COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[David Whipp]

Any news on the fibre rollout?

There was an announcement last week that Barlick was one of the county's areas where the rural scheme would become available in April, May and June.

A new fibre cabinet has been installed to serve our area.

You can supposedly check progress on www.superfastlancashire.com but it looks a little out of date.

[hartley353]

From reading your own words Stanley it would appear that most of your computer problems stemmed from where you live. The work you have chosen for your computer to perform is simple at best, and you have never stretched it to find the limitations. You are not on your own in the way you use it, for most part I never use most of my system, as do the majority of people. Windows is used by billions, and to the most part is without problems. I have over 1200 hrs study to gain my credentials in computers, and I believe I wasted the time. One day I sat on a bus behind two schoolboys, and listened to them discuss their computer builds, they were knowledgeable. most of my aquaintances have built their own systems, and I have three builds behind me. Where do they get their know how from? Magazines. There are many Pluggys around now. During my time with Shell they had a virus problem Two days later the staff technicians hadn't beaten it, it came down to a computer buff on the security desk running a program to cure it. Shortly after they made 75% off the technicians redundant.

[Steven Chorkley]

Any news on the fibre rollout?

There was an announcement last week that Barlick was one of the county's areas where the rural scheme would become available in April, May and June.

A new fibre cabinet has been installed to serve our area.

You can supposedly check progress on http://www.superfastlancashire.com but it looks a little out of date.

I understand that, I have seen the cabinets being fitted... I just wasn't sure as to the details

[Stanley]

"From reading your own words Stanley it would appear that most of your computer problems stemmed from where you live. The work you have chosen for your computer to perform is simple at best, and you have never stretched it to find the limitations."
Can't let you get away with that. Totally wrong on both counts but not surprising because you have no idea what I was doing. When you are doing an internal operation under Windows and have to sit there waiting for the line of blue blocks on the screen to clear you know you are working at the limit of the machine and the OS. Under Windows and Word very large text files (like a complete book with images) crashed more often than not. So I found the limitations and cured them. Under Linux neither of these is any problem. Neither of them due to where I live or connection speed. Both down to the limitations of Windows and raw power. Windows problem was insoluble but power was simple, nowadays none of my eight processors tops 8% and 16gb of memory backs that power up. Add Linux and a totally stable machine and system that is quite fast.
As for the virus problem you mention, it wouldn't have happened under a Linux system. You dismiss Pluggy but have never met him or used his services and yet you can pronounce magisterially from Planet Hartley that "there are plenty of Pluggys about".
Par for the course, you are right, we are wrong.... I think I can live with that.

[Big Kev]

At the other end of the argument, some (including many public bodies) have a huge investment in software that either won't run on anything later than XP or has to be upgraded at serious expense to work on later operating systems. An example I recently saw was an engineering firm with a lot of CNC machinery which is perfectly serviceable but no longer being made, and can only be programmed over a network using an old protocol called 'Netbuei', it was abandoned in favour of TCP/IP when the internet came along, the last available support for Netbeui was [you guessed it) Windows XP.

Does Netbuei require an internet connection? If the LAN was isolated from the outside world XP wouldn't be at risk from outside influences.

[hartley353]

Looks like you are out of your depth Stanley, stick to the key board, and leave the covers on. Of course I have never met Pluggy, but it doesn't stop me respecting his work or him as a person, he would probably admit himself he has a lot of competition. Computers are simple, kids soon found that out. If they had not become an integral part of control sytems, I would probably be just a user like you.

[Pluggy]

You can't access the internet using Netbeui (which is why the Internet pretty much killed it), but theres nothing to stop you having TCP/IP on as well so you can access the Internet. I would suspect the computers running the CNC machines have both protocols and would be connected to the Internet. Its just a protocol, it doesn't really do much, You can do a lot more with TCP/IP than you can do with Netbeui (Except run aging CNC machines apparently). TCP/IP is defacto now, there's no need for anything else in the modern world so modern operating systems don't tend to do anything but TCP/IP.

They could remove TCP/IP from the machines (assuming it was there to start with) and isolate them from the internet which would then mean the lack of security updates wouldn't matter. You just couldn't use the same machine to collect your email or the whole load of other stuff businesses use the internet for.

[Big Kev]

They could remove TCP/IP from the machines (assuming it was there to start with) and isolate them from the internet which would then mean the lack of security updates wouldn't matter. You just couldn't use the same machine to collect your email or the whole load of other stuff businesses use the internet for.

That's where I was going with the comment, if the XP machine isn't connected to the internet you've nothing to be concerned about, unless someone introduces something locally

[Pluggy]

I'd wager the machines are connected to the internet presently and that taking them off the internet will cause some degree of inconvenience.

It would be a pain keeping some old computers around which can't access the internet in addition to new ones that can. Its cheaper than replacing a load of serviceable CNC machines though.

