On 1/4/2011 11:40 AM, DGDevin wrote:


"DerbyDad03" wrote in message
...

"In fact within the past year we've both had machines die
completely dead with DOA motherboards, requiring the purchase of new
computers."

DOA - Dead On Arrival - motherboards required the *purchase* of new
machines?

I phrased that poorly, I meant diagnostics on the machines showed the
motherboards were toast, so DOA at the bench. The Mac was four or five
years old so it made sense to get a new one. My top-of-the-line Dell
was less than three years old, so I looked into fixing it and learned
that Dell's proprietary motherboards cost twice as much as they have
any right to, and with labor factored in it made no sense to fix it.
So I pulled out the RAM and gave it to somebody, and yanked the drive,
sound card and video card (upgrades) and had them put into a new
machine which runs circles around the DELL for half the cost. I'll
never buy another DELL because their customer service is poor and
their repair parts are vastly overpriced. I found a local computer
shop that's been in business for 25 years and they built a new machine
with impressive performance for half what I paid for DELL's flagship
model three years ago--another lesson learned.

I'm glad you learned it. I build my own, so I don't shop for
off-the-shelf desktop pcs for myself. OTOH, they make sense for a
significant proportion of the home user market - those people who
pretty much just surf the web, do email, do a little bit of word
processing and other low-level tasks. Even so, there are far, far
better buys on the market than Dells.

I fix pcs on the side and the most aggravating ones to deal with are
the positively ancient pcs - ones so slow they take fifteen or twenty
minutes to boot. They have software and hardware conflicts due to the
age of the machine, and they get infested with malware because the
pc's protective software is too old to be updated, or they never used
it in the first place. Trying to convince those owners that it is way
past time to replace the pc is usually futile, because: they paid
twelve hundred bucks for that (primitive) pc back in 1999. And that's
more than they paid for their refrigerator, by damn, and they've had
the fridge for twenty-five years, so the pc should be good for at
least as long!

I describe these dinosaurs as "legacy machines" on my fee list, and
charge a surcharge for working on them _because_ they're so slow, and
time is money, after all. It still just kills me how many people are
willing to spend well over a hundred bucks to keep a dinosaur going
when they can get a new and much, much better box off the shelf for as
little as $300.

DerbyDad03 wrote:
On Jan 4, 2:43 am, wrote:
"Smitty Two" wrote in message

news
Throw it away and buy a mac, say g'bye to problems.

I run PCs, my wife runs Macs, she's had about as many problems as I've had,
both with software and hardware. In fact within the past year we've both
had machines die completely dead with DOA motherboards, requiring the
purchase of new computers. Apple might have better customer support, but I
don't see their product as being inherently more trouble-free.

"In fact within the past year we've both had machines die
completely dead with DOA motherboards, requiring the purchase of new
computers."

DOA - Dead On Arrival - motherboards required the *purchase* of new
machines?

No warranty coverage?
Hmmm,
Maybe power coming into the house is not good?

On 2011-01-04, DGDevin wrote:

their customer service is poor and their repair parts are vastly overpriced.

.....not to mention jes plain cheap crap! I was helping a friend test
a buncha Infineon RAM memory cards rejected by Dell. We were using a
cheapo Taiwan PC he'd hacked together to run some memory testing
software. Turns out every single card Dell had rejected was perfectly
fine. The problem appeared to be due to the crappy substandard card
slot connectors Dell was using. Jes didn't make adequate contact.

OTOH, this is one of the major problems with outsourcing. Sub out fab
of board/products you've designed and you run the risk of the
sub-vendor finding an even cheaper component than you'd intended. So
much cheaper, in fact, that it's crap and you end up fielding returns
caused by your vendor. We had this problem with a board vendor that
had won the much ballyhooed Malcom Baldridge quality award. Ended up
their cheap ass junk was killing us and our upper echelon mgrs were
hamstringing our own quality control engineers who were trying to
force this vendor into spec compliance. It was a corporate politics
nightmare.

nb

Pete C. wrote:

notbob wrote:

On 2011-01-04, Pete wrote:

As for customer support, in a couple decades of running multiple Windows
machines I have not needed any customer support from Microsoft until a
few months ago:

I've run linux for the last 10 yrs. Never had to call anyone. More
than enough help on the internet.

nb

Perhaps I wasn't clear - in those couple decades of running multiple
Windows PCs, I didn't need support - not from Microsoft and not from the
Internet.

I've fiddled with Linux many times (and several other Unix variants),
but I've never found a compelling reason to use it. I've even performed
a side by side shoot-out between Windows and Linux for a particular
application and Windows won. The main thing it seems to have going for
it is price, and I make enough to not care about the modest cost of
Windows and Windows applications. I also tend to be put off by the
non-professional "feel" of Linux.
Hi,
Linux us FAST.

DGDevin wrote:

"Pete C." wrote in message
ster.com...

People I know who use Macs report far more problems that I've ever had
with Windows PCs (remember PC is a hardware platform, not an OS).

I dont see my wife's Macs having *more* problems, but she's had software
issues from time to time, and one major hardware failure same as my PCs.

