Comments by "Perhaps" (@NoEgg4u) on "Ask Leo!"
channel.
-
A few items not discussed by our host:
1) Activity light:
Some models have them. Some models do not have them.
Some people prefer having the light. Some people do not want the light. Some people do not care.
The activity light helps you if a job seems to be hung. You can tell if it is still active with the drive.
The activity light tells you when the drive is idle. This is helpful if you started a long job (perhaps a backup), and your monitor's power saver mode kicked in. The activity light will let you know if the job is still running, without you having to wake-up your monitor.
It is usually hard to know (pre-purchase) whether or not a drive has an activity light, because it is virtually never noted on the box, or on the manufacturer's on-line data sheets, etc. You usually have to find a review on youtube (and they usually do not mention it), and watch for the host to demonstrate the drive and if the drive is facing the camera, you might see it blinking. Or, ask the reviewer in the comment section.
2) Mechanical drives are great for backups. But if you expect to be performing requests from more than one program that will be using the drive (simultaneously), then that mechanical drive till slow down, probably by more than 50%.
I have found that LaCie drives are remarkably good at handling multitasking. They contain Seagate drives.
3) Self powered drives are super convenient. They have only a single cable that conducts both data and power.
But note that if you are using such drives on a hub, then do not expect more than 1 self-powered drive to work. If you plug in a second one, the drives will become slow and unresponsive. This applies to mechanical drives -- not SSDs.
4) The cable that is included in the box is usually short -- perhaps 16".
If you will need a longer cable, purchase it at the same time you are purchasing the drive, to save on separate shipping costs.
Be sure that the additional cable has the correct connection types on both ends.
Be sure that the additional cable is USB 3.0 (or higher) certified. If it does not specify the version, I suggest you not purchase it.
5) Warranty.
There is more to the warranty than the coverage period. There is the expectation that the manufacturer will honor their warranty, and what that entails.
Western Digital makes it an ordeal to get an RMA (return merchandise authorization) number. It could take you a month to get the RMA number, and that is with you calling them a few times each week, and pressing this button and that button to finally be put on hold to speak to a human. And that hold can be 15+ minutes, and repeated as necessary, until you get your RMA number.
If you manage to get an RMA number, then you might have to wait another month or two before they ship you your replacement drive.
The warranty maze and hoops with Western Digital are by design. There is simply no way for that to be accidental.
Seagate, on the other hand, does everything they can to make their warranty process pain-free.
They answer their phones, without long waits, and without a press this and press that maze. You still have to press buttons when calling them. But it is minimal, and then a human answers, asks you some questions, issues you an RMA number, and you are good to go.
Also note that some (all?) of Seagate drives include free data recovery.
If they recover 3 TB of data on your 4 TB failed drive, they will send you the recovered data on a 3 TB drive, and that is in addition to them also replacing your failed 4 TB drive, resulting in you now owning both a 3 TB drive and a 4 TB drive. You get to keep them both.
6) Power switch.
External drives that come with a power brick might, or might not, have a power switch.
This might matter to you, or might not matter. If it matters, find the answer prior to purchasing the drive.
7) Power saving / Sleep mode
Some drives will sleep, after X minutes of inactivity.
For most people, this does not matter. When a request goes to the sleeping drive, it will wake up the drive.
But this takes time, because the drive has to spin up. If this is a problem, or waiting is an annoyance, then avoid such drives.
How do you know which drives sleep? Search and search for the answer. It just seems that it is not covered anywhere.
The G-Technology drives sleep after approximately 5 minutes of idle time, and there is no way to configure them to not sleep.
There are applications that will send requests to the drive to keep it busy every few minutes, preventing sleep. Or you could write your own script to send a few bytes of data to the drive every couple of minutes to keep it alive.
On the subject of G-Technology drives, note that they have strong metal casings. You can stack them to the moon. But if you do so, you should blow a fan on them (on low, for a light breeze), to keep them from cooking each other.
8) If your new, external drive vibrates strongly, send it back for a refund / replacement.
9) Samsung makes two very good external drives: T5 and T7.
The T7 will run at approximately twice the speed of the T5, until its cache runs out.
If you will never write enough data, without rest, to fill the T7's cache, then it will always run at warp speed.
If you do fill the cache, then it will run slower than USB 2.0 speed, much slower than mechanical drives.
The benchmarks you see are never run with enough data to exceed the drive's cache, and so the drive always attains very fast scores.
The T5 also has cache. But when its cache runs out, the slow-down is minimal.
So if you have large writes to the drive, then the T5 will be faster.
The cache is probably 10% of the drive's capacity. Maybe a little more.
47
-
@0:33 -- Hysteria?
Concerned people are not hysterical people.
@1:12 "...it brought out the Microsoft haters, in droves."
It brought out far more people that love Windows, but are concerned about privacy. People that do not throw caution to the wind are not haters. They are proactively taking measures to not carelessly abandon proper privacy practices.
@1:39 "Recall only works on Co-Pilot Plus PCs."
That is how a slippery slope begins.
When millions, or perhaps billions, of people, world-wide, purchase a new PC, are they supposed to comprehend "Recall", and know its relationship to Co-Pilot, and the rest? Will they know that having Recall enabled exposes 100% of their activities to anyone that gains control of their PC? They hear "AI", and they salivate. If they know anything, it is only the wonderful side of Recall. The average person (we are talking billions of people) has no clue about the intricacies of Recall.
