Experiences with non-techies

[NinjaJc01]

3 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

Just remembered, you can use symlinks to move Kaspersky. I used that a few years ago when my OS SSD was 60GB.

 

A good article from how-to-geek;

 

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/

I'll look in to that.

[Clanscorpia]

32 minutes ago, Pascal... said:

This is not how Hardware Works !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RIP fingertips 2k16

[Bleedingyamato]

2 hours ago, SageOfSpice said:

My mother...

 

She always buys these expensive laptops, and they work great... for a week.

 

"Hey, can you take a look at my computer? It's been really slow lately for some reason."

 

Laptop fan blaring at full steam, sounds like a jet engine. Open up screen, desktop completely and I mean COMPLETELY filled to the brim with shortcuts and documents. Open up task manager, 400 active processes. Open up browser to download tool, every toolbar known to man is taking up 3/4 of the browser window.

 

Spend 5 hours optimizing it and cleaning it both physically and emotionally. "Hey, where is program X?" "It was a virus." "Oh".

 

Yeah, no thank you, just accusations about getting rid of her shit.

 

It pisses me off, lol. "Hey is this processor good? What about this GPU?"

 

What does it even matter? Lol. You don't know what any of it does anyways, and you never use anything other than the internet!

My parents are the same way.  lol    They both bought HP laptops last summer with my mom's having a 1080p screen, i7-5500U, 12GB of RAM, DVD drive, and a GTX 950M all for $980 while my dad's cost $1400 for an i7-5500U, 8GB of RAM, Blu-Ray drive, and a GTX 850M according to the specs sheet for it.  Both have a 1TB 5400rpm HDD btw.  I think my mom's was on sale when she got it a few weeks or a month after my dad got his so that may account for some of the price difference.

 

Anyway here comes the crazy.  lol

 

My dad wanted a laptop with a good CPU and a "good" dedicated GPU so he could play some really really old Microsoft Flight Sim game he has and I think nothing else.  Problem?  That Flight Sim game is so old the system requirements likely don't require a dedicated GPU and worse is he hasn't done anything on a computer beyond Internet browsing, iTunes, and watching a few movies in almost a decade at least.  As for my mom she has NEVER played a PC game or done anything besides internet browsing, iTunes, and watching videos from fb or various sites.

 

So they both spend at least about $1000 or more on laptops with specs (i7, extra RAM, Nvidia dedicated GPUs, 1080p screens) that they will never use to their full potential.  Wasting so much money like that makes my head hurt every time I think about it.  ?

[Bleedingyamato]

3 hours ago, maulemall said:

I probably didn't express myself well. I get in a hurry and don't proof what I type.

 

 

It's ok.  I do that too sometimes.  

[Bleedingyamato]

1 hour ago, DocSwag said:

Imo you don't really need antivirus or anything like that as long as you aren't some big target with a lot of info and you use logic. It's pretty hard to get any sort of virus or anything if both of those things are true. The only time I've ever gotten malware was when I was stupid and was trying to get a clash of clans hack (please don't judge) and I ended up getting a piece of adware. That time though I wasn't using logic so yeah.

 

And that reminds me..... Story time!

 

So about that adware incident.... So basically as you now know I was attempting to get a clash of clans hack (silly me, hacks aren't for kids!). I ended up getting a very annoying piece of adware on my Mac laptop (PLEASE DON'T JUDGE). So I downloaded bit defender, and it found a bunch of malware. I deleted all of the malware, and whaddaya know, on the next reboot the computer said one of my boot files was missing.... Ouch. I ended up taking it to the Apple Store where the guy ended up just having to reinstall OS X. Luckily I didn't have anything important on there though.

 

Now that I know more about computers though he could've just made a new partition on my hard drive and installed OS X on the new partition so I wouldn't have lost any of my data, and could've just copied it over! Not sure why he didn't do that. Looks like Genius Bar isn't so genius after all!

I bet they're still more competent than Best Buy's Geek Squad.  lol

[WkdPaul]

9 minutes ago, Bleedingyamato said:

*snip*

I wouldn't wish the pain of a consumer grade HP laptop on anyone, even my worst enemy!

