Here are nine great tech links (and one great non-tech link) which will lead you to some great information. My hope is that the information will be of benefit to someone. Enjoy! Happy Easter!
Professor Randy says: I hope you find some value in these interesting tech articles and the one non-tech article. On a personal note I wish you a happy, restful, safe and reflective Easter!
In my last post I alerted you to the parasitic behavior of the very popular VoIP software Skype. Since Skype has no data servers of it’s own, it will use your computer as a “supernode” while gladly sucking resources (processor and bandwidth) from your system. You will unwittingly be allowing your computer to be used by other Skype users which will affect your computers performance and result in greatly increased bandwidth usage.
Several universities do not allow their students to use Skype. Just imagine a university that supplies it’s students with an Internet access bandwidth of 1 Gbit/s. This is very nice for the students but then along comes Skype. As the students use Skype and allow their computers to become “supernodes”, third party Skype users now begin to benefit from the university’s network. This third party “non-university” traffic not only affects each student computer, but also greatly affects the university’s Internet connection due to increased bandwidth usage. Who then is going to pay for the exorbitant bandwidth usage fees? The school/faculty of course while Skype continues to offer itself as free software. Pretty sneaky huh?
There are many other negatives to Skype but today I just want to confront the parasitic issues of processor and bandwidth utilization. Here is what you need to do in order to prevent Skype from “using you”:
1)Only use Skype when you need to make a call or when you know that a call is coming in. Don’t allow Skype to auto start when you turn on your computer. Uncheck the two sign-in screen options below:
A)“Sign me in when Skype starts”
B) “Start Skype when the computer starts”
2)Skype can only use your computer as a “supernode” if it is enabled. Turn Skype off when you are finished with your call. If Skype is inactive (truly off) it can’t become a “supernode” routing other users phone calls while it sucks up your machines precious resources. To “truly turn off” Skype do these two things:
A) Close the Skype application window (upper right hand corner “red x”)
B) Right click on the Skype icon in your system tray (lower right hand corner by the clock). Select “Quit”.
By doing these four simple things you can “use Skype” and not be “used by Skype”!
Professor Randy says:Be wise! Skype has many security and utilization issues but you can minimize the dangers by understanding how the software works and by therefore taking the appropriate safety measures.
It seems that everyone is using the incredibly popular VoIP solution Skype these days. Why use a conventional phone and pay for regular phone calls when you can have voice and video connections, file-transfer and instant messaging services over the Internet for free? The decision to use Skype is a “no brainer” right?
Well, things are not always as they seem! Today I would like to tell you what I think about the Skype VoIP system. There are certainly some benefits to using Skype but there is also a darker side to Skype that many people are unaware of. Today, the dark side of Skype!
First please bear with me as I talk a little bit about Google (don’t worry, I’ll connect all of the dots in a moment).
People are watching hundreds of millions of videos a day on Google’s YouTube and uploading hundreds of thousands of videos daily. In fact, every minute, 20 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube. Have you ever wondered where Google stores all of those videos? Well, Google has thousands of data server farms scattered across the world one of which is thought to be in The Dalles, Oregon. This container based data center in Oregon houses 45,000 servers in 45 huge containers. The 45,000 servers are full of Google data, and believe you me that’s a lot of data!
Now, have you ever wondered where Skype processes all of your voice, video, file and instant messaging data? As of early 2010, over 2 billion copies of the Skype software have been downloaded and over 20 million users are online constantly. Where are all of the Skype call processing server farms located?
Well, are you ready for this?SKYPE HAS NO CALL PROCESSING SERVER FARMS!!
Then how does Skype do all of it’s call processing and traffic routing you ask? If Skype doesn’t do it who does??
Well are you ready for this?YOU DO!!!!!
Yes you! Like the true peer to peer parasite that it is, Skype will use your computers processor and your fast PC Internet connection bandwidth to process calls for, and route traffic to, other users!
Take a look at the Skype PERMISSION TO UTILIZE license agreement that you agree to when you download and install the software:
ARTICLE 4.1: PERMISSION TO UTILIZE YOUR COMPUTER.In order to receive the benefits provided by Skype software, you hereby grant permission for the Skype software to utilize the processor and bandwidth of your computer for the limited purpose of facilitating the communication between Skype software users.
Is this incredible or what? Skype traffic will be sent through your computer as you become a Skype “supernode”. Your computer performance will be affected and your bandwidth usage will increase as your machine is used by other Skype users.
Where are the Skype servers you ask? THEY ARE IN YOUR HOME!! YOUR COMPUTER IS A SKYPE SERVER!!
If you have a fast Internet connection Skype will use your machine as a supernode and convert it into a Skype server to handle voice and video calls to and from other Skype users from all over the world. Just imagine, large flows of inbound and outbound traffic through your machine that have nothing to do with your calls. You use Skype? Skype uses you!
Enough for today. In my next post I’ll talk more about Skype and I’ll show you how to configure Skype in a way that will keep you and your machine somewhat safer.