@2:13 "You have nothing to worry about (if you do not have a Recall qualified PC)."
For the folks that do have Co-Pilot Plus / Recall qualified PCs, they do have what to worry about?
@4:19 "This means that other users cannot access these keys..."
When someone deceptively clones your drive, or gains access to your login, etc, they will not be "other users". They will be "you", as far as Windows is concerned. Now the attacker will have a clear, detailed view of everything that has appeared on your screen, and will probably include keystrokes and mouse clicks (why not, when it is simple to implement).
That encryption software you run, to guard your password manager, and your Vera Crypt keys, and any other encryption that you use... well, now anyone with access to your PC has, with Microsoft's blessing, bypassed 100% of your security.
@5:32 "There's nothing Microsoft can do in recall..."
There is a difference between what Microsoft can do vs what Microsoft is actually doing.
I can stare at my neighbor, and creep her out. That is what I can do. But it is not the same as me actually doing it.
@6:08 "...doesn't really add much more exposure to the mix."
The "Frog in boiling water effect". Microsoft's executives are aware of humans having that same nature.
If this were 1998, and we were all using Windows 95 or Windows 98, and then Microsoft rolled out "Recall", people would be up in arms. But when privacy invasive tools are commonplace, then that is the time to roll out Recall, because "Heck, who cares anymore about privacy?"
Folks, if you have a burglary, and your PC gets stolen, then your Windows login account's password can be changed. Now the criminal can login as you, and see it all.
The same thing for any and every policing agency on the planet. Your private, encrypted data is there for them to see, via the Recall screen-shots, and Recall providing your passwords.
And can you imagine incompetent government bureaucrats not securing their PCs or servers -- and also in financial institutions and countless other large companies that have sensitive information, and some unscrupulous tech savvy employee or consultant, etc, gains access to those Recall enabled systems... they would see everything. Can you imagine the data breaches?
Data breaches happen all of the time. Now add Recall to the attacker's tool-kit.
Sure, for the average Joe with his computer, he will have no issues. But this is not about any individual user.
39
-
30
-
I agree 100% with everything our host said. There are a couple of more items to consider.
1) Backup programs offer encryption (probably all of them). If you use it, you will need to provide a password to have access to the data that you backed up. Should the time come where you need to restore those data, then you will need your password. If you forget your password, then forget your data. No password = no data.
If you do not use encryption, then if someone gets a copy of your backup (for example, they have access to your external drive that has the backup), then they will have complete access to everything that was backed up.
2) On-line backup services.
Know that when you use one of those services that they have 100% unfettered access to all of the data that you store on their servers. Not every employee. But the ones that control the environment will have access.
That does not mean that someone is looking at your data. But the company can have programs that examine your data and builds a profile on you.
If you are a celebrity or a high ranking government official, the service could make copies of your data for the company's executives to peruse.
If you were the CEO of Google, would you be able to resist seeing what Hillary Clinton is backing up, or what LeBron James is backing up, or what (pick your celebrity) is backing up?
Are you planning to one-day run for public office? Do you know if your backup service keeps yet another copy of your personal data, that they can use to influence you if you become successful?
How about your company's trade secrets?
Are you going to let complete strangers have copies of that? When you upload your files to the "cloud", those computers are owned by other people that you do not know. They are strangers.
If a government official wants to see what you have on your computer, they will need a search warrant.
If a government official asks a "cloud" service to keep unencrypted copies of your uploads, will the service do so and hand over "the" data (note that I used the determiner "the", rather than the pronoun "your", because whatever you upload to the cloud service is no longer owned by you).
The most secure way to protect your data is to do a local backup that is encrypted. As a safety net, you can upload that encrypted backup to the "cloud" service. They will not be able to profile you on its contents, because it is encrypted and they cannot access its contents.
Cheers!
26
-
18
-
Yes, there is always a reason for change. That should not be construed that the change is always beneficial.
I used to work for a Fortune 500 company, and one day a business unit's senior executive decided that mandating that everyone be ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) certified. Naturally, he did not study for and get himself ITIL certified. That certification took months of CBT (computer based training), where 90% of the content had nothing to do with your role, and if you did not understand something, there was no one to ask. And you still had to complete all of your job's responsibilities while taking the on-line ITIL training for months.
Was there a reason that the senior business unit's executive implemented the ITIL mandate? Yes. Was it a good reason? It sent the personnel's morale down the toilet, and produced reports that did not reflect the reasons for the drop in productivity. Personnel worked towards not showing up on the reports, rather than being productive. Any modifications to the work flow had to now be approved by committees of people that had no understanding of your team's functions. Huge amounts of time was wasted.
How about a car that you used to love. A new year passes, and they screw up what was so appealing to the vehicle. But they had a reason. Several years ago, the Honda Accord removed volume knobs from the radio, in favor of pressing and holding a button. Someone at Honda had a reason for that crazy change. Honda got so many complaints, that they put the knobs back.
Budweiser had taken on a new face for their brand. That was a change. Budweiser's executives had a reason. It was a terrible reason that tanked the company. But they had a reason.
