Zen and the Art of Computer Maintenance

I hear loads and loads and loads of people complain about how slow their home computer is. I have a theory about this that I like to call JDawg's 1st Law (cause it makes me sound smart). The premise is this: you bought your home computer in 1999. Since then you have installed and uninstalled hundreds of programs. You have another computer at work that has not had any new programs installed on it because you're not allowed to. It's probably newer than your home computer and is serviced by professional technicians. You work on that computer for 8 hours (actually, lets be honest, you probably work for about 3 hours) and then go home and fire up your home computer. The longer you work on your streamlined work computer the "slower" your home computer gets.

So, JDawg's 1st Law is as follows:
Computer speed is inversely proportionate to the length of time a body spends on a better computer.
i.e. Is your computer actually getting slower or is it just in your mind?


Okay all you people with real computer problems. Let me help you. Here is a list of my top-hated programs:

1. Webshots. It has got to be one of the worst things you can do to a computer. Constant use of your internet and system resources just so your background picture can change? There is a 98% chance that you will not be able to uninstall this program ever. How is that not a virus?
   
2. Weatherbug. A close second. If the weather is that important to you, go to weather.com or buy an atomic clock. Or look outside. There is no need for a processor that does 5 billion calculations per second to spend 50% of its time letting you know that the temperature is 1 degree different than it was 5 minutes ago.
   
3. Norton anything. Norton has what's called a "monster resource footprint." That means it stomps your system into submission any time that it's running. Which is all the time. Let me put this into perspective: you are afraid your computer is going to get a virus(es) that will slow it down. So, you install a program that does a mediocre job of catching viruses in the first place and does a great job of slowing your computer down all the time! I hate Norton and almost every other virus program out there. Use a good firewall, be smart ("being smart" will probably call for another post) and you probably don't need a virus program.

Oh no! I have all these programs installed (of course you do), what do I do? Let me guess, you have also been running the same computer for several years without reinstalling windows. That is why your computer is slow. M$ (Microsoft) Windoze does not run forever, heck it doesn't run for 3 consecutive days. I recommend reinstalling your entire Operating System once per year. Everytime you install or uninstall a program excess bits of junk are left in your registry. Add spyware, adware, malware, weatherbug, webshots and all the cute, spyware-filled, attachments that you opened in Outlook and your Ferrari now runs like a Pinto.

But reinstalling sounds like a very hard process! It is and it isn't. You have to change the oil in your car every three months. You have to change tires, brakes and put gas in your vehicle. You accept that as life. If you know where your Windows disc is, you have backed up your data and you know what programs you use, it's about a 3 hour process once a year. That's not bad compared to your car and I bet you spend more time using your computer.

Back up my data? Yeah, it's tough to actually do that. I don't even do it as often as I should. But consider this: your hard drive is a collection of thin metal discs that spin somewhere between 5400 and 7600 revolutions per minute. The reading heads of a hard drive are nanometers (fractions of the width of a human hair) away from those silver, speedy, spinning platters. If one tiny grain of dust or flaw in a microscopic bearing makes that reading arm brush your hard drive you are, quite politely, up a creek. All those pictures you took of your grand daughter last Christmas, your carefully balanced checkbook file, your passwords (securely stored on your desktop in a file called passwords.txt) are all GONE. FOREVER. Buy a bulk pack of CDs at WalMart for $5 and back up your stupid files. Whether or not you ever intend to reinstall.

Windows disc? Yes. Your computer should have come with one. It's probably on some dusty shelf or in the back of your disorganized file cabinet. You will also need the Windows serial number which might be on the CD package or on a sticker on your machine itself. If you simply do not have it you can usually order a replacement from the computer manufacturer or something.

What else should I back up? Well, do this: use your computer for a month. Every time you click a favorite, open a program, access a file, listen to an mp3 or read an email, think "Oh, maybe I should back this up," and write it down. You will need the discs for all of your programs, the serial numbers if they have them and you will need to burn all of the files you have created with those programs to disc. Other things that people frequently forget to backup are your Internet Explorer or Firefox favorites (bookmarks), Fonts you may have added, anything in the My Documents folder or in other folders that you put there, serial numbers and installation files for programs you might have downloaded.

