Personal Computing Demystified.
Windows 7
What is a Netbook, and why would I want one?
Nov 17th
My first hands-on experience with a netbook was just this past summer. Our babysitter was headed off to college and had just won this little thing – she needed my help to make sure the software she needed was loaded up and it was generally ready to go. I agreed, so I got to test-drive her netbook for a week.
If you haven’t looked into a netbook yet – you really should, especially if you think you’re in the market for a laptop. First and foremost, netbooks are small.. screen sizes on netbooks are usually in the 10.1″ widescreen range which is similar to some of the nicer portable DVD players out there. Most netbooks are built on the Intel Atom processor which was purpose-built for mobile computing devices. As far as other specs you might be more familiar with – netbooks usually come configured with a few gigs of memory, a sizable hard drive (sometimes substituted for a SSD), wired/wireless networking, a few USB 2 ports and a webcam. Before the general release of Windows 7 most netbooks came with the Windows XP home operating system we’re all familiar with though now the newer versions of these devices come bundled with Windows 7. I wouldn’t be concerned by that last bit.. the hardware spec of the older models seem to be the same as the newer versions with Win7. What they don’t come with.. a CD/DVD drive – though they work fine with external drives. This is by design.. USB memory sticks are so ubiquitous now that I prefer them over CD/DVD.
Netbooks are designed for mobile connectivity, pure and simple. They are perfect devices for students because of their low cost, battery life and portability. For example.. the netbook that our babysitter is toting around has a battery life of about five hours so she can leave the power brick in her dorm, and the outside case is ruggedized with rubber so that she can lug it around in her backpack without worrying about scratching it up.
But, Mr. Blogger.. are they slow? Not at all. These things are perfect for web surfing, skype, email, and office-type programs and it does those jobs happily. Don’t try cpu-intense operations like gaming on one.. that will never work. Feel free to sync your music player to it or download photos from your digi-cam.. that works just fine. Linux folks.. Fedora 12 just dropped and it has specific enhancements for netbooks!
At around $300 for a decent netbook these things are going to be hot for Christmas. One word of warning though.. don’t fall for the ads that some wireless companies are touting where they’ll give you a netbook in exchange for a contract on a mobile data plan. You’ll do much better getting your own netbook and having the free will to choose who you might want to use for mobile connectivity assuming you need that.
Got a netbook? I’d love to hear from you, so post a comment!
Want a netbook? Check out the Gateway LT2022u NightSky Black 10.1″ WSVGA Netbook over at Newegg.com.
Windows 7.. Should you even bother?
Nov 13th
Its the latest, greatest operating system from Microsoft.. and while IT folks don’t normally get fired for purchasing Microsoft.. Windows 7 isn’t necessarily the best OS for the job. There is a zero-cost alternative out there.. Linux. Linux in its many distributions was derived from the UNIX operating system originally written for minicomputers in 1969 by AT&T’s Bell Labs and modified into its current form by Linus Torvalds. I’ll delve into the history lesson another time, but suffice it to say that Linux is a highly-developed open-source (more on that later) operating system that is very efficient and very powerful – and over the past few years and release cycles has become easy enough for home computer users to be able to operate without difficulty. Will it work for you? To know the answer to that, we need to examine the way you use your computer..
Image by Leonid Mamchenkov
Are you a PC gamer? I’m sorry to say that unless you are already proficient with Linux (and those folks may not have read down this far) you’re going to be disappointed. PC games can and do work thanks to a software package that emulates Windows.. but not all games will work. That situation gets better with each passing day.. but it isn’t there yet.
Are you hopelessly tied to Microsoft Office or Internet Explorer? If you know nothing else but IE for browsing or Microsoft Office for office functions you’re going to have a slight learning curve to tackle to be able to use Linux effectively. If you are willing to learn then read on.. the alternatives to those programs are built in to most desktop distributions of Linux.
Do you live on the Internet? Are you never more than 5 minutes between checking your Facebook or Tweeting? Do you use Firefox as your primary web browser? You’re in luck.. Linux for the home user is perfectly suited for you, whether you are on a desktop machine, laptop or netbook. Most distributions of Linux use Firefox as their default web browser and it operates in the same way.. you can be instantly productive. Linux is also much more efficient than any version of Windows would ever hope to be.. it requires much less than Windows in the way of computer hardware to operate on, which translates to extra computing power and better speed for you.