 

Overpaying for a laptop is nothing new though, and chances are it'll have a better resale value if they ever want to sell them... oh wait, we're talking about HP laptops! RIP ...

[BingoFishy]

9 minutes ago, Bleedingyamato said:

I bet they're still more competent than Best Buy's Geek Squad.  lol

You sure about that?

[Bleedingyamato]

45 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

Even 10GB is already too much IMO. As I said a few pages back, I use different softwares for my security needs and I'm pretty sure they don't even add up to 1GB.

 

Best thing IMO is a combination of applications, often free. Sadly when your parents are in charge and they don't know, you get stuck in a dead-end!

How many is a good number of antivirus/antimalware without getting to be ridiculous?  I like the idea of multiple layers of protection but knowing me I'd risk going overboard and having too many that might slow my system more than Norton is said to.  Actually idk how much Norton slows it down if it does.

 

Thats why I'm sooo glad I've had my own computer since 2006.  I love being able to install any game or legitimate program I want without getting yelled at.  Or not having my family mess up my iTunes playlists.  Stuff like that.

 

My parents are computer illiterate, my mom just doesn't have an interest which is fine but my dad is a stuck up know it all who thinks he has all sorts of computer knowledge.  Including knowing all about upgrading them because sometime between 10-15 years ago one time he replaced the CPU and GPU in some crap Dell prebuilt we had.  

 

Every time I've mentioned about upgrading part of my main desktop or troubleshooting a problem such as blue screen error crashes from problems attempting to use XMP on my RAM before having to adjust it manually my dad shoots his mouth off and criticizes me or tries to spout nonsense that is 100% wrong.  It's like trying to explain the truth to a brick wall...

[Bleedingyamato]

14 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

I wouldn't wish the pain of a consumer grade HP laptop on anyone, even my worst enemy!

 

Overpaying for a laptop is nothing new though, and chances are it'll have a better resale value if they ever want to sell them... oh wait, we're talking about HP laptops! RIP ...

The shells/cases actually seem kind of nice to me but it just hurts my brain to hear my dad in particular say he wanted a good graphics card to play some game that's a decade or more older than the HP laptop HD claims he wants to play it on.  To say nothing about the fact that it's been almost 1 year since he bought the laptop and he has yet to play the flight sim or anything even once...  

 

Hey! ? lol  I helped my friend pick out a passable yet cheap HP ultrabook about 2-3 years ago.  It wasn't anywhere near the top of the line at the time but it was on a pretty good sale for like $600-700 and I thought pretty decent for the money.   I forget what's in it though.  

 

To be fair it's showing it's age in that now my friend wants to play Rise of the Tomb Raider but there's zero chance that ultrabook can play it.  So I'm going to use my old GTX 970 in a build I'm going to do for her along with reusing a few parts I'd taken out of my main desktop when I upgraded it.  I know I couldn't have predicted that she'd get more into PC gaming and need a computer with much better specs to game with but I figure it's something nice I can do for her.  Also it means my 970 won't sit around unused collecting dust.  

 

 

Are HP laptops considered to be bad in some ways?  I'd thought they we're one of the better brands along with ASUS and I'm not sure what other brands.

 

 

[BingoFishy]

8 minutes ago, Bleedingyamato said:

Are HP laptops considered to be bad in some ways?

Highest failure rate. No big deal

 

[Bleedingyamato]

5 hours ago, wkdpaul said:

That makes no sense, I can't believe a MS engineer would answer that!!! A 2-way firewall means it block outgoing and incomming connections, Windows firewall does that since the first time it was introduced:

 

 

 

By default, Windows firewall block applications from outbound connections;

 

 

 

 

 

I know Spybot is useless, that's why I turn everything off and only use it for the host file.

 

The host file is used to block "malicious" internet access, it tell the OS "if you're looking for blabla.com then look here: " and a dead end IP is supplied (usually you would direct it to itself: 127.0.0.1).