My experience with Windows PCs may not be entirely typical, but it is
indeed accurate. I've had virtually no issues with any of my systems,
even through the progression of Windows variants (NT, 95, 98, 2000, XP,
Vista, Win7), and indeed at all points along the way I have had multiple
systems running different Windows versions all happily networked
together. Today my 5 systems are 2x Win2K, 2x WinXP and 1x Win7 all
entirely happy and sharing my network and all happy talking to my (Linux
based) LG NAS box.

I've only tried to get support from MS one time, and was told that my OEM
version of Win 7 meant I had to call the shop that built the computer--yet
another reason to be less than thrilled with Win 7.

My Win 7 was a purchased upgrade so that may have been the difference.
Either way I was very satisfied with that one support call I had.

I wish I'd stuck with
XP on my new machine, everything worked in XP, all my software ran, I knew
how to do whatever I wanted to do....

Upgrading for the sake of upgrading is one trap I've never fallen into.
Every upgrade I've done has had a specific requirement driving it, be it
a new application I need to run that requires a newer version, or
needing to have a system at a particular version to aid in remote
support of my mother with that version.

My wirehead friends tell my W7 is
better, but hardly a day goes by that I don't run into something irritating.

It's better in a lot of ways, but just like most previous Windows
versions, you have to do some customizing to be happy with it if you're
more experienced than the average users. Fortunately Windows generally
provides an easy way to disable the features designed for the not very
computer literate user, something that the Mac UI seems to lack.

I'm no proponent of Windows, I just find that it meets my needs with a
minimum of hassle. I can run applications (and I run many specialty
ones) from companies that provide a consistent and professional
presentation and documentation, vs. trying to make sense of some open
source application developed by one 30 yr old nerd still living in his
parents basement.

Since Macs are now just a Mac UI running on BSD on a PC platform, and I
can't stand the Mac UI, I see not reason at all to ever consider them.
If I want to switch to a Unix platform I will do so on a quality
standard PC hardware platform, not an overpriced cosmetically Appleified
PC platform, and I will run a standard Unix variant, now one married to
the Mac UI.

Pete C. wrote:

notbob wrote:

On 2011-01-04, Pete wrote:

As for customer support, in a couple decades of running multiple Windows
machines I have not needed any customer support from Microsoft until a
few months ago:

I've run linux for the last 10 yrs. Never had to call anyone. More
than enough help on the internet.

nb

Perhaps I wasn't clear - in those couple decades of running multiple
Windows PCs, I didn't need support - not from Microsoft and not from the
Internet.

I've fiddled with Linux many times (and several other Unix variants),
but I've never found a compelling reason to use it. I've even performed
a side by side shoot-out between Windows and Linux for a particular
application and Windows won. The main thing it seems to have going for
it is price, and I make enough to not care about the modest cost of
Windows and Windows applications. I also tend to be put off by the
non-professional "feel" of Linux.
Hmm,
In your case professional feel = Point and click?

On Tue, 04 Jan 2011 12:12:11 -0600, Hell Toupee
wrote:


I'm glad you learned it. I build my own, so I don't shop for
off-the-shelf desktop pcs for myself. OTOH, they make sense for a
significant proportion of the home user market - those people who
pretty much just surf the web, do email, do a little bit of word
processing and other low-level tasks. Even so, there are far, far
better buys on the market than Dells.

I fix pcs on the side and the most aggravating ones to deal with are
the positively ancient pcs - ones so slow they take fifteen or twenty
minutes to boot. They have software and hardware conflicts due to the
age of the machine, and they get infested with malware because the
pc's protective software is too old to be updated, or they never used
it in the first place. Trying to convince those owners that it is way
past time to replace the pc is usually futile, because: they paid
twelve hundred bucks for that (primitive) pc back in 1999. And that's
more than they paid for their refrigerator, by damn, and they've had
the fridge for twenty-five years, so the pc should be good for at
least as long!

I describe these dinosaurs as "legacy machines" on my fee list, and
charge a surcharge for working on them _because_ they're so slow, and
time is money, after all. It still just kills me how many people are
willing to spend well over a hundred bucks to keep a dinosaur going
when they can get a new and much, much better box off the shelf for as
little as $300.

Crazy stuff. I build my own too. You must have incredible patience
to deal with your customers. Hope you don't do much work over the
phone.
Every time I walk through PC issues on the phone with family members,
I lose it at least once.

--Vic

On Jan 4, 1:12*pm, Hell Toupee wrote:
On 1/4/2011 11:40 AM, DGDevin wrote:







"DerbyDad03" wrote in message
...

"In fact within the past year we've both had machines die
completely dead with DOA motherboards, requiring the purchase of new
computers."

DOA - Dead On Arrival - motherboards required the *purchase* of new
machines?

I phrased that poorly, I meant diagnostics on the machines showed the
motherboards were toast, so DOA at the bench. The Mac was four or five
years old so it made sense to get a new one. My top-of-the-line Dell
was less than three years old, so I looked into fixing it and learned
that Dell's proprietary motherboards cost twice as much as they have
any right to, and with labor factored in it made no sense to fix it.
So I pulled out the RAM and gave it to somebody, and yanked the drive,
sound card and video card (upgrades) and had them put into a new
machine which runs circles around the DELL for half the cost. I'll
never buy another DELL because their customer service is poor and
their repair parts are vastly overpriced. I found a local computer
shop that's been in business for 25 years and they built a new machine
with impressive performance for half what I paid for DELL's flagship
model three years ago--another lesson learned.

