Comments on: PC Rot

By: site admin

site admin — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 19:26:04 +0000

I have a ThinkPad loaded with Linux (Ubuntu Breezy Badger) but it doesn’t get enough use to be contaminated by my evil ways.

By: Peter

Peter — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 18:56:57 +0000

I guess we all recognize what you are going through. At least I do; my work Thinkpad T60 is ready for a reload as performance is not even close to what I remember it to be when I just received the device. Interesting though your point towards the Mac. On all the 6 Mac’s I have privately in the house for myself and the family we never have these problems and I guarantee you that I do as much experimenting on my Mac as on my T60. Maybe time to load the Thinkpad with Linux instead of a Redmond based operating system?

By: David Fumento

David Fumento — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 16:41:02 +0000

Registry Mechanic, Privacy Guardian, PerfectDisk 8.0. Put these on your system (all have demos as I recall) and run them and then see if this improves your system. PerfectDisk 8.0 will run with only 5% available space (compared with 15-20% for Windows default and Diskeeper) and has system file (boot time) defrag.
Regarding EVDO, I’ve been running since 10/05 and only twice have had problems. 1st time I kept getting disconnects so I uninstalled then reinstalled the driver and that fixed that problem. The second time I was getting disconnects I was told to turn off my Wifi and that fixed the problem. Don’t have the disconnect (or trouble connecting) problems you speak of. Moreover, switch over to EVDO Rev A using the Sierra Wireless Aircard 595 (http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=phoneFirst&action=viewPhoneDetail&selectedPhoneId=2730 ). Much, much better reception and performance over the built-in EVDO Rev 0 mini-PCI. Pick up this little booster antenna as well for the Aircard 595 (http://booster-antenna.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=62&products_id=362 ). At Starbuck’s I compared with EVDO Rev A download performane with the T-mobile download performance: 135 kbytes/sec download EVDO Rev A vs 175 kbytes/sec download T-mobile. Essentially the same.

So follow my perscription and if you still have problems, call me in the morning…
Dr. Dave

P.S. If I were Lenovo trying to give my customers best pre-emptive service, I’d package Registry Mechanic, Privacy Guardian and PerfectDisk 8.0 along with Windows OneLive and put that on all Thinkpads with reminder software telling you to run the programs. Also, selling anything but EVDO Rev A cards (for Verizon users) on the Lenovo web site should be a no-no and you should recommend to users who might purchase the built-in EVDO Rev 0 to try the Rev A PCMCIA card instead. David, as a Marketing/Sales Vice President of Lenovo that you are you should really try the Rev A card with the booster antenna. (and Jim Forbes with the visability you have you too should be using the Rev A with the booster antenna). Take my advice and if still doesn’t work, then you can kvetch!

By: Cahill

Cahill — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 16:18:24 +0000

Funny, I’ve come to expect the problems. I keep my data (most of it) backed up in two places, and try to stick to open source stuff, or low ticket apps to handle the mundane chores like html editing (htmlkit or text pad), image editing (okay, I still use photoshop) and Flash editing (swish). My email is gmail and all my work machines get ms office.

Someone once said (probably in about 2000) that we’d reached the point where Internet use would start to flatten out. The case was that even though there were lots of people who weren’t using it, we’d pretty much penetrated the subset of the population who was willing to tolerate the sad state of technological reliability. The example given: it’s 11:15 Thursday and ER has been on for 15 minutes. The screen goes blue and you’ve got to reboot. How much of the viewing public will take that in stride?

We’re still there. This stuff works, but it doesn’t work reliably. We’ve just learned to expect the errors.

Excuse me, I think I need to reboot now…

By: Kristasphere

Kristasphere — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 15:02:30 +0000

I feel your pain, believe me. Does the Pearl work on Amtrak? If you use it as a Verizon WAN modem?

By: Tim Supples

Tim Supples — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 16:37:06 +0000

Yes yes, the bane of anyone who experiments on their machine. I try to do less and less of that these days, I just don’t have the time to mess with it. I already spent half my afternoon changing out Access Connections versions trying to get the “proper” WiFi at the new building working, to no avail.

By: Uncle Fester

Uncle Fester — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 16:23:30 +0000

Ahhh, the welcome springtime scent of a fresh install. So sweet, so delicious.

Of course, you’ll only get an upgrade disk to Vista which will require you to actually install XP rather than just having the disk on hand to prove ownership whenever you do a freshie.

And you’ll have to spend hours putting all your apps and settings back. Not to mention, digging up the original disks and/or serial numbers which are 654 alphanumeric digits long and if you mess up one you’ll spend 25 minutes hunting down the errant digit while you go blind from eye strain.

You could do a fresh install, put all apps and settings back, then disk image it — like Norton Ghost — but it will be woefully out of date as you switch to new apps and change settings.

No matter how you cut it, the cumulative performance drag for each day’s use of a PC — which is equal to D * .1592654 * (G ^ 1.2) where D is days and G is your Geek factor as calculated by the number of new applications (N) * 1.3 the number of beta applications you try (B) * 7.

In the end, your box will run like a Celeron 233 with 64MB of RAM, have a registry longer than The Norton Anthology of Poetry, and mock you with a boot time over 9 minutes long.

Just embrace it, David. More new PCs are probably sold to consumers due to disk rot and porn based virus than any other reason. Easier, cheaper to chuck the old and buy new just to repeat the cycle again in 26 months. We call this progress, innovation, productivity, and, sigh, destiny.

I just look forward to the day when my fridge, dishwasher, clothes dryer, shower, coffee pot, lighting system, television, and knife set can all exhibit the exact same technological entropy.