Often, a new executive gets hired, and that executive wants the CEO to see their value. So the new executive makes changes. It happened multiple times at my former Fortune 500 company. It was like ping-pong, going back and forth with each senior or executive management change. Was ping-pong, senior management changes good, accompanied by the confusion of their changes?
Often, changes are made to make a statement. Such people that do that should be fired. Change should be done only when it is beneficial. If things are running smoothly, and profits are meeting goals, then that should not be changed.
Accept change that is beneficial. Never accept change, blindly.
17
-
16
-
@3:17 -- Microsoft is still doing that, for Windows 7.
"Security Intelligence Update for Windows Defender Antivirus" and "Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool" updates continue to be updated, regularly.
@5:00 -- Well, not really. There are people that have no clue on how malware gets into their computer. They see a message to update [fill in the blank], and they just go ahead and do it. They see a message that [fill in the blank] will speed up their computer, so they do so. They visit some site and see a message that claims that 14 threats have been identified, and they click, click, click.
Even with updates, those people get hit with malware. But it will be all-the-worse, when updates cease.
I still have a Windows 7 box that I often use. I never do anything risky, so all is well. But I am proficient with computers. The general public is not in the bubble that we computer enthusiasts are in, and are at risk if they use an unsupported version of Windows.
16
-
16
-
15
-
14
-
Two questions:
1) How does Microsoft know that you are permitted to use Word, Excel, etc?
When you start one of the applications, does your computer contact a Microsoft permission server?
If yes, then what happens when you do not have internet service, but you want to edit a spreadsheet?
2) What happens to all of your documents, if you decide to not renew your subscription?
Will Word, Excel, etc refuse to run?
Will Word, Excel, etc, start, but refuse to open documents?
Will Word, Excel, etc, documents become read-only?
By the way, on my daily-driver computer, I am using Office from 2007 (purchased this i7 box in 2006).
I need nothing more than standard use of the apps that came with Office back then.
There are several other apps that come with all of the subscription services that Office 2007 does not have. Also, the apps I already have do not have many features offered in the current versions.
And none of that matters to me. And I am pretty sure that my version does not phone home with my activity.
I wouldn't mind learning Exchange, Publisher, Intune, Azure Information Protection, Editor, Clipchamp, and OneNote... for free, or for a one time charge of, perhaps, $29.99. But not for what Microsoft is charging.
For folks that will make use of those applications, then more power to them. But I do not think that most people need most of the apps in the subscription, and I don't think that most people need all of the bells and whistles that are in the most updated versions. I am not knocking those versions. They are probably slick, with power features. I just think that 99%+ of people never use more than 10% of the features (especially for Excel, which you can learn, forever).
13
-
12
-
11
-
11
-
@6:23 "I recommend: Pro".
If you originally had the Windows 11 Home version, then if you intend on activating your re-install, choose "Home".
If you had "Home", and then you choose "Pro", I am pretty sure that your installation will not get activated.
The "Home" version and the "Pro" version will be two different activation keys. Also, they are priced differently. If people with the Home version were able to get a free upgrade to Pro, by re-installing Windows, it would be noted by hosts on tech channels / forums.
Since I never tried the above, I cannot say with 100% certainty that going from Home to Pro will prevent activation. But I am believe I am correct, based on my explanation, above.
You can always purchase an upgrade key for the Pro version. But do so only if you will be using a feature that is unavailable in the Home version. To upgrade for the purpose of getting additional features that you do not use is a waste of money for the upgrade key.
The main four Pro features that are disabled in the Home version are:
-- Remote Desktop server.
-- BitLocker server.
-- Sandbox.
-- Group Policy editor.
There are probably other features.
Note that the client version of the above features will work on the Home version.
For example, only the Pro version (or Enterprise version) can create a BitLocker encrypted partition. But if you mount a BitLocker encrypted partition on a system running Home, you will be prompted for the password, and once entered, it will work. But the Home version cannot create the encrypted partition.
10
-
@0:35 "My wife's PC died."
That is a very general description. Like:
My car died.
Well, if your battery died, you do not buy a new car.
If your alternator died, you do not buy a new car.
If the hard drive died, you do not buy a new PC (unless the old PC cannot keep up with whatever you are doing today, and a failed hard drive gave you the push to replace the old PC).
Maybe the power supply died?
Whatever part died could probably be replaced without too much fuss. A motherboard failing would be the biggest challenge.
But if such PC surgery is too challenging for a user, then they go the "new PC" route.
If, however, you can replace the failed part, it is the simplest solution and you will be good to go.
But if you must go with the new PC route (or in the case of the person writing in, they already made the new PC purchase), then be sure that you have all of your login credentials handy. Many of us have our browser auto-log us in. Well, when that PC is dead, then you will have to manually login to all of your web sites on your new PC.
Perhaps you will be able to make use of "Forgot Password" options for the web sites you use? But can you get into your e-mail account, to see the reset code that some site sends to you?
If you use a password manager, it will simplify things. You will have all of your login credentials.
Note that some sites will detect that you are attempting to login from different hardware, and will send a pin code to your phone, or will require some other form of verification, before allowing your new PC to login to their site.
Then there are all of your registration codes for any software that you purchased. Do you have that?
Those codes can be saved in your password manager, so that when you re-install your purchased software, you can enter your registration codes.
Do you have the installation programs?