Once you have this installing is not that hard. You format (that means ERASE so make sure you have backed up what you need to) your hard drive, reinstall Windows, immediately update it with all the latest security junk, and begin reinstalling all the programs that you use. Don't reinstall programs that you don't use. I generally install the programs I need as I need to use them. That way you don't put a bunch of junk back on your machine that you weren't using before the reinstall anyway.

If you use Outlook for email I guess you should probably keep Norton because Outlook is one of the biggest security holes in cyberspace. It's not that Outlook itself is that bad if you keep it updated. It's just that it pulls all email and files to your hard drive. This is bad for two reasons: first of all if your drive dies you lose all your email, second of all if someone accidentally sends you a virus it's automatically downloaded right to your computer! I always suggest that people use a free webmail service like Yahoo or Gmail. You can access your email from anywhere, they have embedded virus protection and many other features that add convenience and security.

So to wrap this up: no matter how good your favorite computer wizard is they just can't fix some things. Windows sucks, it's a law of the universe. People say that a computer's lifespan is about 2 years but for most people who just use it for 'net, email, photo storage and documents you can get many years out of your little compy. But you do have to invest some time in upkeep. Windows is guaranteed to grind to a halt over time. Be ready and willing to reinstall your system when it gets close to unmanageable. No hacked-together repair jobs can compete with a nice fresh install. Just don't be surprised when it's still not as fast as your work computer. Maybe you should just buy a new one.

106 Days Up

When is the last time you had to restart Windows because of a crash, an update, or some other unknown reason? It seems like at work that I'm always having to restart Windows because my outlook crashed beyond repair or M$ released yet another "security update."

By now everyone probably knows that I run a Linux server(s) at home. It stores all my files, runs a web and ftp server so I can test ideas, works as a proxy and does lots of other things. I can access any file I want to work on from any other machine with an internet connection in the world.

There is a command in linux called "uptime." If you type "uptime" it tells you how long your machine has been running without a shutdown. My server uptime: 106 days.

106 days without a system shutdown for any reason and the only reason it was shutdown before that is because the power went out and I don't have an uninterrupted power supply (yet). I have updated it, checked email, grabbed and manipulated files, run a dedicated server and use it almost every day from work. Sure, programs have crashed before but the system stays stable. For 106 days straight and counting. You think that's pretty good? My friend Vlad has a machine that's been up for 457 days. He had to shutdown 457 days ago to move into his apartment. Otherwise it would be longer.

Can you imagine Windows being up for that long? I think the longest I've had a Windoze machine running is about 2 wks. And people wonder why I'm such a big promoter of Linux.

Dual boot, and I don't mean work shoes.

Hi all, you know that responding to my geeky posts will only encourage me, right? Anyway, I will be sure that we post plenty of baby news for the ladies when we have baby news. Currently there is not much to report. Wifey went to the doc again and they changed her due date by a few days and that's about it.

You may have noticed that I refer to everyone by nicknames. Please don't be offended if you find what you suspect is a reference to yourself with a funny nickname. Everybody gets one. Now that I've gotten the disclaimer out of the way...

We had lots of company this weekend! On Friday night the Basin Babe called and asked if she could come hang out for the night. An hour later we were feasting on pizza and swapping tales. She left Saturday morning to meet a friend and then we had two friends from a harvest crew come to stay for Sat and Sun.

Now, if you think that RAM refers to a hydraulic device or if CPU sounds like part of a hospital, you will probably be thoroughly bored by what follows. Stop here. However, if you happen to know what 11111010111 in binary translates to in base 10, you will probably read the bit below with a sort of geeky glee.

The Mission
Sparky, one of the harvest crew, called a few weeks ago asking about installing Linux on his laptop. I was rather surprised because Linux on a desktop is a step into the abyss of computer geekery. Linux on a laptop is an even more perilous venture. To make it more interesting, Sparky wanted to maintain his Windows install just in case he needed it. So, my mission was to repartition (resize) the Windows drive to make room for a Linux install without destroying Window's "functionality" (I use that term loosly).

