On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 17:51:28 -0500, "Mr. Luddite" wrote:

On 11/21/2013 5:38 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 16:19:19 -0500, John H
wrote:

On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 16:12:55 -0500, wrote:

On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 07:13:17 -0500, John H
wrote:

On Wed, 20 Nov 2013 17:44:26 -0500, wrote:


A lot of IE is actually resident in Windoze.

That would help explain it. I've learned patience when it comes to Firefox.

John H. -- Hope you're having a great day!


There must be something else going on. I get the browser window in a
second or so every time. I wonder if there is some spyware program
that is loading too. Look at your plug ins

Here they a

Adobe Acrobat
McAfee Site Advisor
Quick Time
Shockwave Flash
Silverlight
Windows Presentation Foundation

John H. -- Hope you're having a great day!


The only addons I see is Logitech Device Detection and my virus
scanner.



I am no expert but based on previous experience, if I were John I'd dump
McAfee and substitute it with AVG.

I used to have McAfee as a anti-virus program but it slowed the computer
I had at the time down. Not as bad as Norton, but still consumed a lot
of resources. I've been using AVG now for over four years and like it
a lot. Doesn't seem to affect the computer speed and works just fine.


I don't use McAfee as an anti-virus program. The site advisor is a separate plug-in.

John H. -- Hope you're having a great day!

"F.O.A.D." wrote:
On 11/21/13, 6:16 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 17:56:31 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

Or get an Apple and . .


... not own a computer, just an appliance.


I enjoy having computers that are as reliably solid as my refrigerator.


Apple is as reliable as any other computer. But most virus are written for
the 80% of the home PC market. Which is MS. Apple computer has lots of
problems in dealing with the present world. Can not open a lot of the
files you receive via email. So you have to either buy a lot of Apps. I
run Open Office on the iMac so I can look at and print .xls files. I do
have Pages, but when you are kicking out $7-40 for lots of apps on an
expensive machine anyway, it starts to hurt. No support for Flash, etc.

"Mr. Luddite" wrote:

It's funny you mention crashes. I can't remember the last time either
of my Windows based computers crashed. I also rarely shut them
completely off either. I put them in "sleep" mode when they are not
being used. The only time a reboot is required is after an update of
the OS and occasionally after a major update by AVG (anti-virus). I
have them set so I can pick and choose when I want the updates to be
installed.

XP was (is) a very stable program. The last time I recall routine
crashes was back before it came along.

I recently read that XP, Vista, Win7 and Win8 were all derived from
Windows NT. I remember it because NT was an "industrialized" version
of Windows or something. All the CAD PC stations in my company ran on
Windows NT.


The computer running XP SP3 is practically never shut down.
In short, the only power/sleep configuration I have done in Windows is
to turn off the monitor after 10 minutes, leaving everything else (CPU,
hard drives, etc.) powered up and running 24/7...

The only time that computer is actually off is when I'm doing some
hardware installations and similar, and of course in case of a power
outage (that occasionally happen).
The only time that computer is rebooted is after certain operations that
require a system reboot, for example after certain software updates and
similar.

There has of course been some instances where I had to perform a forced
reboot or shutdown by either pressing the "Reset"-button or the power
switch, but that has mainly been due to some third party applications
causing problems, for example hardware delivered with incompatible or
out-of-date drivers (until the drivers has been updated from the
Internet).

Some time ago, I also had a strange problem where the computer suddenly
stopped with the well known blue screen in Windows.
When rebooted, Windows started normally and there were no other
indications of any problems, and the computer could run for days until
the problem suddenly occurred again.
After scratching my head, and after running several test and diagnose
programs (that of course didn't find any problems), I finally managed to
find the problem after some extensive troubleshooting. It turned out to
be a very rare power problem, and not what one usually expect to find.
In the 4-wire power cable from the power supply to one of the three hard
drives I have installed, the yellow wire (+ 12V) was broken inside and
in a such way that the wire ends just touched each other and that was
not visible on the outer cable insulation.
Due to this, the hard drive occasionally lost 12V drive power for some
moments, which Windows detected as a major hardware or system failure
and thus triggered an error state.
After splicing the wire properly, that problem has never since been
present...