If not, will you be able to find the installation programs from the site you downloaded it from? Is the same version still available on that site? Your registration code might not work on the latest version.
The person that wrote in the question has a backup. So hopefully that backup will have all of the downloaded installation files. But the registration codes might be in e-mail messages (or might not be in e-mail messages, as e-mail is insecure -- so some companies will not send registration codes via e-mail). Many registration codes are presented on-screen, and only on-screen, directly from the web site.
And then you have to deal with all of your tweaks that you made to your programs. Dark mode, font sizes, desktop icon arrangements, etc. On your new PC, you will have to manually set all of that from scratch.
Before your PC dies, you might want to take a photo of your desktop.
10
-
Three items:
1) Opening a zip file is safe, even if it contains malware.
If you open the zip file, and run the enclosed malware, then you are in trouble.
If, for example, a zip file contains a photo (a jpg file). If you never click on that jpg file to open it (to view it); if you just let that jpg file sit there, then it is basically a dormant file that will never see the light of day.
The same is true of an exe file that is malware. You can have it on your computer. As long as you do not double-click it to run it, it will sit there for all eternity, doing nothing. Of course, that is risky, because one day someone might be curious and double-click it. So it is best to not have it. But if you ignore it, it will sit there doing nothing, just like any other files that you have that you never touch.
Opening a zip file only extracts the contents of that zip file.
You can upload the exe file (or any file) to virustotal. That will give you a good idea on whether or not the file contains malware. It is not 100% reliable. But if virustotal lights up with dozens of warnings, then that is a warning that you should heed. If virustotal deems it safe, it probably is, but the key word is "probably".
2) If something went amiss with any of the files within the zip file, you will know when you try to unzip (extract) the file(s).
When unzipping a zip file, the unzipping program checks the veracity of any file that you extract from the zip file. If a single byte is missing or has changed, you will see an error while trying to unzip it. So if someone wants to e-mail you a file where you must be 100% sure that nothing happened to it between the sender and you, then have them zip that file. If you unzip it, with no warnings, then you are good to go.
3) Zipping files does add compression by default. But compression is optional. You can zip files with zero compression, light compression, heavy compression, or medium compression. The benefit of zero compression is if the files you are going to zip are already highly compressed, then the zipping program will not waste time trying to compress files that it can't compress any further. But you must tell your zipping program to not use compression.
For example, flac files (music files) are already compressed. You might be able to compress them a bit more. But the space you will save will be almost meaningless, and it will take much longer to complete the zipping job if you try to compress those already compressed files.
This really only matters when you are zipping gigabytes of data with any modern computer.
If you are zipping a few megabytes, it will be so fast that the compression time will fly by.
Note that the compression is lossless.
When you unzip the files (when you extract the files from the zip file), they will return to exactly what they were.
10
-
@1:54 "Downloading Windows is ethical, if and only if you have already purchased a valid product key or..."
Leo, I respectfully disagree.
Microsoft puts the installation files on their web site, making Windows 10 / 11 freely available for anyone to download. Microsoft puts no conditions on the availability of the download, or who can do the download, or anyone's reason for doing the download.
And it is not an "Oops, we did not realize what we did" by Microsoft's executives. This was their choice.
Additionally, Microsoft could include meaningful crippling code in the OS, if (for example), after a specified time period, no activation key is entered. All Microsoft did is lock the wallpaper / theme and include a watermark and a couple of other inconsequential disabled options. Microsoft does not even nag the user to purchase an activation key or enter an existing activation key.
Also, when it comes to ethics, consider the following:
You can purchase a new computer, for $103.99 on Amazon. That new computer will include a licensed Windows 11 Home key. But if you download Windows 11, and have to purchase a license key, it will cost you $139 for the license key (and only the license key). How is that ethical?
And if you purchase a renewed computer, Amazon has one with Windows 11 Pro, for $88, and is superior in just about every way to the new one for $103.99. So for $88, you can ethically and legally own a capable computer (probably includes a keyboard and mouse, too) that includes a valid Windows 11 Pro license, for less than half the price of purchasing Windows 11 Pro.
Yes, one is retail and the other is OEM. But that is Microsoft's doing. The pricing disparity is 100% at the whim of Microsoft.
So I see nothing unethical about downloading an OS, directly from Microsoft, that Microsoft's executives knowingly and intentionally make freely available on their web site, with no strings attached.
9
-
Back in the day of single core CPUs, it was common to enable hyper-threading.
That was good and bad.
-- It was good, because if you had something hogging your single core CPU cycles, it could hog only half of your CPU cycles. So you still had a responsive computer.
-- It was bad, because if you actually wanted a program to use all available CPU resources, it could not. Well, if the software was written to use multiple CPUs, then I believe that it would have used both halves of the hyper-threaded CPU. But few software tools, back then, were written to use multiple cores, because few folks had more than one CPU (or more than one core).
And the operating system needed to support multi-core CPUs. So in 1993, when I had my Gateway 2000 computer, with a 66 mHz DX2 CPU, and DOS 5.0, it did not support multi-core operations (as far as I remember). At least that computer's motherboard certainly did not. I think that Windows XP might have been the first Microsoft operating system to support multiple cores and hyper-threading.
Today, with nearly every CPU having 4+ cores (even $100 mini computers have two cores), I do not see any reason to enable hyper-threading. Is there still any reason to enable hyper-threading?
