Comments for Newbie? Or Normal?

Comment from Frank on 2006-08-08

2006-08-08T18:54:12Z

Hi Leo,

I’m a 72 year old pc user who enjoys following your regular contributions to the Lockergnome Newsletter.

Your remarks related to the proliferation of more “whiz bang features and gizmos” are right on. I agree with your observation that simplicity is missing and is certainly missed by me. However, consider the following:

Analogy . . . for many years auto manufactures offered numerous features & gizmos i.e. radios, heaters and air conditioners to mention just a few. Today these items are standard in their vehicles to the extent that it would require a very special order indeed to purchase a vehicle without such items. Add to this, the grim fact that manufactures are unable to ‘cost effectively’ produce vehicles without what were once aka . . . . features & gizmos. These are now considered to be necessities.

Marketing . . . To expand the market (your market – any market) and compete, it’s essential to disappoint the least number of customers and to constantly ‘beat’ the competition. This is accomplished in many ways but price and ‘features’ aka features & gizmos, seemingly lead the way especially as the concept of ‘brand loyalty’ seems to have vanished and ‘the market’ appears to consist of predominately technology savvy ‘younger buyers’.

Bottom Line . . . Time marches on, demand continues and so long as the marketing efforts produce the desired results . . . . . you can count on more whiz bang features and gizmos coming to a product near you soon! God Bless America!

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Comment from S.E. on 2006-08-02

2006-08-02T20:03:16Z

Thank you for your remarks. I am probably at an intermediate level of knowledge for computers. (I wish I had known about your site earlier!) I, too, just want a phone. I have a basic phone through T-Mobile. (no pics, no video) I still haven't used all of the features after 2 years! I want a phone for convenience and emergencies, not to impress my friends.

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Comment from El Cheapo on 2006-07-30

2006-07-30T11:17:14Z

Bells & whistles can be ignored. Just get the cheapest phone and service that meets your needs. Take MS Office -- I like and use Outlook and WORD but I ignore PowerPoint and Excel.

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Comment from jesse on 2006-07-30

2006-07-30T08:36:54Z

My computer froze its an emachine and i punched it were the power buttons were and then pulled out the power cord and plugged it back in and then when i turned it on it said emaching then went to the boot screen and nothing loads or says anything and then the computer just beeps not from the speakers but from the computer and i was wondering if it was possible that i fried my hard drive cause i wright songs but i wright them in text documents and i was wondering if they would be gone forever...

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Comment from toma on 2006-07-29

2006-07-29T17:40:25Z

my computer keeps closing programs i.e Win avi aswell as my documents etc

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Comment from Lisa Galvin on 2006-07-28

2006-07-29T01:35:02Z

This is a great topic, and one that is also the main topic in Alan Cooper's book, "The Inmates are Running the Asylum", which I'm sure you must have read! :) Thank you for addressing this!

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Comment from Leo Notenboom on 2006-07-28

2006-07-28T16:14:04Z

Miles: I think either would work, but I thinking after all this time much of what you install via the CD would get replaced with a download once you visitied MS Update. My approach would be to start with the CD if you have dial-up, but if you're on broadband I'd skip it and visit Windows Update first to get the latest of everything that way.

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Comment from Bo on 2006-07-28

2006-07-28T12:39:32Z

Tracfone! We have three Nokia 1100 phones with prepaid service from them. This model is "just a phone". No contracts. I think this is as simple as it gets, these days.

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Comment from MILES STONE on 2006-07-28

2006-07-28T10:03:03Z

Hi,
I just setup a brand new out of the box purchased HP 794c computer which was never unpacked from 2-3 years ago. It has a Win XP Os with 1 gb ram, 250gb HD with an 8 gb partition for restoring to factory setting if a crash should occur. The OS was authenticated by HP who installed the OS. It runs very well and everything works. My question is:
Can I use a M$ cd mailed to me from 2004 with sp2 on it for installing sp2 and get the remaining updates online? Or do I need to do a download from M$ of their current sp2 instead of using this perfectly good sp2 cd? I am not worried about going online as this computer will be part of a network with a linksys wired router and I could enable the terrible sp1 network firewall until I downloaded the online sp2. Also I know there are 2 year old drivers that are still working fine and since this drive is clean, I'd rather not update the drivers until sp2 is installed and my other AV and malware software is active. Please tell me how to proceed with the sp2 issue as I hope you will allow me to just install it via the 2004 cd sent first with sp2 rather than going and waiting for the download from M$ in a more vulnerable state? I do not have the original cd to slipstream a sp2 cd for further installs and that is of no concern as the restore partition exists and I could always go through the sp2 install in the future again, should the drive crash, etc.

Thank you for your help and support. I realize there are several ways of doing this sp2 installation, etc.

Sincerely,

M.E. Stone, M.D.

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Comment from mark on 2006-07-27

2006-07-28T03:24:11Z

gotta agree with you Leo. I am in the middle on this one myself. I have a certain tech savy. I know enough about computers and electronics to keep my system running and in tune (I can do system re-installs and a some hardware), but the bottom line is I just want things to work. I these are partly my toys, but as a student they are, ultimately, my tools.

As for the cell phones, its best to look for the cheapest models, usually the ones that come free with a new contract or renewal. I have a samsung A-650. It has a few bells and whistles such as voice recognition, but no camera. Most of the main features that I use were fairly easy to configure and it holds up well....

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Comment from Leo Notenboom on 2006-07-27

2006-07-28T03:03:02Z

Without knowing more, I would *guess* McAfee itself.

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Comment from Bryan Beck on 2006-07-27

2006-07-28T02:53:52Z

This is getting to be very annoying!
I get this McAfee error message at startup: Resource Dll is Missing Please Reinstall the Application. What application is it refering too? And, how do I fix it?

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