And while mentioning the hard drives:
One of the three hard drives I currently have installed in that computer
is an oldie (mfg.date 01/17/04) which has been constantly powered up
almost it's entire life time.
According to a SMART-monitor, that drive do now have a total "Power On
Hours Count" of 83,140 hours, which equals 3,464 days or approx. 9 years
and 6 months, and there has never been any problems with that hard
drive, not even a single bad sector and similar, and where all
SMART-parameters are well inside the factory threshold limits...



Stig Arne Bye

E-mail ......: lid
lid
Snail-Mail ..: Axel Borgens veg 4, NO-9900 Kirkenes, Norway
Homepage ....: COMING LATER: http://stigbye.footballclubs.io
http://stigbye.motocross.io
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Located just about 70°N 30°E - Almost at the top of the world!

Remove ".invalid" from mail address to reply to me by direct e-mail!

On 11/21/2013 7:39 PM, John H wrote:
On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 17:51:28 -0500, "Mr. Luddite" wrote:

On 11/21/2013 5:38 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 16:19:19 -0500, John H
wrote:

On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 16:12:55 -0500, wrote:

On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 07:13:17 -0500, John H
wrote:

On Wed, 20 Nov 2013 17:44:26 -0500, wrote:


A lot of IE is actually resident in Windoze.

That would help explain it. I've learned patience when it comes to Firefox.

John H. -- Hope you're having a great day!


There must be something else going on. I get the browser window in a
second or so every time. I wonder if there is some spyware program
that is loading too. Look at your plug ins

Here they a

Adobe Acrobat
McAfee Site Advisor
Quick Time
Shockwave Flash
Silverlight
Windows Presentation Foundation

John H. -- Hope you're having a great day!


The only addons I see is Logitech Device Detection and my virus
scanner.



I am no expert but based on previous experience, if I were John I'd dump
McAfee and substitute it with AVG.

I used to have McAfee as a anti-virus program but it slowed the computer
I had at the time down. Not as bad as Norton, but still consumed a lot
of resources. I've been using AVG now for over four years and like it
a lot. Doesn't seem to affect the computer speed and works just fine.


I don't use McAfee as an anti-virus program. The site advisor is a separate plug-in.

John H. -- Hope you're having a great day!



It's still a McAfee program running in the background checking the
websites you visit to see if there's a record of malware, viruses, etc.

I had it. I got rid of it and my computer ran much faster and smoother.
As Greg said, McAfee is a virus unto itself, much like Norton used to be.

It was on the XP laptop that I have but no longer use, BTW. Someone
recommended AVG and I've used it ever since. The only time it has an
affect on computer speed is when you have initiated a full scan of your
computer. What's nice about it however is that you can set a priority
from "user sensitive" which allows you to continue to use the computer
for other things while it scans with little to no affect on computer
speed to "Fast" which is good if you are not going to use the computer
for a while.

I used the free version for two years and liked it so much that I
upgraded to the full version. Frankly, I think the free version was
sufficient for protection. AVG will also block or alert you to a
suspicious website also, like McAfee. It just doesn't bog your computer
down doing so.

On 11/21/2013 8:25 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 18:18:42 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

On 11/21/13, 6:16 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 17:56:31 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

Or get an Apple and . .


... not own a computer, just an appliance.


I enjoy having computers that are as reliably solid as my refrigerator.

That is fine if you are willing to let Apple decide what you want to
do with your appliance.

My Dutch neighbor and I had this discussion a few years ago and he was
telling me about how wonderful his Apple stuff was. Then he got
interested in drones and suddenly discovered how limiting the Apple
hardware and software was for anything Apple didn't invent. He has
Windows and Android machines now.



At some point in the past four years I install iTunes on my PC. Oh ...
it was when I got an iPad and wanted to transfer music files or
something to it. Never used it much however.

