Search Results for: linux

Ditch your Windows frustrations forever – buy a Chromebook!

Posted on January 11, 2018

Back in the Bronze Age of personal computing, a company called Microsoft began selling the very first version of Windows.

Unfortunately, every new Windows version since then has eliminated a slew of headaches while introducing a bunch of new ones.

Just when Windows 7 came along and finally got the Windows experience to where it really needed to be, Microsoft decided to replace it with the monstrosity that is Windows 8.

Complaints from frustrated users abound, and sales of new PCs went into the ditch for a while.

Things picked back up for Microsoft after they replaced Windows 8 with the much-better Windows 8.1, and things got better still with Windows 10. [Read more…]

Parted Magic – An awesome bootable CD for testing, partitioning and cloning hard drives

Posted on August 25, 2017

Your computer’s hard drive or SSD is one of the most important parts of it.

After all, it stores all of your valuable programs, data files, music and other miscellaneous pieces of your digital life in addition to the operating system itself.

Parted Magic is a powerful suite of Linux-based utilities for testing, partitioning, formatting and cloning your hard drive(s) and/or SSD(s).

Many computer techs (including Yours Truly) use it fairly often for setting up and maintaining the drives in our own machines as well as those of our customers. [Read more…]

Q&A: Would you recommend setting up my own web server?

Posted on May 13, 2017

Question from Paul: I have three blogs (each in a different niche) that currently receive anywhere from 4,000 to 20,000 visitors per month. The two largest blogs have started loading really slow.

All three blogs have been hosted with Godaddy for about four years now. I know it’s time to move them to a dedicated server but the cheapest plan I can find is way out of my budget.

My question is do you think it would be a good idea to move them onto my own server? I have a spare Gateway DX4860-UB32P with 8Gigs of RAM that I can install Red Hat Linux and Apache on. I also have a 60 Mbps Internet connection with Charter.

Do you think this would be a good setup to replace my Godaddy hosting? I make a couple of hundred bucks from my blogs each month but I’d like to eventually make it full time and quit my job so I don’t want to make a big mistake.

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Q&A: Should I buy a new PC with Windows 7 on it?

Posted on March 25, 2017

Question from Henry P.: I’ve been shopping online for a new computer and I found out that there are still some Windows 7 computers available. My question is should I buy one?

I really like Windows 7 but I want to make sure I won’t end up buying a headache now that Windows 10 is the norm.

Do you know of any reason why I should buy something with Windows 10 on it instead of Windows 7? Something I’m missing perhaps?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Heads up: Microsoft will end support for Windows Vista on April 11

Posted on March 17, 2017

As you probably know, Microsoft continues to provide security updates for older versions of Windows for several years after the next version is released.

Unfortunately, they have to stop supporting those old Windows versions at some point in order to better focus their resources on developing and supporting newer versions of the operating system.

You might recall that Microsoft officially ended support for Windows XP back in April 2014. Well, now it’s Vista’s turn.

The final security patches for Windows Vista will be released on April 11, after which there will be no more of them coming down the pike. That means Vista will essentially become an orphan on that date with Microsoft cutting it loose to survive in the wild on its own.

As always happens when Microsoft stops supporting an older version of Windows, it won’t take long for the hackers and scammers of the world to find and exploit previously undiscovered and unpatched security holes in the Vista framework.

What does all this mean? [Read more…]