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What is it that is so addictive to so many people? There may be as many reasons as there are computer owners. Computers offer so many different aspects and depending on which program you run, the same box can offer nearly all of them.

If you buy a car, the chances are it will not be able to go bush bashing in four-wheel-drive mode (here in Australia they call SUV’s Four Wheel Drives (4WD’s) AND drag off a Porsche at the stoplight AND carry the family plus dog in comfort AND provide a wind in the hair experience on the open highway. You have to compromise in the initial choice.

But with a computer, it’s possible to buy a box that plays games a lightning speed, crunches data at a pace only recently reserved for mainframes in International Corporations, play DVD’s in full surround sound and turn those holiday movies into a professional looking DVD. All the while, allowing you to browse across the world, gathering esoteric information on subjects not dreamed of twenty years ago. (more…)

OK, so we’ve talked about the bits that matter when choosing the computer. Why do they matter?

Well, it’s possible to go out there and buy a top of the range computer with all the best items in it. But unless you have seriously too much money in your pocket, or you’re a games geek with a burning need to push the boundaries of what’s possible and do it all at an inch short of light speed, the chances are you’d be spending money you don’t need to spend.

Most computer users will tell you all about how you need the latest and bestest and that if you don’t get it you’ll be behind the pace within a few weeks. But unless you want to buy into the Wintel game, that horse don’t run. (more…)

It’s that time. You’ve finally decided to go and buy yourself a home computer. The first and probably most important question would be… For what purpose are you buying a computer?

It’s more important than you realize if you’re new to the computer world or if you’ve only ever used a work computer running Word. The use can determine how much memory (RAM) hard disk space, which chipset you need, whether you need a whiz-bang video card and if you need a network card.

What are we talking about?

Memory or RAM: The Computer loads instructions from programs and executes them to give you results. RAM is the area where it does the processing. The more RAM, generally, the less to and fro the chip (CPU) has to do to get things done, so the faster you get your results. (more…)

Going to the movies is fun; you can make a day of it, have lunch or dinner and spend a good percentage of a week’s salary. Getting DVD’s (or videos) from the shop can also add $20 a week to the budget. But there are other ways to get your entertainment.

You already pay for your Internet connection and these days, the deals range into the 10’s of Gigabytes per month for the equivalent of 2 – 3 weeks of DVD’s – unless you have a compulsive downloader in the family, it is unlikely oyou will be using all that capacity each month.

One technology in use involves what are called Torrent files. This is a Peer-to-Peer technology, where multiple Internet users provide access to particular files from their machine and the Torrent software reaches out and downloads the files from up to fifty or more computers, while simultaneously sending out parts of the files to others.

Torrent programs are available from the torrent sites, but a few of the best are uTorrent, BitTorrent and Azureus.

Torrents can allow you to download at a good percentage of your Broadband speed and the Torrent sites offer a mind boggling array of files, including games, programs, music and movies.

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Recently Mr. JM got an email that quoted the Ultimate HP PC. He read out the following… ‘Sporting dual ATI Radeon X2900 XT video cards, each with 512 GB of GDDR4 SDRAM, an Intel Core2 Extreme Quad-Core 3.0GHz QX6850 CPU, 2 GB 1066MHz Corsair PC2-8500 SDRAM, three hard drives in a RAID array, and liquid cooling for the video cards and the CPU,’ …as if I would actually know what it meant. Apparently it is high on the ‘Wow!’ factor and is seriously fast.

But it sells for $US6200 and you’d have to ask yourself, is a computer really worth that much to me?

How much does computing cost?

Well, it depends on your uses. If your ‘Oh Fuck!’ reaction is to do with using the internet for browsing and looking up weird facts, the cost of your PC will be low. If you want to play the latest games on a machine that removes the need for central heating, the above machine is for you. But in most Western countries, $US1000 (or equivalent) would buy you a very nice desktop or a fair to middling laptop.

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You’re sitting in front of the glowing screen, slaving over the latest epic, designing the perfect spreadsheet, perfecting the genetic path of your ancestors. or just composed the perfect response to the emotional wasteland of a young person in crisis.

Like all conscientious computer users, you Save your work regularly. Then you go for dinner, come back & try to open your document & it’s not there!
It might be an older version, it may have corruption in it or you may even start getting Windows errors.

You search and investigate and suddenly get the dreaded Blue Screen of Death!

There’re other symptoms; printers can suddenly be unusable, the computer may not start at all or your friends may start asking why you enquiring about whether they’re happy with their penis size. They can all point to the same cause – you’ve got virus!

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In Part 1 of Old Age…? I talked about defrag and the speed increases it can give. Here is the process mentioned in Part 2

What is needed is to restore Windows to something approaching the condition it was in when it was first installed. Remember how zippy it was when you first got the computer? So what we need to do is to start the computer using the Windows CDROM rather than the Hard Disk. To do this we interrupt the normal start up procedure.

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“Okay, try it now.”

I waited patiently for the words to come - the words I have heard countless times which never fail to inspire a smug little smirk on my face:

“How did you do that?”

Over time I have had many responses, most of which are nice and tame simply because it is not nice to brag or make someone feel any less intelligent than they truly are. The response I have gotten used to giving over the past year is:

“This stuff is my bread and butter.”