But I still occasionally get annoying popups when I first start my
computer from iTunes wanting to upgrade something. I thought I had
deleted it ... in fact I know I did, but the popups still show up from
time to time. It's like trying to get rid of Norton years ago. Even if
you uninstalled the main Norton program certain remnants remained that
kept trying to get you to reinstall it. I forget how it was done but a
computer geek friend of mine finally got rid of *all* the Norton related
files and the unwanted invitations stopped.

On 11/21/2013 8:39 PM, Stig Arne Bye wrote:
"Mr. Luddite" wrote:

It's funny you mention crashes. I can't remember the last time either
of my Windows based computers crashed. I also rarely shut them
completely off either. I put them in "sleep" mode when they are not
being used. The only time a reboot is required is after an update of
the OS and occasionally after a major update by AVG (anti-virus). I
have them set so I can pick and choose when I want the updates to be
installed.

XP was (is) a very stable program. The last time I recall routine
crashes was back before it came along.

I recently read that XP, Vista, Win7 and Win8 were all derived from
Windows NT. I remember it because NT was an "industrialized" version
of Windows or something. All the CAD PC stations in my company ran on
Windows NT.


The computer running XP SP3 is practically never shut down.
In short, the only power/sleep configuration I have done in Windows is
to turn off the monitor after 10 minutes, leaving everything else (CPU,
hard drives, etc.) powered up and running 24/7...

The only time that computer is actually off is when I'm doing some
hardware installations and similar, and of course in case of a power
outage (that occasionally happen).
The only time that computer is rebooted is after certain operations that
require a system reboot, for example after certain software updates and
similar.

There has of course been some instances where I had to perform a forced
reboot or shutdown by either pressing the "Reset"-button or the power
switch, but that has mainly been due to some third party applications
causing problems, for example hardware delivered with incompatible or
out-of-date drivers (until the drivers has been updated from the
Internet).

Some time ago, I also had a strange problem where the computer suddenly
stopped with the well known blue screen in Windows.
When rebooted, Windows started normally and there were no other
indications of any problems, and the computer could run for days until
the problem suddenly occurred again.
After scratching my head, and after running several test and diagnose
programs (that of course didn't find any problems), I finally managed to
find the problem after some extensive troubleshooting. It turned out to
be a very rare power problem, and not what one usually expect to find.
In the 4-wire power cable from the power supply to one of the three hard
drives I have installed, the yellow wire (+ 12V) was broken inside and
in a such way that the wire ends just touched each other and that was
not visible on the outer cable insulation.
Due to this, the hard drive occasionally lost 12V drive power for some
moments, which Windows detected as a major hardware or system failure
and thus triggered an error state.
After splicing the wire properly, that problem has never since been
present...

And while mentioning the hard drives:
One of the three hard drives I currently have installed in that computer
is an oldie (mfg.date 01/17/04) which has been constantly powered up
almost it's entire life time.
According to a SMART-monitor, that drive do now have a total "Power On
Hours Count" of 83,140 hours, which equals 3,464 days or approx. 9 years
and 6 months, and there has never been any problems with that hard
drive, not even a single bad sector and similar, and where all
SMART-parameters are well inside the factory threshold limits...



Stig Arne Bye

E-mail ......: lid
lid
Snail-Mail ..: Axel Borgens veg 4, NO-9900 Kirkenes, Norway
Homepage ....: COMING LATER: http://stigbye.footballclubs.io
http://stigbye.motocross.io
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Located just about 70°N 30°E - Almost at the top of the world!

Remove ".invalid" from mail address to reply to me by direct e-mail!



Electronics and hard drive life are more affected by thermal cycles
generated by routinely turning them on and off, on and off. It's not
unlike an incandescent light bulb that will last a long time if it's
left on.

Of course, the world has become power usage conscience, so we are
encouraged to always turn off what you are not using. It benefits in
that way but overall will end up shortening the life of the device.

Power usage aside, it's better to leave them on 24/7.

On 11/21/13, 8:25 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 18:18:42 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

On 11/21/13, 6:16 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 17:56:31 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

Or get an Apple and . .


... not own a computer, just an appliance.


I enjoy having computers that are as reliably solid as my refrigerator.

That is fine if you are willing to let Apple decide what you want to
do with your appliance.