9
-
9
-
If someone uses an emergency boot flash drive, then they can copy (or clone) your entire disk.
That will defeat 100% of any NTFS auditing setting.
If you need to bring your computer in for a hardware related problem, then remove your drive, before you hand it over to the shop's personnel.
If you do not know how to do that, then ask them to do that, when you drop it off. If they refuse, that is a red flag.
If they only disconnect a cable, that is meaningless, as they can reconnect it. They must hand you the drive. That is the only way for them to not have access to the drive.
The next option is to use BitLocker (not available in the Home version of Windows) or VeraCrypt to encrypt your entire drive.
That will prevent them from getting your files, even if they copy your drive. But remember that the more security you use, the more inconvenient your routine becomes.
9
-
Tips for a long lasting hard drive:
1) Make sure that you have proper cooling. Heat kills.
A light breeze should be enough.
If an internal drive is in a case with a non-working fan, that can shorten the life of your hard drive.
If an external drive is in a hot room, you should turn on a fan, and direct it at the drive. As long as a light breeze blows the drive's hot air away, you should be in good shape.
2) Never turn off the drive. If you leave it running 24/7/365, it will probably last longer. Of course, you will be paying for the electricity to keep it running 24/7/365.
Your hard drive takes the most punishment when it is turned on.
The above might be a tad difficult, because some drives go into power-saver mode, and have no option to disable it.
3) Feed your computer and hard drive (if it is external and not in the computer's case)... feed them clean power. Never connect your computer equipment directly to your wall outlet. That is dirty power. Every time anything bad happens on the power grid, your computer will be exposed to that event. Over time, even little spikes take their toll. Also, low voltages are bad.
If you ever have a black-out, unplug everything. The worst power is when a black-out ends, and the power is restored. Wait 5 or 10 minutes before plugging things back in.
If you use a UPS (uninterruptible power supply), your computer (and anything else plugged into the UPS) should last a very long time.
Not all UPS's are the same. A cheap one is basically a bucket of batteries that kicks in when there is a blackout. That is better than nothing.
The next step up is a UPS with AVR (automatic voltage regulation). Such UPS's will boost low voltage situations, and will reduce high voltage situations. Such UPS's will generally have a better joule rating (how much of a surge it can absorb and keep it from hitting your computer).
High end UPS's are referred to as "on-line". This is because they actively convert your A/C power to D/C power, and then back to A/C power (a double conversion). This means that the UPS is generating its own power. As such, whatever you have plugged in to the UPS will never see anything from the power grid. Such UPS's are expensive, and consume electricity in order to do the double conversion. This would probably be overkill for most people.
Data centers (such as a google, facebook, etc) use on-line UPS's to protect their huge server rooms (hospital operating rooms, too). Those UPS's, along with pallets and pallets of batteries, might cost more than your house.
If you are using a power strip with surge suppression, that is probably not doing much. The part that does the suppression is a metal-oxide varistor (MOV). Most power strips have cheap MOVs, and they wear out. Each little hit that they absorb takes a bite out of the MOV. As time passes, your surge suppression stops, and you will have only a power strip (and you will not know that the strip is no longer suppressing spikes and surges).
A good UPS, with AVR, will go a long way in protecting whatever you have plugged into it. And they will not break the bank.
I have been using them for 25 years, for TVs, computers, and all other electronics, and have never had any equipment (that is plugged into the UPS) fail.
8
-
@1:45 "What's a strong password?"
Rather than trying to remember some complicated, cryptic master password, you can simplify the process by using 4 or more words, with a twist.
There is a video (I would provide the link, but youtube tends to toss comments with links) that uses the following example of a strong passphrase:
correct horse battery staple
1) It has 28 characters, making it too long for a standard brute force attack.
2) A dictionary attack might work, but would likely take months, using a room of state-of-the-art computers.
3) It is easy to remember.
To shore up the weakness in #2, you simply add a weird character somewhere, such as:
correct horse battery st%aple
The above example is virtually impossible to crack, even by a huge computer room full of advanced computers.
If Google, Facebook, Twitter, and all 3-letter government agencies combined forces to crack "correct horse battery st%aple", it would probably take years.
So use 4 or more words, and make at least one of the words an uncommon word (such as "osculate" or "abrogate")
By the way, if you use proper password management software, and also use a proper pass phrase, then it makes zero difference whether or not the company had a data breach.
Consider the following:
If a data breach actually mattered, then that means that the employees at the company were always able to access your data.
The goal of proper password management software is that you should not have to care, and not have to worry, about anyone (employees, attackers, etc) gaining access. If the software is proper, and your passphrase is proper, then your vault is impenetrable.
8
-
Leo, is your new, local account a standard user account, or does it have administrator privileges?
If it is the latter, that should be changed to a local user account (unless the user has a legitimate reason for always using her computer with higher privileges).
I also suggest that two local accounts be created.
-- One local, standard user account, for routine, day-to-day use.
-- One local, administrator account, for unfettered access, as occasionally needed. This administrator account should be the first one created, and it should be used to create the standard user account.
8
-
8
-
8
-
8
-
8
-
7
-
Microsoft has included numerous programs over the years, that used to be available only from 3rd party vendors -- everything from graphical disk management tools, to antivirus / firewall tools.