I'm glad you learned it. I build my own, *so I don't shop for
off-the-shelf desktop pcs for myself.

I just went through that exercise, and there is essentially zero
money to be saved if you buy all the parts and assemble it yourself.
Just buying the hardware, ie MB, CPU, memory, chasis, etc on Ebay,
from God
knows who, puts you you close to what you could get it from HP or
similar already integrated, software loaded, and tested. Integrate
it yourself and
if it doesn't work right, or there are compatibility issues, then
what? And then if you
need Windows, unless you already have it, that's another $110. By
comparison, an
HP comes pre-loaded with Win 7 and limited version of Microsoft Office
for free, which is good
enough for most people. For another $100, you could get the full
version. 3 years of Norton, $30.

Add it all up and I fail to see the point to building your own, unless
you're
putting together a high end gaming system or similar. But for the
typical $500 to
$1000 system, it makes no sense to me. It's gettin more and more like
building
your own HDTV instead of buying one.




OTOH, they make sense for a
significant proportion of the home user market - those people who
pretty much just surf the web, do email, do a little bit of word
processing and other low-level tasks. Even so, there are far, far
better buys on the market than Dells.

Why would an Intel 2.7Ghz quad core system, with 8GB of RAM, 1.5TB of
HD,
limited to those low-lefel tasks?




I fix pcs on the side and the most aggravating ones to deal with are
the positively ancient pcs - ones so slow they take fifteen or twenty
minutes to boot. They have software and hardware conflicts due to the
age of the machine, and they get infested with malware because the
pc's protective software is too old to be updated, or they never used
it in the first place. Trying to convince those owners that it is way
past time to replace the pc is usually futile, because: they paid
twelve hundred bucks for that (primitive) pc back in 1999. And that's
more than they paid for their refrigerator, by damn, and they've had
the fridge for twenty-five years, so the pc should be good for at
least as long!


I describe these dinosaurs as "legacy machines" on my fee list, and
charge a surcharge for working on them _because_ they're so slow, and
time is money, after all. It still just kills me how many people are
willing to spend well over a hundred bucks to keep a dinosaur going
when they can get a new and much, much better box off the shelf for as
little as $300.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

On 2011-01-04, Pete C. wrote:

This is not to say that Linux doesn't work properly, it's a sloppy feel
compared to high end OSes developed by consistent highly organized and
disciplined teams.

Not hard to get that kinda discipline when charging $3-5K per seat.

Still not sure what you mean by "feel", which strikes me as rather
subjective. I learned on Unix and now use Linux. Feels pretty much
the same, to me. If I was going to judge anything as unprofessional ,
it would be the newer Windows-like Linux distros like Ubuntu, which I
dislike immensely. Linux is NOT Windows and if I wanted a
Windows-like OS, I'd use Windows! I use Slackware, which is
considered by many to be the most Unix-like. I prefer the command
line to GUIs and have learned to read the man pages of the underlying
software which, for the most part, originated on or was forked from
Unix.

You've got to admit, Google is no small potatoes. I'd go so far as to
guess it's the biggest single enterprise system in the World. All
those huge server farms the World round are all Linux based and I
doubt there's a desktop environmont on any of them. If you still
perceive such a network as unprofessional, might I suggest you update
your feelers.

nb

On 2011-01-04, Hell Toupee wrote:

twelve hundred bucks for that (primitive) pc back in 1999.

hee hee..... BTDT! Paid $1800 for a 200 mmx system back in the day.

I describe these dinosaurs as "legacy machines" on my fee list, and
charge a surcharge for working on them _because_ they're so slow, and
time is money, after all. It still just kills me how many people are
willing to spend well over a hundred bucks to keep a dinosaur going
when they can get a new and much, much better box off the shelf for as
little as $300.

I can't say I blame you. OTOH, I'm one of those "relic" enablers. My
current box is an ancient P4, but I do the maint and run Linux, which
up to this point is ENOUGH. I refuse to buy new jes cuz it might be
faster and able to run newer flashier more bloated software. Now, I find
myself in need of a faster system cuz am going to get deeper into
digital graphics, so will upgrade. But, I kills me all the boxes I've
put out to pasture still worked jes fine. Monitors and HDDs die with
boring regularity, but good mobos and most cards aren't so short
lived. There's certainly nothing wrong with the 2-3 ATX cases rusting
in the shed. You have a different priority, so I see why you prefer
to not deal with these anachronisms

nb

On 2011-01-04, Pete C. wrote:

PC platform, and I will run a standard Unix variant, now one married to
the Mac UI.

.....and not bent over the table while your pocket is picked by Apple!

That's the primary reason I've never owned one. It's like a rube
being fleeced by a city-slicker. My momma never raised such a foolish
son!

nb

On Tue, 04 Jan 2011 12:19:24 -0600, "Pete C."
wrote:


Upgrading for the sake of upgrading is one trap I've never fallen into.
Every upgrade I've done has had a specific requirement driving it, be it
a new application I need to run that requires a newer version, or
needing to have a system at a particular version to aid in remote
support of my mother with that version.