 

So known dangerous or malicious IP can't be accessed (it's often used to block ads but you can redirect anything).

 

Here is an article from lifehacker (mostly for blocking intrusive ads);

http://lifehacker.com/5817447/how-to-block-unwanted-ads-in-all-applications-and-speed-up-web-browsing-with-the-hosts-file

 

 

No they would not interfere, I only use the router's firewall because it's a centralized solution, that means I only have to take care of one firewall (I have a total of 7 PCs and devices at home), I would only use Windows firewall if I had a local domain. So if you only have 1 or 2 PCs, using Windows firewall is perfectly fine.

 

 

In the end it's the user's choice and it's really about what each of us prefers, personally I work the way I do because it's what I'm used to do from my work experience. Though at work we are using paying solutions I don't have the budget for

 

Jeez I'd thought that was factual info coming from that source...

 

I couldn't check the Windows Firewall on my main desktop or secondary since it's disabled from using Norton.

 

So Spybot can actually do something useful?  Shocking! lol

It's worth installing to use for that then?

Dumb question: if I were to download Spybot, Malwarebytes, and Bitdefender at some point where would be safe to get them from?

 

I know I heard somewhere that download.com isn't safe or at least not always.

 

Good point about user choice though I wouldn't mind some of those corporate grade solutions that I bet work really well.  If the cost wouldn't be an issue of course.  

[WkdPaul]

32 minutes ago, Bleedingyamato said:

*snip*

What I would recommend is;

 

One good antivirus (I use bitdefender) I know that AVG, Kaspersky, Avira and Avast are good options but I don't like them.

 

One good antimalware, I use malwarebytes and I honestly couldn't recommend another one, not because there isn't any other choice but because I never looked into an alternative.

 

Any firewall should do, even Windows firewall is enough if you know how to set it up, if you need a firewall that doesn't need any setup then I would need to look one up because I prefer the ones that needs some "user input".

 

I would also recommend a way to add entries to the host file, though I use Spybot, it's usually not the preferred method, there are alternatives but I'm a bit lazy and it's mostly for intrusive adds, so nothing too dangerous anyway.

 

So in the end: 1 antivirus, 1 antimalware and 1 firewall, if you feel like it you could add something for the host file but that's optional.

 

As far as enterprise grade solutions, forget it, those solutions are full of features you wouldn't need, like the new ADSL modem we got last year, at $3000 USD it's not what you call affordable.

 

BTW sorry for the short answers, I'm out shopping with the wife and kid and I can only write here and there.

 

[Bleedingyamato]

1 hour ago, BingoFishy said:

Highest failure rate. No big deal

 

Eep!  ?

 

Luckily my friend's HP laptop seems to be holding up fine after a few years of use.

 

 

[Bleedingyamato]

1 hour ago, BingoFishy said:

You sure about that?

Wow.  Ok so they're both worse than this guy.  lol

[Bleedingyamato]

34 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

What I would recommend is;

 

One good antivirus (I use bitdefender) I know that AVG, Kaspersky, Avira and Avast are good options but I don't like them.

 

One good antimalware, I use malwarebytes and I honestly couldn't recommend another one, not because there isn't any other choice but because I never looked into an alternative.

 

Any firewall should do, even Windows firewall is enough if you know how to set it up, if you need a firewall that doesn't need any setup then I would need to look one up because I prefer the ones that needs some "user input".

 

I would also recommend a way to add entries to the host file, though I use Spybot, it's usually not the preferred method, there are alternatives but I'm a bit lazy and it's mostly for intrusive adds, so nothing too dangerous anyway.

 

So in the end: 1 antivirus, 1 antimalware and 1 firewall, if you feel like it you could add something for the host file but that's optional.

 

As far as enterprise grade solutions, forget it, those solutions are full of features you wouldn't need, like the new ADSL modem we got last year, at $3000 USD it's not what you call affordable.

 

BTW sorry for the short answers, I'm out shopping with the wife and kid and I can only write here and there.

 

Thank you for the info.  Definitely gives me a good starting point.  