[Gloria]

My XP laptop now has microsoft security essentials, will that not keep it safe?

[Pluggy]

Have you had this yet ?



They'll continue updating MSE for a while, but not doing the windows updates which I would consider more important than any anti-virus.

My trusty Windows XP in a VM is permanently showing a red Icon on the task bar for Security Essentials

[Pluggy]

A little bit of something for every computer interested geek.

3 Operating systems running at once on 1 computer,Ubuntu round the outside, XP showing its end of life notices and Windows 7 showing the lowest 'Windows Experience Index' I've ever seen. Crappy little low end laptops usually manage at least 2.5. The Intel I3 desktops I've been putting out of late run around 5.1. Its the VM display driver that kills this one, no support for 3D graphics etc. And before anyone asks, yes I forked out real money for the Windows 7 Licence. Painful for something I'll only use infrequently.

Windows 8/8.1 didn't enter the equation. Although I Initially didn't mind it, its a real pain when you're using it, forever swapping between the start screen and the desktop.

[Pluggy]

Interesting Article on the Beeb regarding end of support for XP :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26919673

Includes a picture of the then young Bill Gates esq.

[Steven Chorkley]

"From reading your own words Stanley it would appear that most of your computer problems stemmed from where you live. The work you have chosen for your computer to perform is simple at best, and you have never stretched it to find the limitations."
Can't let you get away with that. Totally wrong on both counts but not surprising because you have no idea what I was doing. When you are doing an internal operation under Windows and have to sit there waiting for the line of blue blocks on the screen to clear you know you are working at the limit of the machine and the OS. Under Windows and Word very large text files (like a complete book with images) crashed more often than not. So I found the limitations and cured them. Under Linux neither of these is any problem. Neither of them due to where I live or connection speed. Both down to the limitations of Windows and raw power. Windows problem was insoluble but power was simple, nowadays none of my eight processors tops 8% and 16gb of memory backs that power up. Add Linux and a totally stable machine and system that is quite fast.
As for the virus problem you mention, it wouldn't have happened under a Linux system. You dismiss Pluggy but have never met him or used his services and yet you can pronounce magisterially from Planet Hartley that "there are plenty of Pluggys about".
Par for the course, you are right, we are wrong.... I think I can live with that.

Windows XP I presume you are talking about, is exteremely poor at managining resources. However, Windows 7 isn't. I am running Windows 7 on a machine that can barely run Ubuntu (because there's no graphic drivers) and struggles with XP. I have a single core AMD and can handle Word with extreme ease (Although the SSD will have a major part in this.) Often hits 100% usage, but rarely stalls.
I completly back Windows at the moment, although my new Macbook retina (Core i7 Quad Core) is arriving this week. I will be running the image of this machine inside VMWare or Parallels for the majority of the time. And the viruses? I've never had one, and I don't often run Virus Scans.

[Steven Chorkley]

Have you had this yet ?



They'll continue updating MSE for a while, but not doing the windows updates which I would consider more important than any anti-virus.

My trusty Windows XP in a VM is permanently showing a red Icon on the task bar for Security Essentials

http://www.howtogeek.com/173291/goodbye ... antivirus/

I don't recommed Security Essentials for any version of the OS, this article is the easiest way to explain why.

[Steven Chorkley]

A little bit of something for every computer interested geek.

3 Operating systems running at once on 1 computer,Ubuntu round the outside, XP showing its end of life notices and Windows 7 showing the lowest 'Windows Experience Index' I've ever seen. Crappy little low end laptops usually manage at least 2.5. The Intel I3 desktops I've been putting out of late run around 5.1. Its the VM display driver that kills this one, no support for 3D graphics etc. And before anyone asks, yes I forked out real money for the Windows 7 Licence. Painful for something I'll only use infrequently.

Windows 8/8.1 didn't enter the equation. Although I Initially didn't mind it, its a real pain when you're using it, forever swapping between the start screen and the desktop.

Hmmm..... that score for windows seems low, even for a Virtual Machine. What specs are you running?

[Gloria]

Yes Pluggy I do keep getting that----- I have got my head in the sand syndrome? I thought (in my NOT I.T. tech brain --as you know) that microsoft security essentials would keep my computer secure whilst I did what family history I do on windows xp. I am completely missing something here, as I don't need my XP to do any more with updates, I just want it to carry on doing as is.

[Pluggy]

I don't recommed Security Essentials for any version of the OS, this article is the easiest way to explain why.

I think I'd live with the lacklustre detection rather than the utter cr*p the other freebies install these days. AVG is a monster resource hog full of nagware and Avast is little better. All AV is retrospective, it just varies how quick they get the signatures out.