Same here. I've managed to skip 386, 486, PI, PIII, and all the
sockets after my previous 478 until the 1366 I run now.
One time due to a blown motherboard, all the others because I hit a
graphics wall. I'm a gamer.
The typical office apps were all performing fine when I moved to a new
box.
Not to say there aren't other reasons than graphics for upgrading.
That's just what happened to me.
I find Win7 better than XP in terms of app crashes.
Using it a year now and not nearly as many crashes and not a single
BSOD. Never did any benchmarking, and I notice no speed issues.
I waited until I felt the drivers issue was over with..
That's basically why I never tried the Linux stuff - drivers and
games.
I don't like fooling around too much with software anymore.
But it's neat that others are doing it. I had my fun.

--Vic

On Tue, 04 Jan 2011 12:26:12 -0600, Vic Smith
wrote:

On Tue, 04 Jan 2011 12:12:11 -0600, Hell Toupee
wrote:


I'm glad you learned it. I build my own, so I don't shop for
off-the-shelf desktop pcs for myself. OTOH, they make sense for a
significant proportion of the home user market - those people who
pretty much just surf the web, do email, do a little bit of word
processing and other low-level tasks. Even so, there are far, far
better buys on the market than Dells.

I fix pcs on the side and the most aggravating ones to deal with are
the positively ancient pcs - ones so slow they take fifteen or twenty
minutes to boot. They have software and hardware conflicts due to the
age of the machine, and they get infested with malware because the
pc's protective software is too old to be updated, or they never used
it in the first place. Trying to convince those owners that it is way
past time to replace the pc is usually futile, because: they paid
twelve hundred bucks for that (primitive) pc back in 1999. And that's
more than they paid for their refrigerator, by damn, and they've had
the fridge for twenty-five years, so the pc should be good for at
least as long!

I describe these dinosaurs as "legacy machines" on my fee list, and
charge a surcharge for working on them _because_ they're so slow, and
time is money, after all. It still just kills me how many people are
willing to spend well over a hundred bucks to keep a dinosaur going
when they can get a new and much, much better box off the shelf for as
little as $300.

Crazy stuff. I build my own too. You must have incredible patience
to deal with your customers. Hope you don't do much work over the
phone.
Every time I walk through PC issues on the phone with family members,
I lose it at least once.

--Vic

Have you ever tried GBridge? It lets you take control of the remote
computer (with a Gmail account). My sister is so computer illiterate,
I don't think she would be able to set this up. I would really like
something that would let me take control of her computer. She is a
natural blonde. She really really doesn't get computers.

On 1/4/2011 11:05 AM Metspitzer spake thus:

On Tue, 04 Jan 2011 12:26:12 -0600, Vic Smith
wrote:

Crazy stuff. I build my own too. You must have incredible patience
to deal with your customers. Hope you don't do much work over the
phone. Every time I walk through PC issues on the phone with family
members, I lose it at least once.

Have you ever tried GBridge? It lets you take control of the remote
computer (with a Gmail account). My sister is so computer illiterate,
I don't think she would be able to set this up. I would really like
something that would let me take control of her computer. She is a
natural blonde. She really really doesn't get computers.

There are other pieces of software that do that as well.

Back in 2005 when I owned a small business, my bookkeeper used something
like that to run my computer from afar; I could watch him cursor around
the desktop, open apps, etc. Don't remember the name (PC Anywhere?), but
I *think* it used the VPN (virtual private network) protocol to "tunnel"
into my machine (with my permission, of course).


--
Comment on quaint Usenet customs, from Usenet:

To me, the *plonk...* reminds me of the old man at the public hearing
who stands to make his point, then removes his hearing aid as a sign
that he is not going to hear any rebuttals.

On 01/04/11 01:35 pm, wrote:

I'm glad you learned it. I build my own, so I don't shop for
off-the-shelf desktop pcs for myself.

I just went through that exercise, and there is essentially zero
money to be saved if you buy all the parts and assemble it yourself.
Just buying the hardware, ie MB, CPU, memory, chasis, etc on Ebay,
from God
knows who, puts you you close to what you could get it from HP or
similar already integrated, software loaded, and tested. Integrate
it yourself and
if it doesn't work right, or there are compatibility issues, then
what? And then if you
need Windows, unless you already have it, that's another $110. By
comparison, an
HP comes pre-loaded with Win 7 and limited version of Microsoft Office
for free, which is good
enough for most people. For another $100, you could get the full
version. 3 years of Norton, $30.

Add it all up and I fail to see the point to building your own, unless
you're
putting together a high end gaming system or similar. But for the
typical $500 to
$1000 system, it makes no sense to me. It's gettin more and more like
building
your own HDTV instead of buying one.

When you build your own, you know what's in it. I know a guy who used to
work for a company that bought pallet loads of same-model PCs (Compaq, I
think), but often no two had precisely the same internals. When that is
the case, a report that such-and-such a model is good is meaningless.
And that's quite apart from whether you can upgrade it -- e.g., by
adding an extra card for some particular purpose.

Apart from notebooks, I haven't bought an off-the-shelf computer since 1986.

Perce

On Tue, 04 Jan 2011 14:05:15 -0500, Metspitzer
wrote:



Have you ever tried GBridge? It lets you take control of the remote
computer (with a Gmail account). My sister is so computer illiterate,
I don't think she would be able to set this up. I would really like
something that would let me take control of her computer. She is a
natural blonde. She really really doesn't get computers.

