[extropy-chat] when will computers improve?

[Harvey Newstrom]

Kevin Freels wrote,
> This is what I heard and is why I have chosen (so far) to
> stay with the KNOWN evil rather than jump to a new one. As 
> much as I love technology, something inside me as afraid to 
> give up the command prompt ability!

This is why I like the MacOS X.  It has the Macintosh gui for the graphical
interface and a unix command prompt for the command-line interface.  It has
all the same shells to choose from as unix or linux, so the commands are the
same.  Scripts that run on unix or linux will run on the Mac as well.  The
Unix command prompt is much more powerful that DOS.  You can chain a lot of
commands together, with filters and reformatting between the chain links.
The commands actually run simultaneously, so that each line of out put of
one gets processed in the next at the same time.  Unlike DOS which captures
all the output from the first program before inputting it to the second
program.  It also has full job control, where you can run commands in the
background, switch between them, set priorities, etc.

BillK wrote,
> Sounds excessive to me.
> I have Win98, 256MB memory, and when I load all the drivers,
> plus Nvidia graphics drivers plus Cable Internet, Sygate 
> Personal firewall, AVG antivirus and Mozilla Mail and 
> Browser, I have resources available of about 83% GDI, 80% 
> USER and 80% SYSTEM.

Be aware that Win98 reports percentage of virtual memory, not actual memory.
Your 80% free may be using all your available memory and swapping some into
your virtual memory.  Tuning it down to fit only in real memory will greatly
speed up the machine.  You can test this theory by setting your virtual
memory to a static size instead of letting the system do it.  Then if you
double your virtual memory, you can see your resources appear to cut in
half.  Or if you half your virtual memory, you can see your resources appear
to double.
(Be prepared to boot into safe mode to set this back if you cut back too
far.)

Kevin Freels wrote,
> > How complex is that software? If it's simple, there's a good chance
> > that will run under Wine (a windows emulator for Linux), or 
> > some other emulator/Virtual PC.

I have always had good results running WINE under unix or Virtual PC under
Mac.  Everything ran fine, just slower than the native machine would be.
Under Virtual PC on a Mac, I have installed RedHat Linux, DOS, Windows 95,
98, and ME for testing purposes.  All of them loaded from the PC CD's and
couldn't tell the Mac from a PC.

Mike Lorrey wrote,
> Keep an eye on all those TSRs that run down on the right hand
> end of the task bar. They tend to pile up a lot. I have also 
> noticed, at least in XP, that many such programs that you 
> install that should display an icon down there don't, though 
> the programs are running if you bring up the task list in 
> task manager.

If you right-click the task bar and go to Properties, there is a checkbox to
hide inactive icons.  This will hide running programs when you haven't
accessed their taskbar icon menu for a while.  There also are more advanced
options to hide or unhide individual programs.  Also, many XP programs are
starting to have their own preference for whether they should show up in the
task bar or not.  These tend to get reset a lot, and I go in and reset them
back.  Turning them off and back on can also make them reappear, even if the
preferences panel claims they are already turned on.

David Lubkin wrote,
> Two things I did do to improve the system -- I'd had
> thousands of fonts installed; it's down to a few hundred now.
> And I got rid of a lot of the processes I don't want that
> were lurking in the background.  See 
> http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm.

This is an excellent resource.  I am amazed at how much junk is installed
with Windows, and gets installed later by all different programs.  There are
usually dozens of invisible programs running in the background that are not
ever needed by most people.  This is useful for plug-and-play or universal
support, but it leaves a lot of opportunity for cleanup as well.

Mike Lorrey wrote,
> Something else I have noticed: when you have one browser
> window on a YABB SE supported forum, and another browser 
> window on Friendster, images will fail to load and eventually 
> the browser will crash.

I have seen this problem with the Extropy BBS.  I debugged it down to YABB
referencing its own page objects incorrectly.  The way they did it did not
refer to the current window, but the topmost window or first window or some
such sloppiness that might not get the right window when more than one
window was open.  If the other window had forms with similar object types in
it, YABB ended up accessing and trying to change windows it didn't own,
causing errors and inconsistencies between what it thought it had set and
what ended up getting set in its own window.

> I am also convinced that lots of OS crashes are not the fault
> of the OS or any programs installed. They are the fault of 
> the particular combination of hardware you have installed on 
> the motherboard, particularly the video card.

This is very true.  I travel around a lot doing consulting, and am often
plugging my laptop into different monitors, networks, printers, etc.  The
stability of my system was dramatically different while I was plugged into
different things.  I quickly learned which devices made my system flakey and
which ones didn't.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com>