is a blog about design, technology and culture written by Khoi Vinh, and has been more or less continuously published since December 2000 in New York City. Khoi is currently Principal Designer at Adobe. Previously, Khoi was co-founder and CEO of Mixel (acquired in 2013), Design Director of The New York Times Online, and co-founder of the design studio Behavior, LLC. He is the author of “How They Got There: Interviews with Digital Designers About Their Careers”and “Ordering Disorder: Grid Principles for Web Design,” and was named one of Fast Company’s “fifty most influential designers in America.” Khoi lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn with his wife and three children.
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Just for posterity’s sake, I wanted to publish these two screen shots we took of a brand new Hewlett Packard computer we bought at 
Wow. That’s a lot of crap.
Best thing to do when you get a consumer desktop: wipe it clean and re-install the OS.
That HP Organize control panel loosk scary.
I had the same problem with my HP when I bought it. It took a quite a lot of time to uninstall all the promotional stuff that came “built-in” to my machine. Plus, I don’t think those partnerships lowered the final cost of the machine to me in any way.
My Mac was not nearly as this confused out of the box.
John, I didn’t want to say it, but that’s exactly what I was thinking, too — the desktop of a brand new Mac OS X installation is blissfully clean.
Ever thought of buildling your own PC? It can save large amounts of money (but then again I have alot of time on my hands). Even though it can take a little more time at the beginning, these beasts can be very fast and very stable; and you only install what you need.
Using good quality components with good drivers can speed up the process as well.
An offer of help goes out if ya need it….
Is there any point in the “HP Organize” that comes up every time you start up. I went to Control Panel>Add or Remove Program (Ctrl Panel-Classic View), and saw that HP Organize takes up over 57MB. I know thats not a whole lot, but it’s quite a bit of space. I almost removed it, but hesitated because I wasn’t sure if there would be bad effects following its removal. Please tell me whether I can remove it or not.
I too an wondering what I need & what I can do with out…Can I store it somewhere else?What good is a cluttered desktop? They should at least let you know whats junk and whats nessesary!I am new to the world of computers,so I am afraid to throw anything away. But it takes 5 minutes just to get past my desktop!
Probably it’s best just to throw the whole computer away and get yourself a Macintosh.
I believe this “HP Organize” program has my computer all mest up. I HATE IT. It makes getting online very difficult. I to, wonder if I can uninstall it without doing damage to my computer. CAN ANYONE TELL ME. With this nuisance on my screen I think twice before turning on my computer. It is so slow to start. I HATE “HP Organize.”
I’ve had my HP computer since Dec. 2004. I hate “HP Organize”, but like the rest of you I also don’t think I should remove it. Sounds like HP would come after you! There’s enough garbage around without having to look at that and close it at every startup. This is also the first computer I’ve ever had. Hp Organize is a huge NUISANCE!
I actually find HP Organize quite useful. Nearly all of the windows are customizable ‘toolbars’ that you can use to group similar types of programs. For example, on my ‘finance window,’ I have a shortcut to Quicken, TaxCut, the Windows calculator, and similar programs. On my ‘reference window,’ I have grouped shortcuts to the American Heritage Dictionary, Streets & Trips, Wikipedia, and my Goolge Desktop.
If you’re a person who uses several programs to perform particular functions (for example, Paint, Photoshop, Irfanview, etc. to do photo work), then something like HP Organize is a big help.