Professor Randy says:Sure Skype is inexpensive, popular, and very appealing but there is a dark side to Skype! By becoming aware of the many privacy, security, and resource issues that are created by Skype, you will be able to make an informed decision concerning it’s use.
Discussing the shortcomings and benefits of the Windows (PC) and Mac operating systems is guaranteed to evoke strong feelings and passionate responses from both bands. Today a great interview: Houston Chronicle techbloggerDwight Silverman asked Golam Ragib (a Mac user since 2005) why he decided to go back to using a Windows PC after his initial switch to the Mac.
Dwight asked Golam four key questions. Below are the four questions and a short excerpt from Golan’s answer to each. The original post in it’s entirety can be found here. Good stuff!!
Q. Had you used Windows before using a Mac? If so, what versions, and when and why did you switch to the Mac?
I have used Windows from Windows 95 through to Windows XP. That would be 95, 98, ME, 2000 and XP.
The extra MHz (Windows) weren’t worth it. You needed all that and more to keep the PC running along with all the bloatware included by the OEM, the antivirus and anti-spyware and what not. Moreover, the bundled software is often crippled – trialware or limited-functionality. You had to get the “premium” version to get any work done. You add up all the expenses, and the cost of the PC and of the Mac were comparable. The only difference was that in the PC world, you would pay that in installments at unexpected times. In the Mac world, you pay all that cost upfront.
Q.Why go back to Windows?
I switched from Windows to Mac because the PC was interrupting my workflow, and now the Mac is doing the same. I have a pretty recent MacBook, a speced-out 13″ purchased in May 2009. Till the upgrade to Snow Leopard, it was just fine, no complaints. With Snow Leopard, it’s a disaster. I reinstalled Snow Leopard on bare hard drives at least 3 times with the same results. I had two options: downgrade to Leopard (gasp), or switch to Windows (GASP).
Microsoft fixed a lot of issues I was having with Windows with Windows Vista SP2 and Windows 7 (as long as you got a machine with sufficient horsepower).
Q. Have you encountered any issues that made switching to Win7 difficult?
Hardware aside, lets get to software. I listen to a lot of audio, mostly podcasts and audiobooks. On the Mac, I used iTunes and it was fine. On the PC, iTunes is a disaster. And Steve Jobs (I had to call his name again, sorry) calls Adobe lazy? … Moreover, moving between computers since the dawn of time, I finally ran out of audible.com licenses for computers. The MacBook I have is the last living machine I have that is authorized to play my audiobooks from audible.com. I am dubbing my 200+ audiobooks to get rid of the DRM. Not ideal, perfect or efficient, but the method is effective. A few more months to go. It’s very tempting to grab the torrents of the audiobooks I have.
Q. What do you think is better about Windows 7 than the Mac OS? Anything Mac OS X does that you wish Win7 would do?
The one thing where both fail is that I use the 64-bit version of Windows 7 (again because using the 32-bit version would just waste of hardware. I have 8GB RAM on my MacBook and Sony VAIO). FWIW, I might even just use Ubuntu. Point is that I still keep a netbook with XP on it because it’s easier to flash devices (phones, MIDs, etc.) on 32-bit XP platform than 64-bit Win7 because of driver-signing issues with the 64-bit kernel. You can’t get even that far on Mac OS or Ubuntu for most devices. … What I need to do my work in is a machine running XP (it doesn’t work in a VM, I’ve tried that), and a machine with lots of MHz and RAM. Choices were Mac OS or Windows 7. I switched.
Also add the window-management issue I discussed above.
One outstanding issue we have is audiobook management. I hate iTunes.
Q. What kind of reaction have you gotten from Mac-owning friends to your switching to Win7?
At first they thought I was nuts. Then the no-multitasking, no-VoIP-over-3G and Google Voice thing happened on the iPhone, followed by the “Adobe is lazy” incident, and finally the HTC lawsuit. No sane person wants to be a slave to Steve Jobs. His Reality-Distortion-Field has been shattered by his very own actions and decisions. We reacted when Microsoft and Intel were discussing the whole Palladium and TPM thing, and Apple should not get a free pass. They are not the little guy, they are just pretending to be the little guy. Hey, they just said they were the largest mobile devices company … They are not small anymore. Steve Jobs is a preschooler who wants to get away with bad behavior because he wants everybody to believe he is still a toddler.
Professor Randy says:Many people have good reasons for switching from Windows to Mac, but there are also many people with equally good reasons for going from Apple to Microsoft! Consider your needs along with the pros and cons of each platform and you’ll know what to do!!
Here are ten great tech links which will lead you to some great tech information. My hope is that the information will be of benefit to someone. Enjoy!
Professor Randy says: Today’s world is ever changing and many of these changes are taking place in the “tech” arena. By reading and studying informative articles like the above, you will stay up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology.
I’m considering buying a Solid State Drive (very expensive but the prices are coming down) and today I would like to tell you how I plan to use it.