But Microsoft never really embraced a meaningful backup solution.
It would be simplistic for Microsoft to include some basic backup functionality. In fact, they could make it profitable, by offering to enable additional features (automation, encryption, compression, password protection, file exclusion, drive cloning, etc) for a reasonable cost.
Countless people would probably jump at the chance to backup their computers using native tools that were included with Windows.
Anyone know why Microsoft has never made a concerted effort to include a robust backup solution with Windows (other than a token Windows 7 backup tool)?
7
-
Yes, Windows will probably deal with whatever changes it encounters. So as our host said, you should be okay.
However, replacing your hardware and crossing your fingers that Windows will survive the change with no issues should be plan "B".
This is my recommendation for plan "A":
For every program that you install, save a copy of that installation file to some other drive.
Also keep a file containing every registration code.
Then, when you change your motherboard, you could install a clean copy of Windows. That will always be your best bet for a bug-free, stable computing experience.
Once you install Windows, and perform Windows Update, then you grab copies of your installation files, and install your programs, along with your registration codes.
You should also have a full backup of your old computer, so that you can copy your saved documents to your new installation.
The above is more time consuming. But getting things to work at their best will always take more effort.
There is a down-side to plan "A".
All of your customization will be gone. All of the tweaking to your desktop and your wallpaper and your settings for your programs will be gone. If your browser was set to automatically log you in to some sites, that will be gone. You will have to set them again. The plan "B" approach will maintain your settings, but at the potential cost of having other issues.
Cheers!
7
-
I recommend that Windows users stick with Windows Defender, and do not use any 3rd party packages. Why?
1) Read the terms of service (end user license agreement, etc), and read it thoroughly. Read any and all links contained therein. Read it all.
It is a boring read, and the 3rd party packages are counting on you not reading it.
You are agreeing to allow the 3rd party vendor to have complete, unfettered access to your computer.
You are agreeing to allow them to do anything they want to do, with the files on your computer. They are unlikely to harm any of your files. But they will sell your information to who knows who.
They will refer to the companies, with whom they will "share" your data, as part of their family of vendors (or some such wording). It all adds up to you giving complete strangers a transparent window into everything on your computer, and everything you do with your computer.
They claim it is for them to better protect you, and they claim that they only collect metrics, blah blah blah. Yet, you are agreeing to allow them to do anything they want with your computer.
Yes, for their software to be effective, they must be able to scan your files and your activities, to identify threats and protect you. So you have to allow it, if you use their software.
2) Windows Defender will probably do a better job than any 3rd party package.
A couple of decades ago, Microsoft did not really care about security. They left that up to the end user to protect themselves with 3rd party software.
Microsoft took a good deal of heat, and today they take security seriously, and they have the resources to handle it. They also have the most information on how Windows works and its vulnerabilities. Defender is bundled with Windows, and costs nothing for you to use.
3) If you decide to use a 3rd party vendor, and then one day decide to switch to some other 3rd party vendor (or switch to Microsoft Defender), you will find it next to impossible to divorce yourself from your current 3rd party vendor. You will never delete all traces, and you might end up with a conflict between competing packages.
Cheers!
7
-
7
-
@4:23 "The entire box was an image".
That way, the human recipient can read it, but the spam filter sees no text to evaluate it. Yes, the spam filter can see and evaluate the text in the message's header. But to the spam filter, the body of the message had no text to evaluate.
I avoid getting scammed, because when an e-mail message suddenly entices me; when it gives me a knee-jerk reaction to click on something, well... I trained myself to pause, as those are social engineering tactics that scammers use to have people fall for their scams.
When good news falls out of the sky, even something as simple as being granted access to feature or document, etc, I let the pinch of dopamine subside and wait for my self-preservation senses to regain control of my actions.
7
-
7
-
If, for example, they are using a Microsoft Exchange server, to provide e-mail services to their staff, then no one (other than the individuals that have logins to that Exchange server) can run Revo Uninstaller on that Exchange server -- and 100% of all incoming and outgoing e-mail messages will traverse that Exchange server.
And depending on the the snooping software that they might have installed on your PC that they own, you will not be able to uninstall anything that they disallow you to uninstall.
They can deny anyone such access to remove their software from your machine (that they own). That can be done via the Group Policy Editor, which you will not be able to run.
When you are on their time, using their hardware, and using their software, then you have little control over their hardware, and their software.
7
-
7
-
A few years ago, Comcast sent out an e-mail message (similar to the topic here), threatening customers that they will delete e-mail accounts with no activity (I believe it was 1 year of no activity).
That is outrageous. Why?
Unlike Google, your Comcast e-mail accounts (six are included with your subscription) are not free. You are paying for them.
It would be like renting a storage unit, and not visiting it for X years. You keep making payments, but the company gave the unit to someone else, because you did not visit it. All of your stuff? Gone.
I do not know if Comcast followed though with their threat. They never sent out an update. I imagine that someone would have filed a legal challenge, based on paying for their dormant e-mail accounts. Are they really abandoned, if you are paying for them? The answer is "No." But Comcast sent out e-mail stating that your inactive e-mail accounts (which you are paying for), will get deleted for inactivity. (they left out the part that you are paying for them, when they sent out their threat of e-mail account deletion)
My community has only one internet service provider: Comcast.