No, I haven't tried that. Don't need to, since nobody asks for my
help anymore.
So they either learned to take care of their computers themselves, or
they just learned not to ask me.
Either one works for me!
I'm sure not cut out for fixing computer problems on the phone.
Tell the truth, even when I'm visiting I don't like doing it.
I'm organized in my computer habits, and when I see the mess on
their computers I just want to do what I do when I have an OS issue -
restore an image. Ten minutes and it's done.
But they never have images.
I've only fixed minor software issues on their computers, or told them
how to do something, or told them to reinstall.
Like I said, they're doing just fine without me.
As somebody else said, there's plenty of 12-year-olds around.

--Vic

On 2011-01-04, Percival P. Cassidy wrote:

Apart from notebooks, I haven't bought an off-the-shelf computer since 1986.

People are usually unaware the inside of your typcial desktop computer
is not much more complex than your old college days component stereo
system or your current entertainment center. Just some parts you plug
into other parts. Pretty silly to buy a whole new box when you old
case, pwr supply, HDD, is still perfectly fine and just a mobo/cpu/ram
ugrade is usually sufficient. oh well, different strokes.

nb

On 2011-01-04, Vic Smith wrote:

As somebody else said, there's plenty of 12-year-olds around.

LOL!....

notbob wrote:

On 2011-01-04, Pete C. wrote:

This is not to say that Linux doesn't work properly, it's a sloppy feel
compared to high end OSes developed by consistent highly organized and
disciplined teams.

Not hard to get that kinda discipline when charging $3-5K per seat.

Still not sure what you mean by "feel", which strikes me as rather
subjective. I learned on Unix and now use Linux. Feels pretty much
the same, to me. If I was going to judge anything as unprofessional ,
it would be the newer Windows-like Linux distros like Ubuntu, which I
dislike immensely. Linux is NOT Windows and if I wanted a
Windows-like OS, I'd use Windows! I use Slackware, which is
considered by many to be the most Unix-like. I prefer the command
line to GUIs and have learned to read the man pages of the underlying
software which, for the most part, originated on or was forked from
Unix.

You've got to admit, Google is no small potatoes. I'd go so far as to
guess it's the biggest single enterprise system in the World. All
those huge server farms the World round are all Linux based and I
doubt there's a desktop environmont on any of them. If you still
perceive such a network as unprofessional, might I suggest you update
your feelers.

nb

Who said anything about a desktop environment? All the "real" OSes I
deal with are CLI. CLI to CLI, and documentation to documentation, Linux
has a non-professional feel vs. the other OSes I deal with. This would
seem to be changing with RHEL, but it's not to the clean, consistent and
disciplined feel of the other OSes yet.

Tony Hwang wrote:

Pete C. wrote:

notbob wrote:

On 2011-01-04, Pete wrote:

As for customer support, in a couple decades of running multiple Windows
machines I have not needed any customer support from Microsoft until a
few months ago:

I've run linux for the last 10 yrs. Never had to call anyone. More
than enough help on the internet.

nb

Perhaps I wasn't clear - in those couple decades of running multiple
Windows PCs, I didn't need support - not from Microsoft and not from the
Internet.

I've fiddled with Linux many times (and several other Unix variants),
but I've never found a compelling reason to use it. I've even performed
a side by side shoot-out between Windows and Linux for a particular
application and Windows won. The main thing it seems to have going for
it is price, and I make enough to not care about the modest cost of
Windows and Windows applications. I also tend to be put off by the
non-professional "feel" of Linux.

Hmm,
In your case professional feel = Point and click?

Not by a long shot, I'm a CLI guy and deal with "real" OSes that are
CLI. Side by side, Linux compared to a "commercial" Unix, or compared to
other "real" commercial OSes, Linux has a non-professional feel in both
CLI and documentation.

Tony Hwang wrote:

Pete C. wrote:

notbob wrote:

On 2011-01-04, Pete wrote:

As for customer support, in a couple decades of running multiple Windows
machines I have not needed any customer support from Microsoft until a
few months ago:

I've run linux for the last 10 yrs. Never had to call anyone. More
than enough help on the internet.

nb

Perhaps I wasn't clear - in those couple decades of running multiple
Windows PCs, I didn't need support - not from Microsoft and not from the
Internet.

I've fiddled with Linux many times (and several other Unix variants),
but I've never found a compelling reason to use it. I've even performed
a side by side shoot-out between Windows and Linux for a particular
application and Windows won. The main thing it seems to have going for
it is price, and I make enough to not care about the modest cost of
Windows and Windows applications. I also tend to be put off by the
non-professional "feel" of Linux.

Hi,
Linux us FAST.

I presume that should be "is". Linux can certainly be fast, but so can
most any other OS properly configured. This speed is also only really
relevant in back-end use. If you're comparing it for desktop use it
doesn't make a damned bit of difference since the slowest part of the
environment is sitting at the keyboard.

Vic Smith wrote:

On Tue, 04 Jan 2011 12:19:24 -0600, "Pete C."
wrote:


Upgrading for the sake of upgrading is one trap I've never fallen into.
Every upgrade I've done has had a specific requirement driving it, be it
a new application I need to run that requires a newer version, or
needing to have a system at a particular version to aid in remote
support of my mother with that version.