In a previous post I talked about Solid State Drives (SSD’s). These super fast hard drives don’t have spinning platters like traditional hard drives but instead use flash memory much like a USB flash drive. SSD’s are super fast – your applications will launch instantly, games will load faster than ever before, your OS will boot up in seconds and there are no mechanical parts to make noise, heat up, or break down!
My plan is to have a two drive system and use the SSD as the boot drive only. I don’t need a large boot drive because I will only install my OS (Windows 7) and applications on it. My drive of choice is the 80GB Intel X25-M. Smaller means less expensive.
The second HD will be a large traditional spinning drive. Here I will keep all of my data, temporary files and swap file (it’s always a good idea anyway to keep these separate from the drive which contains the Operating System). This second drive will be much larger (something like this) which will allow for plenty of storage space for all of my pictures, videos, music, and other data.
With the small SSD as my boot drive and the large spinning HDD for storage, I’ll have the best of both worlds and a very fast system!
Professor randy says:A Solid State Drive will enhance your computers performance like nothing else. Now that SSD prices are coming down you may want to take them into consideration!
On Saturday, March 13 technology whiz Leo Laporte streamed himself live as he was “crowd surfed” in Austin Texas (unofficial world record!). The funny, historic moment was captured on video by Jeremy Johnstone.
Professor Randy says:Leo Laporte is a great “tech ambassador” to millions of people! He loves what he does and has fun doing it, but he was not always a success. George Lucas (Star Wars) once said:“A lot of people like to do certain things, but they’re not that good at it. Keep going through the things that you like to do, until you find something thatyou actually seem to be extremely good at. It can be anything.”
Day after day as I go about my computer repair business I’m continually seeing a recurring theme: computers full of unnecessary (junk) files. These files are clogging up and slowing down the computer, and must be deleted before I can do any type of speedy anti-malware or antivirus scans.
Today I would like to show you the basic three step plan that I use to remove these unwanted, unused files from a computer. If you don’t remove these files (Internet Explorer temporary files, history, cookies, autocomplete form history, index.dat, etc., etc.), they will continue to build up and eventually cause a multitude of problems.
BEFORE I DO ANYTHING ELSE – I DO THESE THREE THINGS!!
“PuraRa is a simple tool that does a simple job: it removes files from your computer that other mainstream cleaning programs tend to oversee. Some of our targets can simply be removed to create some valuable space while others are removed in an attempt to repair certain problems because they will simply recreate themselves”.
“CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system – allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it’s fast (normally taking less than a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware! :)”
“Junk Files Cleaner allows you to find and remove various types of junk and unnecessary files from your computer. Junk files are created by many of the Windows applications. Normally, such files are deleted by the application that created them as soon as they do not need them, but they may remain permanently on your hard drive if there is an unexpected termination of the parent application, a system crash, etc. Cleaning junk temporary files will free a lot of hard disk space”.
You’re done!! Once you complete these three basic steps, your computer should be quite clean and much faster. This alone may be enough for you, but in addition any other type of scan (anti-malware, antivirus, etc.) can now be run in an optimized state.
In a future post I’ll give you my basic plan to delete malicious software from your computer!
Professor Randy says:Somebody once said “cleanliness is next to godliness”. I agree – and I think that it’s good to keep your computer clean too!
There is nothing like great, high quality tech articles full of valuable content. Today I would like to point you to ten more awesome tech links. Enjoy the interesting and informative material!!
During the course of my work day, I often have to copy, delete, or move multiple files (image files, audio files, temporary files, text files, data files, document files, etc.) on my computer. If I had to select each file one by one it would take all day and it would drive me crazy! By selecting more than one file at a time, I can really speed up my work and get more done!
Today I would like to show you three great ways to select (or highlight) multiple files that will work with all modern operating systems and programs. If you don’t know these tricks you’re gonna love them!!
1) When You Want To SELECT ALL FILES In A Folder:
A) Hold down the Ctrl key while you press the letter “A” (lowercase or uppercase) on the keyboard. This will select all the files in the folder and then you can do whatever you want with them.
2) When You Want To SELECT A GROUP OF FILES THAT ARE IN A CONSECUTIVE ORDER:
A) Change the View of the files to List(choose View>List from the menu).
B) Click the first file that you need from the group of files (this might not necessarily be the first file on the list).
C) Hold the Shift key and click on the last file that you want from the group. You will now see a block of consecutive files selected (highlighted). You can now do whatever you want with them.
3) When You Want To SELECT SEVERAL FILES THAT ARE NOT IN A CONSECUTIVE ORDER:
A) Click the first file (that you want) from the group.
B) Hold the Ctrl key while you click on each specific file that you want to select. This technique allows you to select files at random (no particular order) from the group. You can now do whatever you want with them.
Professor Randy says:When you get used to using these shortcut keys you will have fun while you “fly” through your work with the greatest of ease!!
Hello everyone,