Linux Explained
What is Linux? I'm glad you asked. Linux is, for practical purposes, completely FREE (legally too) operating system (OS from here on out). It is a path to freedom from the clutches of Microsoft and the rest of Mr B. Gate's evil empire. It is open source, meaning the programming code is available to the masses, and is the product of thousands of folks, more intelligent than I. The name comes from one of its founders: Linus Torvald, who combined his first name with UNIX, a very similar OS architecture. It was originally designed for web servers so it is very stable, almost immune to viruses and is an extremely powerful OS. Linux comes in different "distributions" or distros. These are specific builds, or versions, of Linux that are optimized to do different tasks. For instance, some distributions are designed for school systems, government offices and some for web servers. Each distribution comes with software (again, FREE) that is handy for whatever task it's designed for. Linux is used in many poorer countries and is used everywhere for web servers. Traditionally it has not been very user friendly (many commands are executed from a terminal, like DOS) and in the past was not easily compatible with many types of hardware. Modern Linux has literally thousands of free applications, programs and games that can do almost any task you can imagine. It can run on almost any chunk of silicon that resembles a computer. Oh, and Linux' mascot, that cute little penguin named "Tux" you may have seen around (like at the top of this post), is far cooler than the lame Apple or Windows logo.

Linux Distributions
Now that you know everything about Linux I can tell you that I chose to use the Ubuntu linux distro. Ubuntu is an African word that translates roughly as "I am what I am because of who others are." It was designed to be the most user-friendly version of Linux since the dawn of man. It was also designed to be an OS solution for poverty-stricken schools and governments. It comes with virtually all the tools that the average computer user should need, including the open office suite which includes tools that are very similar to Word, Excel, Access and Powerpoint. I believe that Ubuntu is not only a noble cause, it's a highly functional and golden piece of work. Other famous distros are Red Hat, Mandrake, Debian, Gentoo and there are many others.

Click here for more about the Ubuntu Linux Distribution

OS on the fly
The coolest thing about Ubuntu is the Live CD. You pop the CD in and restart your computer. It boots into a fully functional install of Linux FROM THE CD. Nothing is installed on your hard drive permanently. You can install from the Live CD whenever you want, or you can just see what Linux is all about. Though it doesn't install anything on your drive, it does have the ability to manipulate your hard drive. Herein lies the answer to my partition dilemma.

Partilicious
Time for step one of the process...repartitioning. I had a spare laptop hard drive with windows already installed. I put it in my lappy and tested a force-repartition of Windows. I'm not even going to explain what that means because if you care you probably already know. Point is, it worked and so I did it to Sparky's lappy too.

Does my drive look FAT in this enclosure?
So now I had the Windows install limited to half the hard drive and the other half unallocated space, Ubuntu's new home. Here's the kicker: Sparky needed to be able to fetch his Windows files for use in Linux (yes, Linux programs can read almost all types of files from windows). He could use a flash drive to save data from Windows and then pull it back off of Linux but that solution just didn't satisfy my inner geek. The problem is: For all practical purposes Windows can't read EXT3, the Linux format type. And Linux can't read NTFS, the Windows format type. But both Windows and Linux can read FAT32. Yay! So, I partitioned a 2GB drive as FAT32 so that he could save files from Windows or Linux to a hard drive that the other OS could read.

Mission Accomplished
Long story, slightly less long: I was able to repartition windows on the fly, install Linux, create a swap drive where he could move files back and forth, initiate a dual boot system so he can select which OS he wants to work on when he boots up, import his bookmarks, email, documents and address books into Linux and leave him with a ultra-powerful laptop that can do darn near anything.

The Summary
To illustrate what Sparky's request meant to me I will use an analogy: Imagine that you are a gourmet chef. Every day, the requests you get are for ramen noodles. Week in and week out you make ramen. Then, one day someone comes along and asks you to make a ceaser-salad, tomato-basil gnocchi, a toasted baguette and a complimentary wine. Finally, someone who speaks your language and can challenge you to create something great.

Refreshed, I now resign myself to another six months of spyware cleaning requests.

Final Disclaimer
Don't think that you are just going to install Linux and love it. If it were that easy, Bill Gates would not be a household name. If you do want to try Linux I recommend installing it on a totally separate drive or spare computer (you don't have one?). Never try to install Linux first and then Windows for a dual boot system. Never try to install both on the same partition. And, contrary to this post, I recommend NOT resizing your Windows partition if you like your data. Always save your game before trying the Linux quest in geekland.