Category Archives: Computer Upgrades

Sheer Speed

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My little computer has a 2.4 GHz Intel processor, Compared with my first 8 MHz 80286, that’s sheer speed.

Now, if the processor was about 10 to 15 times faster, I just might be able to start a game of solitaire in about the same amount of time.

Then, again, MS would just figure out some more ways to load down the system, not to mention complicate some more.

Wouldn’t be so bad if it were just games, but everything takes longer. It’s as if they are in cahoots with the folks trying to sell new ones. Not good enough to use the old ones. Always need newer, faster with more bells and whistles.

Sounds like a marketing plan.

What Cost Progress

Posted in Computer Upgrades, Customer complaints by

One day, I saw a quip that I found particularly humorous. As with most things humorous, there was a kernel of truth in it. Perhaps some of you already laughed at it, maybe even experienced the little bit of truth encapsulated in the few words: “The hurrier go, the behinder I get.”

The first PC compatible computer I bought ran on a 16 MHz clock, had 1 MB of memory and a 40 MB hard drive. Some might wonder just how I managed to get anything done on it. Yet, it took less than 30 seconds to boot. It took roughly 30 minutes to completely reload Windows 3.1 using floppies. Otherwise, I rarely waited for it to do anything. It was genuinely fast.

Now I have three computers. They are all incredibly fast with enormous amounts of memory and a hard disk that can store most of the printed word in 1900. I don’t know. Conceivably twice that.

However, I would never think about reloading Windows. My guess is it would take two or three DVDs and maybe as much as 4 hours. Then, I would need to connect to the Internet and upload software patches for the next few days, or weeks.

With all that, I must upgrade about once a week. On top of all that, every time I start an ap, I wait. Sometimes, it’s 5 or 10 seconds. Some apps take a minute or more.

They’ve come up with a sleep mode. That’s where you can turn your computer and it restarts where you turned it off. It became somewhat mandatory. If they didn’t give us the option, it takes 15 seconds to turn one of these new speeders off and a good 2 or 3 minutes to bring it back up.

It seems every since we past Windows 98, these software engineers are doing all they can to make sure we spend as much time as possible sitting on our hands. More than that, they are doing all they can to squeeze us amateur hobbyists out. I used to be pretty good at programming. Now they don’t allow VB 6.0 or any version of Delphi. Not sure about Pascal. So frustrated at losing my Delphi I haven’t tried.

Also, they keep demanding more and more of everything: speed, memory and disk. Now these brilliant guys want me to store my books on the cloud. I can understand that for the big guys, but it’s just little ol me. I suspect there are others who have a similar point of view.

In addition, they have turned, perhaps 1000 dollars of programs of mine into useless junk. I have a copy of Word Perfect that I can no longer use. The bad thing about that is that I much prefer it to MS Word. Tried pro version of Word a few years ago and removed it the same day I installed it. It ran slower than my old Vic-20.

Mostly, I’ve been using the bargain brands. They aren’t fast, but at least they work. Mostly, I use my little Samsung pad I got from T-mobile to write my post. It’s a little awkward, but I can mostly finish the post on the Tablet by the time I start typing on my computer. On the other hand, the computer version is better at finding my errers.

Oh, and by the way, the taplet is considerably more green. Even my laptop uses more power, far more power.

Most important, I don’t think one person in the hierarchy of Microsoft cares one iota about me or the likes of me. They are too busy keeping people from using their software without licensing.

Oddly, it might have the reverse effect. More & more of us just might go to the little tablets. My tablet is on the instant I press the button and rarely needs updating.

Keep it Simple!

Posted in Computer Hacking, Computer Upgrades, Computers by

In the late 1980s, I bought my first PC, an 80286 that ran at 12 MHz and it had 1 MB of Ram.  Because it was running on DOS 3.2, I had to partition my 40 MB disk into to logical disk or I would not be able to access 8 MB. I had Windows 3.1.

To some, this may seem inadequate, but it worked well.  Indeed, the only two reasons I upgraded were:

  1. To access the greater hardware, especially hard drives and memory.
  2. To access USB devices.  Windows 5.1 theoretically allowed USB, but not in reality.  I tried it.

I consider windows 5 the best of all the systems, though I did have some gripes with the way Microsoft was already trying to take control of my system.  They came up with these really neat things called registries, which hardly anyone outside Microsoft can understand.  I’m not sure that there is any documentation on the things.

My personal opinion is that Microsoft is using them to keep people from pirating their software.  I have news for them.  It doesn’t stop the pirating but it does really mess things up for us honest folks.  Worse yet, it has made it difficult to install and backup system disks.  Until I had Windows 5, I backed up and restored my system once a month.  It was a good way to build confidence for the day that something bad happened.