Same here. I've managed to skip 386, 486, PI, PIII, and all the
sockets after my previous 478 until the 1366 I run now.
One time due to a blown motherboard, all the others because I hit a
graphics wall. I'm a gamer.
The typical office apps were all performing fine when I moved to a new
box.
Not to say there aren't other reasons than graphics for upgrading.
That's just what happened to me.
I find Win7 better than XP in terms of app crashes.
Using it a year now and not nearly as many crashes and not a single
BSOD. Never did any benchmarking, and I notice no speed issues.
I waited until I felt the drivers issue was over with..
That's basically why I never tried the Linux stuff - drivers and
games.
I don't like fooling around too much with software anymore.
But it's neat that others are doing it. I had my fun.

--Vic

It's been so long since I've seen a BSOD that I barely recall what one
looks like, and the last time I saw one wasn't on one of my machines. I
seem to recall it was due to a hardware failure, something no OS is
immune to, and few OSes are sufficiently fault tolerant to handle.

No gaming here, but I do CAD (TurboCAD), CAM (SheetCAM) and CNC
machining (Mach3) on my Windows systems with no issues, along with the
usual office apps.

On Tue, 04 Jan 2011 14:25:02 -0500, "Percival P. Cassidy"
wrote:


When you build your own, you know what's in it. I know a guy who used to
work for a company that bought pallet loads of same-model PCs (Compaq, I
think), but often no two had precisely the same internals. When that is
the case, a report that such-and-such a model is good is meaningless.
And that's quite apart from whether you can upgrade it -- e.g., by
adding an extra card for some particular purpose.

Apart from notebooks, I haven't bought an off-the-shelf computer since 1986.

Perce

If you like tinker with them, then you build your own.
Almost like souping up a car or arranging a workshop.
Even if I wasn't a gamer, I'd probably still build my own.
Another thing I've run across with some factory models is proprietary
components.
Power supplies and motherboards.
You can sometimes get around the steep price they want for a
replacement. Did some drill/moto-tool work on fitting a power supply
once instead of paying an outrageous price for the company PS.
My daughter brought over her computer - think it was a Compaq - when
it failed. It had an AMD chip.
The motherboard HD controller was bad.
They wanted about $400 for a new MB.
I got lucky googling the model number and found some obscure
technician talk where one tech told another that model MB was
provided by X MB company and was model X.
Don't remember the company but I got that MB for $107 and it worked
fine. No Compaq logo flashing on the screen was the only difference.
My son had an HP that required the original Win95 disks before you
could do a Win98 full version install.
Anyway, if you don't want to tinker with them and have no special
needs it's cheaper buying off the shelf as trader4 said.

--Vic

On 1/4/2011 12:12 PM, Tony Hwang wrote:


DerbyDad03 wrote:
On Jan 4, 2:43 am, wrote:
"Smitty Two" wrote in message

news
Throw it away and buy a mac, say g'bye to problems.

I run PCs, my wife runs Macs, she's had about as many problems as
I've had,
both with software and hardware. In fact within the past year we've
both
had machines die completely dead with DOA motherboards, requiring the
purchase of new computers. Apple might have better customer
support, but I
don't see their product as being inherently more trouble-free.

"In fact within the past year we've both had machines die
completely dead with DOA motherboards, requiring the purchase of new
computers."

DOA - Dead On Arrival - motherboards required the *purchase* of new
machines?

No warranty coverage?
Hmmm,
Maybe power coming into the house is not good?

More likely it was the bad cap problem that plagued the electronics
industry several years back. It was an exciting tale of industrial
espionage, with painful consequences for a lot of electronics parts
manufacturers.

A Taiwanese company had developed a new dielectric for capacitors,
enabling still smaller and more powerful capacitors to be
manufactured. This was a huge breakthrough. The Red Chinese persuaded
one of the scientists who'd worked on the dielectric development to
defect and bring the formula with him. He did, and Chinese factories
soon began turning out tons of cheaper, smaller, more powerful
capacitors. The market was quick to snap them up. Only problem was ...
the scientist had gotten part of the formula wrong. And, after a few
years, the dielectric became unstable and the caps began blowing up,
rendering circuit boards in all kinds of electronics unworkable.

As you can imagine, this created all kinds of warranty issues for the
electronics manufacturers, most of whom were quick to disclaim much in
the way of warranty coverage. Some people just replaced the boards or
cards, or bought new pcs. Others actually paid to have the bad caps
replaced on their mainboards or cards. The problem wasn't confined to
pcs, but that's where the bulk of the caps ended up.

I had two old pcs come in last year that had recently blown caps on
their graphics cards - same problem. If you happen to have the pc
running and suddenly hear a loud SNAP, check your mainboard and
graphics/sound cards. The board won't necessarily fail right away.
I've opened functioning pcs and found a couple blown caps on their
mainboards.

notbob wrote:

On 2011-01-04, Hell Toupee wrote:

twelve hundred bucks for that (primitive) pc back in 1999.

hee hee..... BTDT! Paid $1800 for a 200 mmx system back in the day.

I describe these dinosaurs as "legacy machines" on my fee list, and
charge a surcharge for working on them _because_ they're so slow, and
time is money, after all. It still just kills me how many people are
willing to spend well over a hundred bucks to keep a dinosaur going
when they can get a new and much, much better box off the shelf for as
little as $300.

