. Earth? Cool for about five minutes and then, eh. Video? Eh.
I would love to see them keep it simple, but I fear a coming Windows-ization.
I suppose I can see your point, but I don’t agree. They don’t force you to use their stuff. Google Pack was just a way to group together the most used applications in one package.
Earth is good for say… real estate agents. My mom uses all the time. Base is good when people don’t use MS Access. There’s always a use for a database.
If Google is supposedly bloated, then I find it absolutely amusing considering their whole application base is driven towards more efficiency than being “pretty”. It’s obvious in every single app they write.
Desktop is good when you’re running documents and email like I am. There’s a whole bunch of things that do the same thing, such as X1, but basically when you have a pst file that is somewhere in the realm of 1-2G, you don’t want to use Outlook to search for things. It takes forever. Desktop pulls it up in a matter of seconds. The same goes for anything you tell it to index on your system. (pictures, documents, etc).
Toolbar? protects IE. I wouldn’t use any rendition of IE without Google Toolbar or something there to actually make it a bit safer to use. Half of the security exploits for Microsoft are straight in Internet Explorer.