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Mission Accomplished


Ubuntu Desktop As I wrote about on Friday, this was a busy work weekend for me. I think three of the computers I worked on offer an interesting comparison in operating systems.

One laptop was a brand new HP with 2 GB of RAM and Windows Vista, but the owner wanted me to install Windows XP and take off Windows Vista. He uses it primarily for traveling and downloading his digital photos while traveling and just didn’t like the lack of speed with Vista. The install of Windows XP went smoothly, but finding some of the XP drivers for it took quite a bit of looking around. All is running well now, and the with 2GB of RAM and a dual-core processor, the little laptop is very fast. Bootup time is under 70 seconds.

The next laptop was another Vista machine with 1 GB of RAM that a client bought for her mom who is a first time computer user and is 83 years old I believe. She will take the laptop with her to Connecticut next week. I took off all the pre-installed junk and installed AVG anti-virus and configured a Gmail account to work with Windows Mail (Vista’s version of Outlook Express). Because her mom has some sight problems, I bumped up the text size and DPI setting to make it easier to work with for her. Also, I disabled all of Vista’s fancy eye candy and effects. Despite all these tweaks, the computer still

Busy weekend

My work week isn’t over. I have five computers/hard drives that I’m working on this weekend. My most exciting task is to setup an older XP HP machine with Ubuntu Linux. My customer had a huge XP problem and couldn’t use her restore CD’s to get it going. After some discussion of her options, costs, and time involved, she decided to give Ubuntu a try. This customer is retired, but is writing a book, uses a digital camera, is an AOL user, and emails a bunch. However, she loves here computer and has been using one for many years and has no qualms about trying something new.

Did you miss us last night?

Many thanks for everyone who attempted to tune in last night. It was a great trial run and we have most of the kinks worked out. We didn’t actually get the live video and chat up until around 10:45pm. Once everything was up and running it was pretty lively. By the time we got off at almost midnight we were getting computer questions right and left.

We are very excited to get this going. One thing we can promise is that the new show isn’t just going to be an Internet version of our radio show. Last night we had questions from all areas of technology. We discussed HDTV, wireless networks and Internet security with people who had never heard the show.

Turns out that real tech guys follow the same advice

I worked with a business client today who runs their cash register computers from a "server" computer in the back of the store. Their server is really a normal computer that just shares the data about the stores customer's and products. The actual program exists on each of the register's computers. In larger businesses like banks, Home Depot's, etc, true servers deliver the program and data to the cash registers and need to be very powerful. In the situation I described with my client's system, the "server" computer doesn't do a lot of work so it doesn't have to be too powerful.

Should you just get a new computer?

I have seen a lot of power supply failures lately. This seems to happen every summer but I don't keep detailed enough statistics to prove it. I am not sure why it happens either. It could be that people turn off their computers for summer vacation and it is the first time the computer has really been turned off in a long time. This might give things a chance to cool down and become brittle. Maybe it is just a coincidence.

In addition to the power supply failures, I have seen a variety of other problems lately that are typically rare such as hard drive failures, power button failures, and dead printers.

When to use CDs , DVDs or flash drives

With so many options for backing up today, people often get confused on which method is right for them.

Typically there are three methods for backing up:

1. CD or DVD

2. Flash drive

3. External hard drive

The method you choose should depend on the type of backup you are doing.

CDs hold 700MB (about 300 pictures) while DVDs hold 4,700MB. But the amount of data that they hold is not as important as what you use the disks for. CDs and DVDs are best for archiving data that will likely never change such as pictures, old word processing documents, important tax or financial records, etc. Once you write information to a CD or DVD consider that disk finished and do not try to add more to it.

Actual drop in computer productivity from 1986 to Today

I just "Stumbled Upon" this article from Hubpages.com and article which compared one of the earliest 'personal' computers (an Apple Mac Plus). What it concluded was what Adam and I complain about on the show often and what all computer users feel when they sit down at their keyboards; our computers are not any faster today, than they were 10 or more years ago.

Processors, hard drives, RAM have all increased exponentially in the last 20 years, but unfortunately so has modern operating systems. The article I linked above pointed out the gargantuan disk requirements of Windows Vista, so I decided to put together a little table comparing disk space and RAM requirements for the different flavors of operating systems. It is quite eye opening.

Windows Vista Integrated Search – Video Tip

As you know, I am not thrilled will Windows Vista. However, one feature I did find helpful since Day 1 is the integrated search. Vista constantly indexes your hard drive…probably one reason it feels slower than XP. Indexing means that Windows looks through all user generated files like word processing documents, email, spreadsheets and other user files. It then analyzes the file names and the content of these documents and stores that information in massive index files. Think of it as a "Google" for your own computer. Using the integrated search, you can type in a few characters and get instant results of matching documents or programs on your computer.

I'm torn about this feature because I feel that it makes the user a little lazy in really understanding where the data actually is stored, but the speed of the search is undeniable.

I mentioned that the Vista integrated search is sort of like a Google for your machine. Well, if you are a Windows XP user, you can get this same functionality with a tool from Google called Google Desktop or from Yahoo using the Yahoo Desktop .

Watch the video below for a short demonstration of how this tool works in Vista.

Ubuntu Linux!!!

Ubuntu Desktop - click for larger view Last week I installed Windows Vista on my fine running XP machine (less than six months old) and have been tolerating it since then and learning about its quirks and features. I have actually been using Vista since September and besides the integrated search (which can be added to XP through multiple channels for free), I honestly do not understand what the heck Microsoft did for nearly six years between operating systems. Yes, it is pretty, but who cares how pretty it is…my email is slower, programs are slower, menus, options, and preferences have all been moved to different places…

More lost pictures…

I write often about backup because I'm passionate about the topic. Too often, I see customers who have never backed up there important data and recovering it is either impossible or financially unfeasible.

I visited a young mother today with a laptop that was afflicted with a virus that destroyed all her data. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to recover the data. She could probably send the hard drive into a service like DriveSavers , but the cost would be in the thousands. She elected to just have the drive reformatted and said she would start over when I bring the computer back.