I can't say I blame you. OTOH, I'm one of those "relic" enablers. My
current box is an ancient P4, but I do the maint and run Linux, which
up to this point is ENOUGH. I refuse to buy new jes cuz it might be
faster and able to run newer flashier more bloated software. Now, I find
myself in need of a faster system cuz am going to get deeper into
digital graphics, so will upgrade. But, I kills me all the boxes I've
put out to pasture still worked jes fine. Monitors and HDDs die with
boring regularity, but good mobos and most cards aren't so short
lived. There's certainly nothing wrong with the 2-3 ATX cases rusting
in the shed. You have a different priority, so I see why you prefer
to not deal with these anachronisms

nb

My oldest system is an surplus Dell business desktop - P2/400 and 256MB
I believe. I have it running W2K and it's been online 24x365 for about 7
years now running my personal web site and my mail server. It sits in a
rack in my garage along with my cable modem, router and big UPS. It's
never had any issues in all that time.

On Mon, 3 Jan 2011 19:37:32 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson
wrote:

Folks, could you recommend a computer NG where I could seek help for
several probs? My guru has moved, and I am bereft....and need to
avert a crash.

I searched the computer NG lists, but did not find what I need. The
NGs seem highly specialized.

Any help appreciated.

HB

alt.comp.hardware

microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware

alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt

alt.computer

On 1/4/2011 11:34 AM, notbob wrote:
On 2011-01-04, Pete wrote:

I take it you don't have any experience with an enterprise class OS, if
you did you would understand the non-professional feel of Linux.
Certainly many companies are using Linux, or more specifically Red Hat
Enterprise Linux as a cost saving measure, and they didn't use Linux at
all until RHEL came along with a proper support system behind it as is
required in an enterprise environment. There were corporate directives
that Linux was not allowed to be used in any production application, and
the same with any open-source applications that did not have support
from a single corporate entity.



My Fortune 500 company was using Unix years before M$ was even
conceived. Later, one of our major divisions was used as a guinea pig
to see if switching to M$ and Windows-based Oracle was a good idea.
They even went so far as to spend $6M to have Oracle customized to fit
our needs. Whatta freakin nightmare. Just using Oracle on Windows
created 30% more work for the company's database users. When I
retired, the company had still not changed over beyond that one
division and it's huge, now world-wide, DB was still HP-UX based.

While never employed as an IT professional I've worked and trained as
one and I've seen it all. From Unix/IBM tape storage mainframes /w
dumb terminals to IBM-DOS PCs and Mac desktops in the cubes. So much
of computer choice is capricious whim bull****. Some moron mgr a has
friend he went to school with, who now pushes platform/software ABC,
so makes recommendations he has nary a clue about and may actually be
detrimental to the company. A choice of some really crap platforms,
OSs, and software has been made by people who can't even use a word
processor.

If you are a M$ enterprise professional, more power to you. Windows
definitely has a place in the enterprise landscape. I will not deny
that. I still keep an XP box around, despite my preference for all
things *nix. But, to say Linux, which is nothing more than an open
source updated version of Unix, is unproffesional, is just plain
ignorant and only shows you actually know little, if anything, about
it.

nb

I like PC-BSD now that it plays nice with Flash. It's almost impossible
to crash, I was only able to crash it on a system with a small amount of
memory. :-)

http://www.pcbsd.org/

TDD

On 1/4/2011 10:33 AM, notbob wrote:
On 2011-01-04, Percival P. wrote:

Perce (who still prefers "the OS for which Windows was intended to be
only a placeholder": IBM's OS/2 -- in its latest incarnation, an OEM
version called eComStation)

Interesting. I had no idea OS/2 had continued to evolve. I see a lot
of OSS has been ported to it. I'm curious. Jes what does ecomstation
bring to the table that can't be had in linux/BSD?

nb

If I remember correctly, most ATM machines were running OS/2 at one
time. I don't know about now so I'll have to ask a friend who works
on the darn things.

TDD

On Tue, 04 Jan 2011 09:13:23 -0600, "Pete C."
wrote:

This laptop originally came with Vista, but I put a Win7 upgrade on it
when I got my mother a new laptop that came with Win7 so I had a
matching machine to help with remote support. In the time since I got my
laptop I moved and remodeled, so the original Vista disks were long
lost. As this was my only Win7 machine all I had was the upgrade disk
set. The Win7 upgrade didn't want to install on a new HD, so I was a bit
stuck.

Have an XP disk?

"...XP users will now be able to upgrade to Windows 7, but will have
to do a clean install or custom install of Windows 7 instead."

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1818-upgrade-install-windows-7-a.html

"...Just to let you all know that I have confirmed that you can do
either a clean install, custom install, or upgrade install with a
retail Upgrade version of Windows 7 and activate it on a clean
unallocated (blank) drive or partition without any other OS installed
or with one installed. It does not matter.."

http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/30622-doing-clean-install-upgrade-windows-7-version.html

See more @ http://www.sevenforums.com/

On 2011-01-04, Pete C. wrote:

Who said anything about a desktop environment? All the "real" OSes I

Yeah, these unnamed OSs you allegedly use "feel" "real". We get it.


nb

"Hell Toupee" wrote in message ...