 

I know they'd be way too expensive I just meant I assumed they'd have better grade security than everyday consumer antivirus, antimalware, etc. would have.  ?

 

 

Dont worry about the response length.  I appreciate the info and advice and I'm certainly not going to fault you for having a life.  ?

 

 

[GirlFromYonder]

1 hour ago, BingoFishy said:

Highest failure rate. No big deal

 

My HP, it one i am using right now has lasted for 5 years, and is just now showing its age.

[BingoFishy]

6 minutes ago, DeezNoNos said:

My HP, it one i am using right now has lasted for 5 years, and is just now showing its age.

I'm not saying that all HPs are bad. But from statistics I read on this lifehacker article, HP has the highest failure rate. 

 

EDIT: Admittedly, it's not a new article but it's probably still somewhat accurate.

[SLAYR]

8 minutes ago, BingoFishy said:

I'm not saying that all HPs are bad. But from statistics I read on this lifehacker article, HP has the highest failure rate. 

 

EDIT: Admittedly, it's not a new article but it's probably still somewhat accurate.

Here is the source article for those numbers with graphs, and the data is from 2009.

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/182376/Report_A_Third_of_Laptops_Fail_Within_3_Years.html

 

Personnally i have had more experiences with broken dells then anything else. Even for desktops, dells are the ones i fond broken the most.

[DocSwag]

3 hours ago, Bleedingyamato said:

I bet they're still more competent than Best Buy's Geek Squad.  lol

You're probably right on that one! I'd rather have Genius Bar than geek squad any day (not that I need either one).

[Bleedingyamato]

55 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

You're probably right on that one! I'd rather have Genius Bar than geek squad any day (not that I need either one).

Years ago my cousin bought a new GPU for his prebuilt Dell from Best Buy because the geek squad said it would work.  

 

Oops turned out that no the geek squad was 100% wrong and the card couldn't be used.  I doubt they even bothered to check his system model number to confirm whether or not the card was compatible.

 

Idiots working at PC repair shops are why I'm trying to learn a bit about PC stuff so I can learn to do at least some things myself instead of having to trust some moron who doesn't know as much as they should and will charge me ridiculous amounts of money for even basic repairs and troubleshooting.

Edited July 10, 2016 by Bleedingyamato
Fix spelling.

[BingoFishy]

A while back I read a best buy review of the base model 13" MacBook air. And I quote "It's apple so of course it's top-of-the-line"

 

They couldn't be further from the truth.

 

On a side note, does anyone want me to start a daily Best Buy reviews thing here (kinda like what @STRMfrmXMN did a while back with Yahoo answers)? I've already got a bunch ready.

[AlTech]

4 minutes ago, BingoFishy said:

A while back I read a best buy review of the base model 13" MacBook air. And I quote "It's apple so of course it's top-of-the-line"

 

They couldn't be further from the truth.

 

On a side note, does anyone want me to start a daily Best Buy reviews thing here (kinda like what @STRMfrmXMN did a while back with Yahoo answers)? I've already got a bunch ready.

Sure. Humor me.

[don_svetlio]

14 minutes ago, BingoFishy said:

A while back I read a best buy review of the base model 13" MacBook air. And I quote "It's apple so of course it's top-of-the-line"

 

They couldn't be further from the truth.

 

On a side note, does anyone want me to start a daily Best Buy reviews thing here (kinda like what @STRMfrmXMN did a while back with Yahoo answers)? I've already got a bunch ready.

Also Amazon ones. Those are beyond silly sometimes.

[Jeppythedude]

Over the past few years I've ended up being that guy that teachers would get to fix problems because I am "tech savy",  if a substute teacher had a problem,  I would think finally a break, but noo everyone in the class would point out that I could fix...  It whent so far as one teacher pulled me out of class too, wait for it... "transfer files to a external HDD fo free up space on laptop", there goes 20mins of a class near exams... In hind sight should have played dumb like rest of my friends and let "the techies" do It,  thay could fix problems 10x faster, given they are the people that implemented systems .etc

 

[vanished]

9 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

Also Amazon ones. Those are beyond silly sometimes.