Here’s the best part.. Linux is open-source. That means FREE! It is maintained and updated (under Linus’s watchful eye) by its users. For more about the concepts behind open-source software, go here.
Will it work on your system? How do you give it a test drive? Why.. you download a Live CD of the Linux distribution of your choice, burn it to disc (with the proper software), pop the disc in your CD drive and reboot your computer. Linux will boot up and run off of the cd without touching your existing Windows installation or files. If you like it you can go back to Windows, get your files and then use that Live CD to load Linux. You can even dual-boot Windows and linux if you have the drive space to do so and run both systems.
As far as Linux distributions go, I’ve had the best experience and success with Fedora.. go here to have a look. There are many other Linux distributions geared toward different types of users.. if you want to have a look at those and are familiar with downloading files via BitTorrent then pop over to Linuxtracker.org and have a look.
If you have questions, I’m here.. @neilster1 on twitter or leave a comment here. I’d like to hear about brave souls who take the plunge!
Upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7? Better make a backup first..
Nov 2nd
I’ve been using Windows 7 since it was in beta stage and I have to say.. I’m impressed. While Windows isn’t my OS of choice (I prefer Fedora Linux by far) it is a necessity from an administration perspective.. my company operates a Windows-based network and we will likely always have some tie to that. It is what it is. While Vista has gotten much better since the release of service pack 2 it was never on the “must upgrade” list for our user machines – it was relegated to a forgotten machine that sits on a desk in a deep, dark corner of the office.. the desk that plays double-duty as a storage shelf for the office Christmas decorations. We use it every once in a while to do release testing for our client software, but that’s it.
Windows 7 is proving to be different. Users like it.. I like it.. it seems to work well in our office environment – so I’ll let it creep in with new desktop machines and laptops as we replace them without spending the time to downgrade to XP. Certain users will get the opportunity to upgrade to take advantage of the better-than-average hardware they are already running, so I figured I’d better put myself through the upgrade process. Just so you know.. most IT folks will generally advise against doing in-place upgrades. There’s just too much that can (and often does) go wrong. An in-place upgrade is rarely a clean one – you can end up masking compatibility and software issues that will haunt you down the road. So, with all that in mind, I went ahead anyway.
Oh.. you XP users – Microsoft did you a favor whether it seems like it or not. You can’t directly upgrade from XP to Windows 7. That’s probably a good thing. Vista users.. read on. If you read nothing else.. read the statement below:
My advice to you.. re-read my previous post about backups and take that advice.. you might need it like I did.
I put the Windows 7 dvd in my drive and let’er rip. Things started normally enough.. then the compatibility check that runs before install kicked out a problem. My wireless software (by a large company with a catchy little tune for their brand) wasn’t compatible with the install for some reason. The suggestion was to remove that software and start over.. so I did. Without the wireless software I wasn’t connected to the Internet, and I didn’t bother to grab a cable and plug in to get connected.. and that was likely the reason for my upgrade failure.
Windows 7’s installer gives you the option to connect to the Internet to get installation and hardware updates before install. It shouldn’t be an option.. it should be required. Once I told the installer to soldier on without updates it appeared to be doing just that. The system copied the files it needed to copy in order to restart and perform the upgrade, and came through that restart just fine. After getting about halfway through the upgrade the installer encountered a fatal problem with a device driver and tried to automatically roll back the install.. but it failed. The box rebooted and tried to repeat the very same upgrade process with the very same failure. The OS was toast. No boot for me.
It was a good thing I ran a backup with Acronis before I started. I was able to restore the system to its pre-upgrade state inside of 30 minutes and get all of my data back. If I had needed to revert to the factory image I would have likely lost an entire day reinstalling software and reapplying the tweaks necessary to make Vista perform acceptably well.
I have since performed the upgrade to Windows 7 without issue while cabled up to my network. The installer resolved whatever driver incompatibility it had previously encountered and did what it was supposed to do. I’ll file this little nugget of information away in my brain for the next upgrade request.. I’m sure there will be one.
Want Windows 7? Click the image below to get your copy.