I’m not sure if it is just respect for those who know what we don’t know, but the title of computer programmer, or even website designer, has soared to high prestige. The very aura around the “computer nerds” of society, as they speak of strange things like “HTML code” and the advantages or disadvantages of Visual Basic glows in a strange sort of black light way that leaves us staring.

I by no means want to ridicule anyone who doesn’t know a PowerPoint layout from an Excel spreadsheet. Nor do I mean to insult anyone by assuming whoever is reading this doesn’t know what Visual Basic is. However, I find it harder and harder to deny there is just something about the computer savvy part of the population that is separate from “the rest of us”…

The truly computer knowledgeable people of our population are fine. However, I don’t want to talk about them; I want to talk about the “nerd poser.”

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In Part One of ‘Old Age…?’ I talked about defragmenting and the speed increases it can give. There is another process which Windows doesn’t do well at and it has to do with the files most people never see.

Everyone knows about icons – those little pictures that appear on the desktop when we install programs. In fact some people think they are the program itself. Mr. JM has on occasion told me of clients being upset about deleting their program when in reality they simply removed the icon.

Quite a number of us know of, or have heard about the .EXE files; the executable parts of programs that are usually what the icon points to. But only the computer-savvy know about the libraries and other files that the programs use to perform their functions. Some of these files are common files – in other words, they are used by multiple programs.

The problem comes in because the programmers can’t be sure you actually have the correct version of such files on your computer – so they install their version, usually without bothering to ask you about it.

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If you’ve had a computer for more than six months I just know you’ll know the feeling – it seems that wonderful zippy machine you paid your hard-earned cash for has decided to ensure you work out your karma by learning the ultimate in patience. Everything takes time – it seems like each day the same tasks get slower.

One reason might be the Wintel game where the software bloat of the major companies is designed to ensure an ongoing need for upgrades, first of hardware, then of software, then hardware… you get the idea.

But unless you’ve just added the newest Microsoft bloatware to your cherished baby, the slowdown is more likely to have its source in one of two other problems. Actually three problems, but one of them you can resolve by shutting down and restarting your computer. You’d be surprised how many users don’t shut their computers down these days. They either let it run all night in powersave or, for a laptop, let it go into hibernate or standby mode.

Windows is not a tight Operating System; it doesn’t enforce good housekeeping from the applications nor does it reliably release resources once they are used. So a regular shutdown and restart can do wonders in restoring unallocated memory andclearing the swap file.

So, main source #1:… (more…)

(Or, How not to Piss off Email Recipients)

Email is probably one of the most popular uses for computers. With hundreds of millions of computers connecting to the internet and millions of businesses providing access for their workers and staff, the growth in numbers of emails has been huge.

Probably the most annoying aspect of email is SPAM. It’s unasked for, it seems to be everywhere and mostly it’s gross-out stuff. What girl wants to be asked if she wants a longer penis? What guy wants to be told how his little guy or his performance is failing his woman?

But it’s easy to miss the other major email problem. You can see it at its most extreme in flame wars and email backlash but it’s there on a less obvious daily basis as well. Email is… well… writing. Words on a screen. Emoticons or smileys were invented in the recognition that there is a whole realm of content, present in face to face or some of it even in phone conversation, which gets omitted from emails. The expression on a face, the body language, or the tone of voice all provide communication clues that are incorporated into our understanding of what is being said.

Some other things that cause problems and unwarranted emotion because of emails…

No subject line – Most people have their email set up to list Date Received, Sender and Subject. For me, no subject line means delete – maybe if I know the sender I will hesitate, but even then it’s usually some Trojan or Worm has got into their email list and is spamming me or worse.

Sending ‘Bad Luck’ Emails – A pet hate. Has anyone, ever, actually had their life destroyed because they didn’t send one of these on to ‘at least five friends’? These emails are a waste of space and time. Don’t send them to me. They will not actually give you wonderful things and they will make me think less of your reasoning capacity.

Failing to Address Issues Raised – If I send an email asking questions, it is because I’d like some answers. Sending back a response that doesn’t even attempt to address my questions means either I stop emailing you, or I have to send it again.

Answering just the first question is almost as bad. Is there something wrong with people’s attention span that once they read a question they presume that’s the end of the email? I mean, really! There’s another paragraph there – in written language that means it’s there for a reason – please read it and respond, even if it is slightly different to the first paragraph!

Multi-megabyte Pictures – Microsoft Office allows you to reduce the size of pictures very easily – a couple of clicks and it’s done. There are zip programs that do the same. Not everyone has high speed internet, nor unlimited bandwidth, nor an ISP who lets them have 50MB of pictures in an email.

Think Before You Send – When you’ve typed up your email, review it. Many problems come from things said incorrectly or sent to the wrong recipient. Proof your work and better, try to see it from the recipient’s point of view. You will avoid a lot of trouble over misunderstandings or sending the CEO those nude shots of your boyfriend. (Or worse, HER boyfriend…)

Direct Flashback Where it Belongs – Don’t shoot the messenger. Someone sends you an email that is reporting what someone else did or said and it gets your emotions going. When you Reply, make sure you make it clear that you’re upset with the original perpetrator, not the person who passed along the information – you’ll keep more friends.

Make the world a better place and think about your emails before you send them, okay?