I found a local computer
shop that's been in business for 25 years and they built a new machine
with impressive performance for half what I paid for DELL's flagship
model three years ago--another lesson learned.

I'm glad you learned it. I build my own, so I don't shop for
off-the-shelf desktop pcs for myself.

I'm okay with installing drives or a new video card, or a power supply on
one occasion, but that's about as far as I want to push my ignorance. I
know people who build PCs for fun and profit, but even they run into
irritating conflicts that are a pain to troubleshoot, so I'd just as soon
pay someone to do that part.

OTOH, they make sense for a significant proportion of the home user
market - those people who pretty much just surf the web, do email, do a
little bit of word processing and other low-level tasks. Even so, there
are far, far better buys on the market than Dells.

Sure, plug it in and use it is what those folks want. But of course part of
what they're paying for is DELL's (or HP, or Sony) gazillion dollar annual
marketing budget. The DELL was the first name-brand computer I ever bought,
all the others were built for me by guys who knew what they were doing--I
guess it was a mistake to break with that approach.

notbob wrote:

On 2011-01-04, Pete C. wrote:

Who said anything about a desktop environment? All the "real" OSes I

Yeah, these unnamed OSs you allegedly use "feel" "real". We get it.

nb

Tru64 Unix, Solaris, OpenVMS, etc. all have a far more professional
"feel" both in use and in documentation than Linux.

On 2011-01-04, Pete C. wrote:

"feel" both in use and in documentation....

Yeah. We get it.

They "feel" really "real". There's nothing like the "real" "feel" of
a really "real" feeling OS. If one can't really "feel" how "real" a
really "real" feeling OS "feels", just how "real" feeling could it
possibley "feel". I mean, really.


nb

notbob wrote:

On 2011-01-04, Pete C. wrote:

"feel" both in use and in documentation....

Yeah. We get it.

They "feel" really "real". There's nothing like the "real" "feel" of
a really "real" feeling OS. If one can't really "feel" how "real" a
really "real" feeling OS "feels", just how "real" feeling could it
possibley "feel". I mean, really.

nb

No, clearly you don't get it. I said nothing about feeling "real", I
said non-professional, there is a very big difference. Non-professional
is inconsistent documentation, inconsistent command line options, silly
utility names and the like. The professional feeling OSes have
absolutely consistent documentation across all versions and layered
products, consistent command line parameters across the OS and all
utilities and rational descriptive utility names.

Higgs Boson wrote:
Folks, could you recommend a computer NG where I could seek help for
several probs? My guru has moved, and I am bereft....and need to
avert a crash.

I searched the computer NG lists, but did not find what I need. The
NGs seem highly specialized.

Any help appreciated.

HB


Try alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt, lots of talented computer geeks in
there.


--
LSMFT

Simple job, assist the assistant of the physicist.

Pete C. wrote:
notbob wrote:
On 2011-01-04, Pete C. wrote:

"feel" both in use and in documentation....
Yeah. We get it.

They "feel" really "real". There's nothing like the "real" "feel" of
a really "real" feeling OS. If one can't really "feel" how "real" a
really "real" feeling OS "feels", just how "real" feeling could it
possibley "feel". I mean, really.

nb

No, clearly you don't get it. I said nothing about feeling "real", I
said non-professional, there is a very big difference. Non-professional
is inconsistent documentation, inconsistent command line options, silly
utility names and the like. The professional feeling OSes have
absolutely consistent documentation across all versions and layered
products, consistent command line parameters across the OS and all
utilities and rational descriptive utility names.

Well, that leaves out M$.....

On 2011-01-04, Pete C. wrote:

No, clearly you don't get it. I said nothing about feeling
"real".....

"All the "real" OSes...."

nb --keepin' it "real"

On 2011-01-04, Sjouke Burry wrote:

Well, that leaves out M$.....

Apparently, M$ is a "real OS", since Pete is using it to post to this
group. Really.

nb

"Hell Toupee" wrote in message ...

The Red Chinese persuaded one of the scientists who'd worked on the
dielectric development to defect and bring the formula with him.

Presumably he hasn't been heard from lately, the govt. of China not being
known for its forgiving nature.

I did note some of the caps had the ends bulged out a bit, which was
something I'd been told to look for. I have no idea if that was what went
wrong, but I know DELL wanted twice as much to fix it, so they'll never see
another dime of my money.

Sjouke Burry wrote:

Pete C. wrote:
notbob wrote:
On 2011-01-04, Pete C. wrote:

"feel" both in use and in documentation....
Yeah. We get it.

They "feel" really "real". There's nothing like the "real" "feel" of
a really "real" feeling OS. If one can't really "feel" how "real" a
really "real" feeling OS "feels", just how "real" feeling could it
possibley "feel". I mean, really.

nb

No, clearly you don't get it. I said nothing about feeling "real", I
said non-professional, there is a very big difference. Non-professional
is inconsistent documentation, inconsistent command line options, silly
utility names and the like. The professional feeling OSes have
absolutely consistent documentation across all versions and layered
products, consistent command line parameters across the OS and all
utilities and rational descriptive utility names.

Well, that leaves out M$.....

Yes it does. As you may not have noticed, I have never said M$ was
great, only that it met my needs better than Linux or of course Mac.