My Dutch neighbor and I had this discussion a few years ago and he was
telling me about how wonderful his Apple stuff was. Then he got
interested in drones and suddenly discovered how limiting the Apple
hardware and software was for anything Apple didn't invent. He has
Windows and Android machines now.


All the software I need is available for Apple computers...word
processing, spread sheets, presentation, web design, financial,
internet, photo processing, et cetera.

--
Religion: together we can find the cure.

On 11/21/13, 8:37 PM, Califbill wrote:
"F.O.A.D." wrote:
On 11/21/13, 6:16 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 17:56:31 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

Or get an Apple and . .


... not own a computer, just an appliance.


I enjoy having computers that are as reliably solid as my refrigerator.


Apple is as reliable as any other computer. But most virus are written for
the 80% of the home PC market. Which is MS. Apple computer has lots of
problems in dealing with the present world. Can not open a lot of the
files you receive via email. So you have to either buy a lot of Apps. I
run Open Office on the iMac so I can look at and print .xls files. I do
have Pages, but when you are kicking out $7-40 for lots of apps on an
expensive machine anyway, it starts to hurt. No support for Flash, etc.


I have no problems opening files emailed to me. I have the Microsoft
Office Suite, which includes EXCEL...for .XLS files. I don't miss FLASH.

--
Religion: together we can find the cure.

On 11/21/2013 11:00 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 21:01:41 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 11/21/2013 8:25 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 18:18:42 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

On 11/21/13, 6:16 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 17:56:31 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

Or get an Apple and . .


... not own a computer, just an appliance.


I enjoy having computers that are as reliably solid as my refrigerator.

That is fine if you are willing to let Apple decide what you want to
do with your appliance.

My Dutch neighbor and I had this discussion a few years ago and he was
telling me about how wonderful his Apple stuff was. Then he got
interested in drones and suddenly discovered how limiting the Apple
hardware and software was for anything Apple didn't invent. He has
Windows and Android machines now.



At some point in the past four years I install iTunes on my PC. Oh ...
it was when I got an iPad and wanted to transfer music files or
something to it. Never used it much however.

But I still occasionally get annoying popups when I first start my
computer from iTunes wanting to upgrade something. I thought I had
deleted it ... in fact I know I did, but the popups still show up from
time to time. It's like trying to get rid of Norton years ago. Even if
you uninstalled the main Norton program certain remnants remained that
kept trying to get you to reinstall it. I forget how it was done but a
computer geek friend of mine finally got rid of *all* the Norton related
files and the unwanted invitations stopped.

I never understood why I would ever want I tunes. It is a proprietary
music format with copy restrictions and music that is more expensive
than Amazon (assuming you actually pay anything at all). There is
plenty of free content on the web. If nothing else you can just clip
the audio off of YouTube but lots of artists have free content on
their sites.

As long as you have your ID3 tags set up right, handling the files is
easy. I usually just use create M3U files for my playlists and
virtually any player can use them.



That's not the issue. I don't buy music files from iTunes. iTunes is
required and used for more than just "getting" music files. You have to
have iTunes installed on a PC in order to transfer files from it to an iPad.

"F.O.A.D." wrote:
On 11/21/13, 8:37 PM, Califbill wrote:
"F.O.A.D." wrote:
On 11/21/13, 6:16 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 17:56:31 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

Or get an Apple and . .


... not own a computer, just an appliance.


I enjoy having computers that are as reliably solid as my refrigerator.


Apple is as reliable as any other computer. But most virus are written for
the 80% of the home PC market. Which is MS. Apple computer has lots of
problems in dealing with the present world. Can not open a lot of the
files you receive via email. So you have to either buy a lot of Apps. I
run Open Office on the iMac so I can look at and print .xls files. I do
have Pages, but when you are kicking out $7-40 for lots of apps on an
expensive machine anyway, it starts to hurt. No support for Flash, etc.


I have no problems opening files emailed to me. I have the Microsoft
Office Suite, which includes EXCEL...for .XLS files. I don't miss FLASH.


And how much extra did you pay on top of the high price for Apple to get it
to open the files? And Flash is ubiquitous to the web display.