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Learn how to fix your computer and make it run as fast as possible
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Learn how to fix your computer and make it run as fast as possible Hello all. Neal Donovan here. I have been building and fixing windows and DOS based computers for close to 30 years. I started off going to tech school after high schools and got an associate degree in Electronics and computer repair. Back then in the early 80's there was hardly any internet and the few that were on 300 baud. (300bits/sec) dial up connections. We basically only used text back then. My first PC was a 386/25 25 MHZ computer. It had 1 meg of ram a vga video card an 80 meg Hard drive and a 14" color vga 640x480 monitor. It cost $2000. It ran DOS 4.1. I remember basically locking myself in my room and messing with it non stop for close to 3 days. I spent weeks learning all the commands and how to make it do things. It is amazing to me how far computers have come since then. There are so many great things people can do with PC's now. The problem is they have become almost indispensable to our everyday lives. All our pictures and music and documents are stored in that box. And when it doesn't work people really freak out. A hard drive crash can be a real tragedy. Years of peoples work and or life memories are at the mercy of electronic devices that can short out, get zapped by power surges or infected with awful viruses and malware. I have started this blog. (My first in the hopes of helping people solve some of those problems and explain in as simple terms as I can what you should do to keep your data safe and enjoy using your computer instead of cursing it and getting ripped off by so called "experts" who usually just want to scam you for money or steal your information. I have no interest in either. I am just a simple and smart techie who likes to help people. I will give you the best advice that I know and help everyone as best as I can. I do this full time for a living and spend all my free time on my computers at home and my days off fixing my friends and relatives machines. I have working machines with every version of windows and DOS that I can hook up if you need step by step instructions. You can ask me ANYTHING about computers and I will answer as best I can. Seeing as this is my first blog ever and I have to work in the morning I will stop here for tonight with just an introduction and a brief overview of what I am thinking about posting. I can of course expand into any topic you might suggest as time allows. I am betting that if you have read this much and on this site you have a pretty good idea how computers work so I won't get into the basics too much. The first thing people ask me everyday is Should I upgrade my PC to windows 10? After all it is technically "free from Microsoft till June of next year if you have a windows 7,8 or 8.1 license. But everyone knows there is really no such thing as free from a company like Microsoft. There definitely is a price you have to pay for upgrading to Windows 10. That price is basically your privacy. To Microsoft the customer is now their product. If you use the new windows in the way it is intended Microsoft will know everything about you. They can read your emails. Get all of your lists of friends. Where you live. Where you go.(If you have a laptop). What software you have loaded on your computer and if they think it is pirated or<b> illegal </font></b>they have the right to disable it or delete it. All this is in the TOS -Terms of service- that no one bothers to read. Sure you can turn off a lot of the things that spy on you through changing a lot of the settings and not using a lot of the features. But if you are going to go through all that trouble why would you upgrade your machine anyway. You lose all the features and usefulness of the new OS. Now you would think by all that I just said that I do not like Windows 10. That is not true at all. I have it loaded on 3 of my 6 main computers I use everyday. Cortana the new voice assistant is fantastic. Ask it anything and it will either directly answer or direct you to the page with the answer. Tell it to remind you to tell Tom he left his notebook at your house the next time he emails you and it will remind you. There are so many cool things you can do with it I have barely even scratched the surface of what is possible. You can run multiple desktops. Say one for work and one for home. You can snap up to 4 apps back and forth. You can reset it to tablet mode if you have a touch screen. And soon the new laptops will come with cameras that will let you log in to your computer by facial recognition. This I think may be the greatest feature of all. I can definitely see the end of passwords being typed in over and over on the horizon. Now a lot of people say. "I have nothing to hide and don't do anything<b> illegal </font></b>online so why should I worry? This may be true or so you might think. But there is a lot of "grey" areas online that are not exactly<b> illegal </font></b>but frowned upon by governments and may get you on their radar. Do you have strong political opinions? Do you question what the governments and multinational corporations are keeping secret from us. If you start investigating these things Microsoft will know. And they say they will not give that information to the NSA or CIA or any other LEA but can we really trust them. I am not that big of a conspiracy supporter but just the thought that I am being watched that closely makes me a little uncomfortable. Beyond the privacy thing there is one other thing that should be considered before you update your machine. The upgrade is free and can be rolled back in the first 30 days if you do not like it. After that it basically "eats" your previous windows registration key. There is no going back unless you do a full system image of your old hard drive before you update. (I did this). The other thing I recently discovered is that if you say change out your motherboard or update your BIOS . Windows may get deactivated. This is because it thinks you have a different machine. If this happens I have heard that it cannot be reactivated by Microsoft. You pretty much have to pony up the money to get a new windows key at that point. $100 for home of $200 for Win 10 pro. This is something to consider if you are a techie like me and constantly updating your desktop pc. It is getting late and I will continue this blog as soon as I can. Thank you all please comment and have a great day/night. Neal |
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Hi Neal, thanks for the information. My question is concerning 10 and privacy: Don't 'they' all have all of our info anyway? Anything done half-heartedly will net you an equivalent result. ~CH
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My first computer was a Macintosh SE/30. I wish I still had it! 16Mhz processor and 4MB of RAM! I was amazed at what it could do! Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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You type too much, you need to be punished, I did read all that,lol.
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