5 Common Computer Mistakes to Avoid

I will give five things that I recommend for you to avoid when fixing / using your computer that may save you more time and trouble in the future.

  1. Avoid running Windows registry cleaners on your computer

Simply put, a Windows registry cleaner supposedly “cleans out” the Windows registry by removing anything that does not need to be in there.

The problem?  The registry cleaner really does not have any clue whether a registry entry is truly needed or not, so it just guesses. Instead of helping your computer, registry cleaners may end up messing up your computer even more that it already was to begin with.

In addition, there is not really a big reason to clean the registry out. I have used Windows for over 18 years and not once have I ever had the registry become corrupt without me doing something intentionally that ended up causing the registry to mess up.

Bottom Line:  Please avoid Windows registry cleaners. They really are not needed, nor are they guaranteed to fix your problems.

  1. Avoid turning off your anti-virus scanner just because something is malfunctioning on your computer

You may encounter a problem with a software program on your computer, and the support desk person asks you to try running their software with your anti-virus (anti-malware) software turned off.

This is not wise, because you are assuming that their software not only has no malware in it, but you are also technically exposing your computer to other potential threats with it being disabled.

Only in very certain and specific circumstances do I ever recommend someone to (for a very short time) turn off their anti-malware protection software.

This “please try our software with the anti-malware turned off” business is really a generic response from a support person. They have no idea why their software is not working properly on your computer to begin with.

Please note that you can run a computer without any anti-malware software and be just fine (Windows, MacOS X, Linux, UNIX, etc. — they all are capable of being infested with malware), but you will not have any potential to know if you do in fact have malware on your system, without an anti-malware scanning software running in the background.

Bottom Line:  It is unwise to disable your anti-malware software to get a problem working, unless it is a last (and I mean last) resort.

  1. “Rebooting fixes everything”

People get this idea that if they reboot their system “all of their problems they had will go away”. This is not necessarily true. Sometimes rebooting does fix a problem, but other times rebooting is just putting a “Band-Aid” on the problem, and the problem will eventually resurface again.

With problems that resurface after a reboot, you will need you use trial-and-error (with Internet research) to figure out what is possibly wrong with your computer.

Yes, this part of the computer problem solving business is not fun, but it is necessary if you want to fix your computer without having to hire someone else to fix it.

Bottom Line:  Rebooting does not always fix your computer problems, nor should you assume that your computer problems have been fixed just by rebooting.

  1. Buying an SSD will always make my computer run faster

While it is true now days that someone can go down to the computer store and pick up an SSD (Solid State Drive) for a good price, SSDs are not guaranteed to always speed up a computer.

Why? There is more to the performance of a computer than just the hard drive. Anyone using a computer with 512 MB of RAM, an old 1 GHz CPU, running Windows 7 is going to have a miserable time, even if they are using an SSD with fast random-seek data access.

A computer without a lot of RAM and an old, slow CPU will cause the computer to crawl on a modern desktop OS, regardless if the computer is using an SSD or not.

Bottom Line:  SSDs (Solid State Drives) are a great way of drastically improving the data access (read and write) performance of a computer system, but they are not the only deciding factor for a computer’s performance.

  1. Avoid turning off your operating system’s automatic updates

I suspect many people run their operating systems without having the latest updates installed. This is bad for stability, performance, and security (that goes for any OS not just Windows). Updates are there for a reason. Ignoring them is not wise, unless you have a real good reason to ignore them.

Bottom Line:  Leave your operating system’s automatic updates on, unless you have a real good reason not to.


Posted in Computers, Internet and Servers, Operating Systems, Software

Do You Accept Android App Permissions Without Reading Them?

This is just a quick blog post reminding Android smart phone users to be watchful of what permissions Android apps claim they require, before installing them from the Google Play store.

For example, if you are going to download a flashlight app, and it wants access to your Wi-Fi, location, and phone identity, I would be suspicious of that app and find another one that requires less permissions.

Of course, the flashlight app will require camera permissions, since it will be turning off and on the camera’s light, but it should not require access to your Wi-Fi (unless it has ads, which can potentially be a privacy issue in itself) or location.

