Live within your means

Having dealt with people with computer problems for many many years now taught me a valuable lesson: Live within your means. I'm not talking about monetary concerns. I'm talking about what programs and settings are turned on inside an individual computer. One of the most common complaints I hear when I get the "can you fix it" call is, "It doesn't run like it used to."


I think one of my strong suits is that I can "Bring something home" ie I think I make good analogies that people can relate to. Not in a Buddhism or Yoda kind of way, but one that simply "Makes sense."

Somebody gets a new computer, they love it. It zips zooms and flies to their expectations, like most new computers do. Within days it is loaded up with the software that the individual desires on there. We all have our favorites and it seems almost everyone has at least one "non-standard" favorite. I have several, unsurprisingly, since I deal mostly with computer programming. Nobody like paint or any of the usual graphical editors (hello? paint? gah!) So we all install our favorite image editor. I made my choice long ago on one that doesn't touch any of my file associations without asking. If I change a file association manually (as I sometimes do for animated gifs) the program doesn't give me a warning that I'm doing something potentially unsafe or whatever (at least nothing more than windows itself does.) Quicktime? It will never go on another one of my computers by my hand and my family is aware that quicktime is not to be installed on my machine. See that little Q down by your clock? You might have to click the double carat to open up that full gargantuan list of crap that starts at startup.


This is your first clue that you aren't living within your means.

1. Count the number of icons in the full list of what is commonly called (but much controversy surrounds the actual name) the system tray.

This is where you clock is and likely a little speaker icon of some fashion. I hope one of the icons down there indicates a real time virus scanner. AVG is free for personal usage and while it does a couple of things that annoy me (I don't like double-confirmation boxen) it IS free (money-wise, not source code) and works well. You may or may not have a double computer icon down there indicating your network connection status. You may have several actually: It all depends on how many network interfaces you have on your computer and how many are set to display. Some may have a red x over the computers. This indicates there is no connection on that interface and as long as you have some connection that red x can be ignored or turned off. If there are any requests I can look at how to do this and detail it.

If you have a full set of graphics drivers installed you may get some form of video icon in the system tray. If you keep a card reader or anything usb plugged in you'll see the "safely remove hardware" icon. Use this, won't you? Don't just pull your cards. Eject them first. Go to my computer, figure out which one is your card, right click and choose eject or unmount or whatever that item is. This tells windows, "Last chance, anything you want to write down on here before we go?" Do get in the habit. There's no recovering from half of a file on the camera card and half in windows memory that I know of. If you're like me you keep a lot more on a memory stick than pictures anyway.

So the rundown in your system menu: Clock, Antivirus, networking, sound, video, usb, and if absolutely necessary printer bloat.
I highly discourage printer bloat (anything that runs real time to interface with your printer/scanner/copier/faxer/toast maker. If it is necessary then so be it but if you can lose it you're much better off. Live within your means.

Now in all likelihood you have Quicktime, Bonus Miles, Yahoo, MSN Messenger, and half a dozen other items coming up down there. I've seen people with over 20 and it's almost unheard of to see less than 10. I have 5 on my windows startup at home. Networking, AVG, usb, sound, and video. Pare yours down. Uninstall the programs you don't actually use. The only suggestion I have about quicktime and itunes is to rid them of your system and live with the fact that .mov files are off limits without a lot of trouble. Get rid of weatherbug. Do it now. Uninstall. There are rss feeds for weather that do not tax your system like such items do. Same with bonus coupons and anything that claims to "give you a deal." It's a lie. Universally. Just get rid of the bloat.

Spyware is a big component of many slowdown issues I've dealt with. There's no easy answer here because of the complexity of the issue. Some people want complete and utter privacy until they realize that to obtain that they must not store their usernames and passwords anywhere and must log into each website on each visit. "Hmmm, that's not for me," says just about everyone. But there's a middle ground. It requires the user to think and to make a decision based on trust. For example, when you go to windows update it might ask if you want to install some software. There might be a box that says "Always trust content from Microsoft." Always is forever. It isn't forever yet so I'm not going to commit to trusting them all the time. And I feel the same way about almost everything else. Personally I give more faith to an open source software effort than any commercial venture. I trust mozilla and its products, but not always and forever. I don't commit to that. You shouldn't either if you want to keep tabs on who is doing what. If you are "Starting from zero got nothing to lose" (Tracy Chapman, ~1989) then your best bet is to get a reputable spyware scanner and let it start by cleaning everything out. BE WARNED: You will likely need to know your username and password on most of the websites you visit, if not all. This is the biggest, hardest part of the process but a necessary step. This won't take "A couple minutes." This is the beginning of a lifelong process. You are about to become aware that when you allow something on your computer you are allowing it into your home. Even if you're "okay" with something being able to access personal information is it within your computing means?

Computer hardware is what it is. It evolves fairly quickly but not by leaps and bounds. It seems to be more of a migratory process than anything revolutionary. We're all, for the most part, living on modest machines around an average of what I'll guess to be 2 gigahertz. My laptop is only 1 and my desktop is only about 1.6 but I think for the most part I'm on the low end of the spectrum.

Software continues to evolve and grow. More programs are created every day to help us be more productive, interest our minds, and to do whatever it is we do with computers. We want more. But is it within our means? Do we have the processor required, the hard drive space available, and are willing to fight with it in the event that it does something we don't like (for example, installs a secondary application that you do not desire or installs the Yahoo toolbar, dirge of the internet.) This is part of the process of keeping a clean system.

So go have a poke around in your add/remove programs. Get crazy with it. In addition, removing Microsoft Office does NOT remove your documents. And Openoffice is so much better and free-er (like thought and beer.)