I would leave them in an instant, if they did not have a monopoly.
7
-
7
-
The admin capable account should not be used, unless you have a specific (and probably rare) use case (I provided an example, below).
The admin capable account has access to all files on your computer. That is a risk.
If you are using the admin capable account, and you are poking around at files in some obscure folder, or some other user's files, you can mistakenly delete those files, or move them, etc. That would not happen with a standard user's account, as you would not have permission to even go into a different user's directory, etc.
If you are using the admin capable account, and you get infected with malware, then that malware can go into you system32 folder (or any user's folder) and create chaos. There will be no User Account Control prompt. It would be like having a command prompt with admin capable rights to encrypt files all over the place. No UAC prompt will be triggered.
If you are a standard user, and you get malware, then that malware will not have access to other user's files, and will not have more than "read" access to system32 files (or other such directories).
If you never make mistakes, and you never get malware, then enjoy the convenience of using an admin capable account. I will not roll the dice. I use a standard user account.
A rare case where I used the admin capable account is when I wanted to put a batch script into the "windows" directory". A standard user cannot do that.
If it became commonplace for me to use numerous scripts, I would create a new directory, and add that new directory to the PATH variable. But I had a one-off case, and it was simpler to use the Windows directory (which is already in the PATH variable).
My cousin used to use his admin capable account. He was not a careful user. He clicked on anything that caught his attention. He went to sketchy sites, and downloaded who knows what, without a care in the world. That is, until he called me because his computer was running slowly. I got tired of providing him with remote help, to clean out background processes that he unwittingly installed.
I then told him to create a new account, as a standard user. He did, and sometime later, he called me with the slow-down issue. This time, I told him to create yet another standard user account, and use only his newly created, standard user, account. As soon as he used that new standard user account, all was well. He never called me again for slow-down issues. He just keeps creating new standard user accounts. I speak to him often. He told me that he has created over 10 new accounts. In a way, it is absurdly funny. But he is not going to change his ways. He is somewhat absent-minded.
He is still living dangerously. I told him so. But at least the "who knows what" stuff he runs is contained within his local, standard user, account, and only runs when he uses that account. When he uses a new standard user account, it is clean. It is not a perfect solution. But it saves me from having to deal with it. And he is happy with it, too. But if he was using an admin capable account, then all kinds of other background processes could be involved, where a new user account would not be too helpful.
I do not know how common his situation is. But people routinely complain that their computer slows down. So a new standard user account might be an easy fix for them. And they can briefly use an admin capable account to copy or move their documents from their old, compromised account to their new, clean account.
For nearly everyone, a standard user account will be all that they ever need to do everything they need to do. It is safer that way, and is why they should not use an admin capable account. They should have an admin capable account, for when prompted to install new programs. But they should use a standard user account for their daily routines.
7
-
7
-
@0:16 "Leo, I've had several people tell me that I have too much stuff on my desktop, and that is why my computer is so slow."
Too many desktop icons is simply a clue that you have too many applications installed. But even that is not where the trail ends.
Every time you install a new program, there is a good chance that it installs services that run in the background, and start up automatically.
It is those myriad of services, trying to do who-knows-what that is slowing things down.
They might be phoning home, looking for updates, or sending the authors your personal information on how you use their software, or possibly anything else about what you are doing or what you have on your computer. You might even have a service that is running crypt-o mining software, using your computer's idle time, to the benefit of someone else.
The more programs you install, the more likely it is that one or more of those programs are either poorly configured, or are nefarious to some degree.
Browsers will slow down, when you add every extension under the sun -- and I have a feeling that anything that sparkles is added to our questioner's computer.
@0:22 "I think my computer is slow because it is old. It is six years old."
That is possible, for example, if the person who wrote in is playing demanding games. However...
I am using a fist generation Intel core i7-950. It was all the rage back in the day. But a current $119 core-i3 is 4½x faster than my old i7. Even a somewhat old, $85 core-i3-10305 will be 3x faster than my ancient i7-950.
Yet, I have no performance issues, for general computer use. That is because I resist installing every interesting program that catches my eye.
If the person that wrote in wants to identify whether or not his old computer is the culprit, he can reinstall Windows, and then install two or three of the programs he deems to be slow. My money is on him having no more slowness issue with those programs.
If he resets his computer with a fresh OS installation, then his computer will be as fast as the day he turned it on for the first time -- which will be more than triple as fast as my daily-driver, old i7.
He has a zillion desktop icons, because he installed a zillion programs, and their unknown registry and services rompings and browser extension clutter are responsible for his performance issues.
A new computer, that is twice as fast as what he has, will suffer similar performance issues, if he installs the same blizzard of programs. The new computer will be faster. But it, too, will suffer from whatever all of those programs are doing in the background.
6
-
6
-
Our host did an amazing job, walking us through the myriad of steps and options. Narrating, along with time synced screen captures, is a complicated and time consuming process that our host makes look easy. But even with his guidance, it made my brain hurt.
It seems that Microsoft made their cloud storage service intentionally complicated, to dissuade people from grabbing a copy of all of their files.
-- Microsoft could have included a "Download Everything" button. But they did not.
-- Microsoft could have allowed you to open an Explorer window on their cloud server, you select all files / folders, and copy / paste (or drag) everything to your local PC's storage device. But they did not.
