Weekend Assignment: Darn Computer!
Fresh when it gets here from
Julie Barrett
Saturday, May 2, 2009
If you're a blogger, you almost certainly have a computer. If you have a computer, you've had computer problems. Did your monitor go dark? Hard drive get hacked? System go silent? Tell us a computer horror story!
Karen is right: I'm always battling something. But that's life on the bleeding edge of computing. Someone gets cut, and it's generally me. Why, just this week the enclosure that houses my backup hard drive died. That got replaced today, and I'm doing a backup in preparation for installing the release candidate of Windows 7.
I told you I live on the bleeding edge.
It seems that the vast majority of my computer issues are rooted in hardware. If a hard drive isn't dying, then it's a power supply. Or a video card blows out. Or, I'm doing an upgrade so I can run a hot new OS.
Life on the bleeding edge.
Extra Credit: Which has fewer problems, a PC or a Mac?
Man, that's a loaded question. Chris tells me he's been working with a Mac in a class at school, and it's very prone to locking up.
One platform is just as prone to hardware problems as another, especially when it comes to "wear" parts like hard drives or power supplies.
The PC platform is more prone to software problems and viruses. Why? Well, this is speculation based on experience, but here goes: The PC is a more open platform in terms of hardware. There are more options for hardware on the PC platform, and that opens up the possibility of one device being incompatible with another, or one piece of software "breaking" another. As for viruses, there are just more Windows boxes out there, and they make a more tempting target. Mac and Linux systems have vulnerabilities, and owners have to keep their systems patched as well. I do suspect that Windows boxes generally have more security issues. That's partly due to the fact that there are so may PCs out there doing so many different tasks. Microsoft is doing more to lock down the operating system, but that's causing more issues for power users like me. I'd rather jump through a few more hoops to do what I need to do if that's what it takes to keep the majority of users safer.
I'm not a Microsoft fangirl, but I do prefer that platform. I like being able to easily swap out hardware. If a part in my computer dies, I want to be able to walk into Fry's and buy a new one. In most cases I can be up and running again in a few hours. That's important to me - especially if I have hardware trouble in the middle of a project. I can't afford the time to take it into a tech and have them do the work for me. But then, I have the skills to troubleshoot and fix my own system.
Well, it's almost midnight, and I'm going to stop fooling around on the web and let my backup finish. Besides, it's time for Dr Who!
Tags: Weekend Assignment, Technology
Filed under: Weekend Assignment Technology
Comments are closed
Kare Funk Blocher said:
It's great to get your take on all this, because you have much more of a techie's perspective than I have. I don't even know what to ask you in connection with my own computer issues. But your entry reminded me of the way some UWoT members in the 1990s used to spend the occasional weekend tearing apart their computers and upgrading them, one card or hard drive or motherboard at a time. This was astoninishing to a Mac user as I was, being used to Apple's relative closed box systems!
Date: 5/8/2009 1:10:24 PM
Date: 5/8/2009 1:10:24 PM
Kare Funk Blocher said:
It's great to get your take on all this, because you have much more of a techie's perspective than I have. I don't even know what to ask you in connection with my own computer issues. But your entry reminded me of the way some UWoT members in the 1990s used to spend the occasional weekend tearing apart their computers and upgrading them, one card or hard drive or motherboard at a time. This was astoninishing to a Mac user as I was, being used to Apple's relative closed box systems!
Date: 5/8/2009 1:10:24 PM
Date: 5/8/2009 1:10:24 PM
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