Since then, Microsoft has come out with another operating system every time I turned around.  Some were better, some worse.  Windows ME should have never left the barn.  The new IBM PC bought came with it installed and it froze at least once a day, many times more.  (It taught me to make sure I backed up my work every 15 minutes.)

The real problem is that each newer system is more complex than the last.  It really makes me long for Windows 3.1, even if I have to give up USB and huge storage devices.  The fact is, a 1 or 2-hundred MB disk would be plenty if I don’t need a couple of GB just for the operating system.

Moreover, much slower systems would be far more productive if Windows 10 weren’t so much large and clumsy.

The worst part of it is that it seems every time I turn on my laptop, it is time for an update.  Some of the updates take a long time.  Essentially, I can’t do anything until it’s done.

I get it.  Mostly it is for security.  The thing is, the reason for the need for the security is because there are so many holes in Windows.  Sorry, Microsoft.  Sometimes the truth hurts.

As if that isn’t enough, Microsoft has decided I need the cloud.  Whenever I finish an update, their cloud program starts whenever I start the system.  It takes me a few minutes to take it back off.  They might like the cloud but I don’t.  It greatly slows my system.

Moreover, as I said, the system is full of holes.  It seems as if every month I hear of someone else who has had their system hacked.  That’s dumb.  I know enough about computers that I know computers operating systems can be built without holes.  It’s simple.  Build three operating systems.  You can keep one with all the bells and whistles… and the holes.  One system would be very simple, for folks like me.  All I need is the basic three: word processor, spread sheet and basic web interface, which would include a very basic E-mail.  Perhaps, the email could be integrated into the word processor.  The E-mail would be limited to text and photos.  It’s pretty hard to download a worm with an interface like that.  Upgrades would be less frequent and should be through stores, not the internet.  Finally, hopefully, backups should be quick and simple.  That way, when things don’t go right, it wouldn’t be a disaster.

The third operating system would be the same as the second, but it might have a few more bells and whistles.  It would have the big advantage of security.  Certainly, this would be used for any system that stores sensitive information: Names, SSNs, account numbers and such.  Governments at all levels should use this type of system even if Microsoft refuses to build it.  Mostly, should such a system have problems, the OS and programs should be restorable in minutes, not hours.  Also, restores should be practiced regularly.  Bottom line, there should be no way to cause any program to be downloaded and run remotely.

If all three systems were available, I wonder just which would sell the most.  I know which one I would want, not the one with the bells and whistles.  Those that select the system with all the bells and whistles just might want the simple system too, after they were bit by security problems a few times.  They might want to change the first time someone gets access to their bank account, or worse, their 401(k).

…and by the way, the simpler system would run much faster and would require less disk and memory.  The old saying is true, “Keep it simple stupid.”

Concerning My Computer

Posted in Computer Hacking, Computer Upgrades, Computers, Customer complaints, Google Earth, Personal True Stories, Uncategorized by

Concerning my computer, there is little that will upset me more than when some big outfit will try to take it over.  In that respect, I would prefer to go back to Windows 3.1.  Back then, I installed my software and did my work.  Actually, I reformatted my hard drive 3, maybe 4 times a year.  It helped to keep things neat and I always knew I could recover from a disaster.

Nowadays, Microsoft has about put a stop to that.  Backups and recoveries, even with the best hardware, is very time consuming and iffy.  I still do the backups, but I guess I’ll wait for a disaster to see if I can truly make the recovery.

I do miss the good ol’ days of DOS in many respects.  On the other hand, I do like some of the newer software.  One nice program is Google Earth.  I have used it extensively.  So, when I got my new computer, I decided to install it.

Not only was I not able to load it, but Google took over my homepage.  Did I mention that I don’t like companies taking over my computer?

For the next few days, off and on, I tried to get back to my homepage, Firefox.  Oddly, I Googled “how to set my homepage to Firefox,” and got nowhere.  First, I could not find the URL for the Firefox page.  Second, it appeared to me that Google locked me onto their homepage.  Every time I tried to change my homepage at all, it just went right back to Google.

Finally, I figured on simply reloading Firefox.  At the first step, I saw two pseudo-buttons, one of which was labeled “Refresh Firefox.”  After I clicked on it, after a short time, my homepage was restored, even to the point that it still had all the modifications.

As I said, I like Google Earth, but not that much.  I don’t think I’ll use it anymore.

However, the main reason for my writing this is in case Google ever gets control of your home page, you know what to do to get back to Firefox.  I would like to give you the URL for Firefox, but I still can’t find it.  My URL box is effectively blank while I am on the homepage.  I don’t know how they do that.