-- When you choose their "Download" option, you get zip files. Now you have to deal with that.
zip files are fine, as an option. But that you cannot (even as an option) download everything in the folder tree that OneDrive shows you, and have that same tree duplicated locally, is intentional by Microsoft.
And if you have X terabytes of OneDrive files, then after you download it all as a zip file (assuming the zip format supports such a size), you then have to unzip your X terabyte zip file to recreate the folder structure on your PC. So you would need double the space, and double the time, to finally have all of your files, in their native tree structure, on your local PC.
Microsoft has the brightest software engineers on the planet on their payroll. So the above is all 100% by design. Nothing is an oversight.
Microsoft wants your files, and they do not want it to be easy for you to retrieve all of your files (as that indicates that you might leave their service).
Microsoft makes it simple to hand them copies of your files, and complicated to get them "all" back. Individual files are easy to grab. But not so when you want to grab everything.
Like so many other subscription services, the companies make it simple to join, and yet you need a support team to navigate parting ways.
I copy important files on to two external drives. One I keep local, and the other I keep elsewhere (protects me in case of a fire or burglary).
The files on my external drives are in a VeraCrypt folder, making them useless to anyone other than me.
It is simple, safe, and I am neither at the mercy of Microsoft having down time, nor my ISP possibly having down time. And there are no monthly cloud storage fees for using my own external drives.
Unless you have a good reason for uploading your files to compete strangers (i.e. Microsoft's OneDrive cloud servers, controlled by anonymous people), then why do so?
This video is very helpful for two reasons:
1) There is no doubt that countless people are using OneDrive, where our host's step-by-step guide will be of great value.
2) For people on the fence about using OneDrive, hopefully they will not.
6
-
Leo, please create a video on installing and running virtual machines.
For anyone that is not careful, or is careful and just screws up, a virtual machine can make recovery simple, and near-instant.
If the person who wrote in was checking his e-mail on a virtual machine, then he could have restored his virtual machine to the last time he took a snapshot (snapshots are quick and simple to take). You tell your virtual machine app to restore to your last snapshot (remember to periodically take snapshots), and 1 second later, you are done. VMs are not 100% safe -- but they are darn close. It is highly unlikely that any malware could escape a VM and infect your host machine.
And you can have one VM for checking e-mail, and a different VM for web browsing, etc. As long as you have taken a snapshot when your VM was clean, you can return to that snapshot almost instantly.
If you have enough RAM, you can run multiple VMs simultaneously. Another benefit is if you want to tinker around with Linux, or Win95, etc. Just install them as a VM, and have fun.
Oracle's VirtualBox is free and simple (at least compared to other offerings). I installed Box World on my Win98 VM, because it will not run elsewhere, and I love that game. VMs are amazing!
6
-
6
-
6
-
There are companies that outsource tech support that do not need to do so.
Some of those companies have oceans of cash flow. They are wildly successful.
By outsourcing their tech support, it means that some executive can report that instead of the company earning $1,000,000,000.00, they earned $1,001,000,000.00, and so they get a $50,000 bonus.
Looking at this from only the point of view of "Is the tech support quality?", will take on a new meaning when you are the very competent tech support person that loses his/her job, to pay some other person slave wages to replace you.
America made it possible for these companies to flourish, and the thank you America gets is that they lay off Americans, and send American dollars to foreign countries.
If a company is struggling to meet their payroll, then I will not fault them for taking such measures.
But for a company that fires countless Americans, simply to add 0.25% to a balance sheet or to a stock offering, while that company pays their executives 7-figure and 8-figure salaries, is repulsive.
If that company let go, one or two 7(or 8)-figure employees, then they would not have to let go 100+ other employees.
I worked for one of those companies, when they had 50 employees.
We grew by leaps and bounds. The company's President went out of his way to make everyone feel like family. And the revenue started coming in. We were treated to free fruits, transit checks (to offset our commuting costs), free top-tier health benefits for our entire family, company sponsored picnics, and good wages. We were never short staffed. In fact, we were staffed, such that if someone was on vacation, and two others called in sick, we still had good coverage.
Most of the employees recognized how well we were treated, and we responded in kind, by going above and beyond for our company.
But our company was financed by our parent company. When we became wildly profitable, they ordered our President to take cost cutting measures of every kind. He refused, and our profits continued to grow.
Eventually, the (then) CEO (Sharon Rowlands) of the parent company canned our President, for refusing to abandon his principles and throw the employees (who made the company what it was) onto the street.
That resulted in the end of free heath care, and every other nicety. That year, no one got an increase. And every year, thereafter, were more excuses. And that was also when they canned the Manhattan based customer service personnel and outsourced it. Not because they had to -- but because it looked better on a spreadsheet for some executive bean counter.
Then, most employees did only as much as needed to keep their jobs.
Then, most employees used all of their sick days (when prior, they used them only when they were actually sick).
Employees went from being family, to being computer data, and not knowing if they were next to be cut.
Customer service went from having employees that went above and beyond to make the customers #1, to overseas customer service that got the job done, but that's it.
if your American company is earning $100 million in profits, is it proper to lay off American workers to bring that number up to $101 million?
Shame on companies that piss on the country that made it possible for them to live the American dream.
6
-
6