Sometimes apps do require strange permissions because of some unique situation, but in my opinion most of the time these extra “needed” permissions are nothing more than the app’s author spying on you.

Just something to remember the next time you decide to download another app.


Posted in Android, Operating Systems

Response to “Why Should I Use Linux?”

While I was browsing the Internet, I ran across a website that gives an introduction to the basics of Linux to computer users who do not know what Linux is all about.

One of the web pages of the presentation gives typical misinformation about Windows that you normally would probably read elsewhere.

Link to webpage:  http://www.lugod.org/presentations/intro2linux/page10.html

Please note that I mean no disrespect to the author of the presentation in anything that I say.

The author’s text (direct quotes) are in red and my responses are in black.  Please note that I am only responding to the areas that are in fact misinformation. Everything else, I am not responding to.

Especially when it is compared to Microsoft Windows, Linux has many advantages:

  • Crashes (breaks) less often 

How do you know that Linux breaks “less often” than Windows?  I have administered both Windows and Linux computers, and have found neither to be unstable when properly setup with good hardware and drivers. No technical arguments to explain how you know that Windows is not as stable as Linux.

  •  More customizable

I agree that the “sky is the limit” when it comes to modifying Linux. However you must understand that a lot of Linux users are not programmers, and hence they will not know how to modify Linux if needed. Hence they really cannot “customize” Linux the way they want to anyway (not at least, without hiring a programmer)!

Also, Microsoft has allowed Windows users to modify a lot of settings (mainly in the registry) to make changes in the Windows operating system.

Basically without the user being a programmer, Linux (for the non-programmer) is not “more customizable” than Windows would be.  It is all in the way you look at it! 🙂

  •  Faster

How is Linux “faster” than Windows?  If I dual-booted both Windows and Linux, how would one be “faster” than the other?  It is the same hardware being used for both operating systems!  No technical arguments to explain how you know that Linux is faster than Windows.

  •  Access to many useful, and free, applications

Windows has “access to many useful, and free, applications” too!

Just Google several open source software programs such as:

  • VLC Player
  • Gimp (a Photoshop-like image editor)
  • Blender (a 3D modeling and animation software)
  • Open Office
  • Mozilla Thunderbird
  • Mozilla Firefox
  • Inkscape
  • MPlayer
  • LibreOffice
  • Audacity (a free audio editor)
  • GnuCash (financial-accounting software)
  • Notepad++ (a very powerful text editor)
  • 7-Zip (a very good file compressor)
  • VirtualBox (a virtual machine hypervisor)

———–

I hope these blog posts help people understand that not everything they hear about Windows is necessarily true. Over the past three years, I have spent literally hours reading misinformation about Windows from person after person on the Internet. It seems like there is no end to the misinformation problem!

Please remember to always check the “facts” you receive from someone online, before blindly believing what they say! Otherwise, you may end up believing something that is in fact not true, and you may even accidentally lead other people astray!


Posted in Computers, Operating Systems

Windows Misinformation in Action

In this blog post, I will be responding to an online comment made by a user that gives misinformation about Windows. The comment can be located at:  https://discuss.howtogeek.com/t/htg-explains-why-does-windows-want-to-reboot-so-often/13393/5   Please note that I mean *no* disrespect to the author of the comment in any way.

The direct quotes (quotes were copied and pasted directly from the website itself; I made no changes to the quotes) from the article are in red, and my responses are in black.

Simple really, Windows is inherently flawed by both a poor design

Windows is not “inherently flawed” by poor design. For example, in Windows (since Windows 7, I believe) if your display driver crashes for whatever reason, instead of blue screening, Windows just restarts the display driver and you are all set! This is a great design in Windows’ driver model.

Another example of good design is that Windows supports many different security features like: Access Control Lists, Mandatory Access Control, Disable Memory Execution, Address Space Layout Randomization, integrated firewall (Windows Firewall), etc.

Not to mention Windows NT was designed from the beginning to be a multi-user, networking capable operating system, for small and large businesses alike to use. This was before the consumer NT versions came out onto the market (like Windows XP).