The Big Hoax

Posted in Computer Hacking, Computer Upgrades, Computers, Customer complaints, Personal True Stories by

I purchased a new laptop Sunday. After getting home, I began setting it up. Almost immediately, I was notified that it needed to be updated. Approximately two hours later, it downloaded the updates, checked them and started applying them. It was about 85% done when, inadvertently, I pressed the power button and the system powered down.
Honest, I didn’t mean to. It’s kind of the problem with computers. They don’t know if something is intentional or not. I waited a while, and then pressed the button again. The computer started, but not properly. It was about then that I wished I was working with my first computer. It was running on DOS 6.1 and Windows 3.1.
I used to reformat my drive and reload everything once a month. It took a little more than any an hour… and I was working with 3.5 inch floppies. If I didn’t have the latest version of software, it was of little concern.
Of course, I had to start all over with my new laptop. Actually, it was worse than that. Before I could start over, I had to restore the computer to the point it was when it was new. That took about an hour.
When the updates were done, HP decided it needed to update my bios and drivers, so I got busy on that, close to another hour. Then, as per the suggestion of HP, I created a backup copy of my system. By the way, they said I needed a minimum of a 16 GB thumb drive.
Again I wished for the good old days. My hard drive was 40 MB. It meant that the restore volume was more than 32 times bigger than the drive I was running my old system on. Fortunately, there is plenty of room on my new system drive… one TB. I’m not sure how long that will last. I am sure in a decade or two, I might need ten TB. I’m 70 years-of-age now. I likely won’t be around in a decade.
As I sat there watching my system generate the recovery volume, I pondered what all I have gained with my new system. Let’s see. I can now interface with many USB devices. My first system could only directly access 1MB if memory, actually, there was a limit of 640 KB, but there was something of a workaround.
The old system was limited to 8 bits, though my processor was able to run at 16 bits. As mentioned, I can store 1 terabyte. For all practical purposes, it is limitless. My DOS could only access a volume of 32 MB. The rest of the 40 MB had to be formatted as a separate logical volume.
Other than that, there really isn’t that much that I can do with the modern system that I wasn’t able to do with the old one. The fact is… if Windows 98 wasn’t so unstable, I would much rather use it as the new system, even with its limits. The biggest disadvantage of the new system is that the new system keeps trying to take control of my computer. Some might like that, I don’t.
However, there are other real disadvantages of the new system. I would like to format my system disk once a month, or at least every three months. With the current system, that is not practical. It might not even be possible.
As a computer professional, I learned one of the most important things a person should do with a computer is to perform backups on a regular basis. It would appear that Microsoft has gone out of their way to make this difficult if not impossible. At best, I can back up my data. Because of their registry files, backing up individual applications is not possible. This is especially important considering many programs are purchased on line.
(I paid quite a bit for one program. When I went from Windows seven to Windows 10, the program disappeared. It is gone. If I want it again, I will have to again pay for it.)
Maybe one of the most aggravating things with the new systems is that I can no longer write programs in Visual Basic 6. I can write in the newer versions but it is next to impossible to interface to the printers with the later versions of VB. (Even the Pros say as much.) I never wrote anything professionally, but I did write many programs for my personal use. By the way, they don’t work now either. In fact, when I went to Windows 7, I had to give up all my old software. I had to start all over.
I foresee, a big opportunity for the right person. If a person releases a Windows 3.1 look-alike, I will be one of the first in line to buy a copy. Anyone with an once of common sense would join me. We have gone from a system that helps us to a system that needs constant attention. Then too, we are always susceptible to all different kinds of malware. A windows 3.1 type system would not be subject to such things. …and, by the way, I could regain control of my system.
I might have to give up a few bells and whistles. Then again, I survived them before Microsoft took over my system. I think I could survive quite nicely without it all again.
As near as I can tell, it is a big hoax. They claim we need the bigger faster computers to run the software. On the other hand, we need the latest and greatest software to take advantage of the computer’s abilities. In the end, we have gained very little, other than, perhaps a headache.
All together, before I was able to use my new computer, I spent about 30 hours on updates and such. I certainly don’t want to go through this again. Maybe next time, I’ll just get one of those other little Chrome books. From what I understand, the things work right out of the box.
To me, the new systems are one of the greatest hoaxes of the modern era. Sitting, waiting on my new system was all it took to convince me of it. Apparently, I stand alone and I don’t think Microsoft is listening to me.
Well, I now have a spare system. I think I will use it to try out that other operating system, you know, the one that is free, Linux. I’ve kind of wondered about it anyway. Who knows, I might like it enough to replace Windows 10 on my new system and sat good bye to the Microsoft hoax.