Regarding the Windows 7 'Experience' score the 1.0 is entirely due to the graphics driver, I didn't test it with the default driver but only after I installed the Virtual Box Guest additions, which gives you nice resizeable auto scaling windows but no 3D/Aero capabilities. I ain't going to be playing COD Black Ops on it.......

[Pluggy]

Yes Pluggy I do keep getting that----- I have got my head in the sand syndrome? I thought (in my NOT I.T. tech brain --as you know) that microsoft security essentials would keep my computer secure whilst I did what family history I do on windows xp. I am completely missing something here, as I don't need my XP to do any more with updates, I just want it to carry on doing as is.

Assuming 'as is' includes using the internet, the lack of Windows updates could be a real killer. XP already lags way behind the later versions of Windows for security. If you're going to stay with XP, I'd remove MSE and install a 3rd party AV. The 2 freebies are Avast and AVG (there may be others I don't know about). But they aren't going to be as 'clean' as MSE. You could always lose Windows and join us 'Losers' on Ubuntu, No security issues worth mentioning without AV at all. I may have 3 operating systems on my computer but Ubuntu is used 99.9% of the time. The others are to aid me answering custoimers queries regarding Windows and I need to remind myself of the wording & procedure. I find Ubuntu a far more flexible OS than Windows, but I have spent a serious amount of time around it over the past 10 years. On the other hand, if you limit your internet activity to the same sites and keep your kids / grandkids away from the computer you probably won't have any issues. Internet security is primarily a state of mind in my experience.

I've installed Ubuntu on more than a few customers machines to date, Its probably counter productive because it deprives me of cleaning up their Windows clutter periodically....

[Gloria]

Thankyou, I think I am going to have to give this some serious thought. Thanks again for your advice.

[Steven Chorkley]

I don't recommed Security Essentials for any version of the OS, this article is the easiest way to explain why.

I think I'd live with the lacklustre detection rather than the utter cr*p the other freebies install these days. AVG is a monster resource hog full of nagware and Avast is little better. All AV is retrospective, it just varies how quick they get the signatures out.

Regarding the Windows 7 'Experience' score the 1.0 is entirely due to the graphics driver, I didn't test it with the default driver but only after I installed the Virtual Box Guest additions, which gives you nice resizeable auto scaling windows but no 3D/Aero capabilities. I ain't going to be playing COD Black Ops on it.......

I swear by AVAST when i'm setting up others machines, I think it's the best solution to security essentialls when setup to work autonimously.

And yeah, the scoring makes sence... VirtualBox don't have the best graphic drivers, I prefer VMWare on PC, although I cannot decide between VMWare or Pararells on mac.

[Pluggy]

Is that the free or the paid for Avast ?

[Steven Chorkley]

That's the free version, I never paid for an office suite and don't believe anyone should. The signitures are mostly in the GPL stream anyways.


I genuinely disagree with moving people to Ubuntu unless they are experienced. Everyone prefers Microsoft and Apple for the support and the market share, I don't think that Linux will take over anytime soon. I'm yet to find a usage for linux that OS X can't fulfill, and that's from a serious power user.

I tried my mum in linux but she demanded her office suite and her windows tools, they are essential for her work. I installed the equivalent tools in linux (including the official office suite in Wine) and she just refused to use it, she asked me to reinstall windows for her. As XP is on it's way out, I cannot afford to make that mistake again.

[Pluggy]

The market share is Windows entire problem. Linux will stay secure as long as it remains a backwater. Before Google got their mitts on it and turned it into the worlds most popular phone operating system, Android was Linux. Now you need AV on your phone.

Installing Ubuntu for a very naive computer user isn't an issue, you just show them how to to get on Facebook and they're happy - a web browser looks and works pretty much the same in any OS, but if they have a degree of Windows experience it becomes a much bigger problem. Many of my customers wouldn't know what a Windows tool was if it bit them. No disrespect to them, but there are a lot of people with lives out there who don't live to write Word documents and defrag their hard drive , and if a computer will do what they want the OS is immaterial.

If they know and love Microsoft Office, Linux and Libre/Open Office is a non starter.

If everyone thought like you regarding Office suites, Microsoft would have abandoned Office a decade ago. I'm no fan of Microsoft and their draconian licensing is a pain in the backside, but I believe if you want Microsoft Office, you should pay for it. I don't do hooky software, company policy, most of my customers respect that, although I've had 2 in 4 years that weren't impressed. If you want Windows & Office for nowt, there are people who will entertain you, but I don't do it.

[Pluggy]

My wife uses Windows 7 and Office 2013 at work and Ubuntu on her laptop at home, she's never asked me to change it. (It could be that she doesn't write many Word Documents at home and Candy Crush works fine in Firefox on Linux.....). She's a little disappointed with the new Machine at work, she was expecting a big improvement when XP and Office 2003 gave way to Windows 7 and Office 2013. Its no better, its just different she says.