Windows (NT versions) are far from “inherently flawed”. That is just spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt to less technical computer users.

and a legion userbase who is mor ethan willing to accept any remotely plausible answer concerning why presumably simple things are so obtuse in the windows world.

You are pretty much calling Windows users idiots. With all due respect, this is not a technical argument. You are just throwing a “low punch” at people who have a different opinion than yourself.

You say “simple things are so obtuse in the windows world”, but you didn’t give any technical arguments!

Bottom line the reason reboots are necessary is the security model (or lack thereof) of windows. Simply up until windows 7 and 8 (supposedly anyway) windows had a boiler plate security model.

Nope! Not true at all. Windows requires a reboot after updates to make sure that all the updated files that are used by the system and user-installed programs are using the newly updated files.

Let me explain. When you load a program, all of the required / critical files associated with that program get loaded into memory (e.g., DLL files). Now when you update certain files that are being used by other programs, you have updated those files, but the computer memory still retains the older version of those files you updated. The programs will not re-cache the newer files into memory, until the programs have been restarted.

Microsoft just opted to force the user to reboot, so security, stability, and performance updates are actually applied, and not just lying dormant until the user happens to reboot the computer. Of course, any program that is not currently running, or a program that you manually restart, will then use the updated files automatically.

In addition, Linux has the same problem.  Users who update important libraries and whatnot need to restart their services on their Linux boxes to have the newly updated files take effect.  The problem?  There is no real guarantee for Linux users that just by restarting their system services that all of the system programs are using the newly updated files.  It would be a good idea for Linux users to reboot their systems just like Windows users do, to make sure that all of the running programs are making use of the important updated files.  This website recommends that Linux users reboot their systems after installing important updates.

The picture below will show you Webmin telling me that Ubuntu Linux needs a reboot after doing some updates.  Basically this disproves anyone who claims that Linux does not need a reboot after doing updates.

Linux Reboot Example

While the file system provides file level security, and the os does as well, the applications and developers of windows applications do not follow best practices and many applications require administrative access to install and use.

This has nothing to do with Windows. This is a fault of certain application developers. This is not an OS specific issue either. Any OS can have bad programmers writing software.

How this translates to rebooting is that the updates can not guarantee at any given time the context they (update software) is operating in, as the line beween administrator and users is somewhat vague. (this is why windows is so virus and malware porus)

I am not sure what you are trying to say.

Linux does have malware. It is rare to actually get malware on Linux, but the same goes for a properly setup Windows computer with a user that uses common sense. Just because someone uses Windows does not mean that they will catch malware, nor is Windows typically easy to infect.

I would say 99% of all Windows infections nowadays are caused by the user allowing the malware to infect the system (e.g., running an infected program as Administrator, opening an e-mail attachment manually from an unknown e-mail, running random downloaded exe files from the Internet), not the malware just “getting in” by itself without accidental help from the user.

Windows NT was supposed to allow updates without reboots. In fact OS/2 did that as well, and as a precursor to NT, the only remainin greason for a reboot is laziness on the part of developers and failure to motivate application developers to provide mechanisms to install theiur software without admin privileges.

As this link will show you, Windows rebooting for updates is not a “lazy developer” problem. It is a good design decision based upon logical reasoning.

———-

Almost everyone (not all, of course 🙂 ) that I have encountered, that happens to prefer an OS other than Windows (or at least comes across as if they hate Windows), seems to think that it is their “calling” to trash Windows with little to no technical arguments.

Then when you do give technical arguments to these people, in my experience they will just argue and mock you to the point that you really do not know why you even bothered to respond to their misinformation.

I had one guy literally copy and paste my whole response (that I made on another website), and replaced some of my words to make it sound like I was saying the opposite of what I really said!  No polite, honest, mature conversation.  No technical arguments.  I just got mockery.  He probably didn’t have any responses to begin with, and needed to mock me since he did not have anything else to give in response!

Linux is a good operating system for servers, but let’s not get carried away with thinking that it is the _only_ OS out there worth its salt.  There are other ones like FreeBSD, OS X, and of course Windows that have their own share of pros. I have used both Windows and Linux, and I can see the good and bad in both OSes.


Posted in Computers, Operating Systems

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