Longing for The Good Old Days – Sort Of
I bought my first computer, an Apple II+ back in the ‘80s I think it was. It had to be specially ordered because I wanted to run WordStar, an early word processing program, and that required… oh never mind. No hard drive, just two floppy’s. It took me two weeks to figure out how to get a sentence from the screen to the printer. But it checked my spelling!
I used DOS, the precursor to Windoz (my only curse in the world is “May Bill Gates and his wife be using his software) and still miss command lines once and awhile – because it was so direct. My first hard drive seemed a miracle and I’ll have to admit I miss the lean software limited memory gave us.
This is all on my mind because yesterday I agreed to allow Adobe reader to be updated. Geeze that was convoluted. And last night I renewed my Norton’s Anti-Virus. What a goat dance. It insisted I dump Zone alarm, told me twice it couldn’t complete the install because I hadn’t restarted my computer… I had, I had. I gave up around 7 p.m., turned everything off and figured I’d probably be trying to get through to support this morning.
But no, this time it let me finish the install, but then insisted it had to do a virus scan of my whole hard drive. That’s still going on in background, which slows everything down to what, molasses?
This version goes after spyware as well as viruses, so, if it ever finished, I suppose I’ll be glad. So far, it’s found and “fixed” one item… no clue, no clue at all what that might really mean.
Meanwhile, the dishes are done, the floors swept, everything is picked up and I’m frustrated as heck because I’ve got some writing to do… I do remember when it was a whole lot simpler… true of most things these days I suppose.
Write well and often,
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POSTED IN: Musings From A Freelance Writer, The Kitchen Sink
12 opinions for Longing for The Good Old Days – Sort Of
Tom Chandler
Apr 5, 2007 at 10:57 am
Ahh, the Apple II. Anyone else longing for the famous IBM PCjr “chicklet” keyboard? No? Didn’t think so.
I would dump Norton for Trend Micro or any of the other better solutions.
And yes, automatic updates can be nice, but they’re also a monster pain at times. I recently was giving a presentation in a wireless-ready classroom, and that damned Microsoft auto-update notice kept popping up.
Turns out it was an “update” whose only function was to check if my copy of MS Windows was legitimate, a real boon to the end user.
Devon Ellington
Apr 5, 2007 at 11:42 am
I had to dump Norton because it caused too many problems. I switched to McAfee — since I’ve used them, I’ve had very few problems, although its insistence on scanning everything before it gets through — necessary — sometimes slows me down when I first power up.
The price is a bit less than Norton, and I found it works better.
Mike Sieber
Apr 5, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Good Lord. I don’t know how you PC people do it.
Anne Wayman
Apr 5, 2007 at 3:41 pm
I remember the pc jr… actually had a book contract about it… ugh… needless to say the book never got written.
re norton’s… well, it’s done… we shall see.
Joanne Lozar Glenn
Apr 6, 2007 at 6:06 am
AVG Anti-virus (they also have a free version — see http://www.grisoft.com, look for “AVG free”) is also decent and was recommended to me by a tech support person. (I, too, dumped Norton after it kept messing with my functionality.) Good luck, Anne–these kinds of things are so frustrating!
Star
Apr 6, 2007 at 8:51 am
After 25 years in PC world, have actually thought about a Mac. My Windows keeps saying it needs more virtual memory and is getting it. So get it already! I don’t care! Quit with the messages everyday!
I can guarantee Bill and Melinda don’t put up with this. I don’t want Vista. I don’t want them spying. I don’t want updates. Leave me alone!
Tom Chandler
Apr 6, 2007 at 9:03 am
I *used* to be a Mac guy, but dumped it back when using a Mac on the Internet meant thrice-daily crashes and little access to vertical market software.
I’d say things have largely changed, though I’m not at all sure I’m ready to switch back two years from now (when this PC will have become untenable).
And I wonder how much ground Linux will have gained by then…
Anne Wayman
Apr 6, 2007 at 9:53 am
I’m due for a new computer soon and I dread going to Vista… hope I don’t have to.
Tempted by Linux…
Mac is also tempting, but…
Nancy Klee
Apr 6, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Do consider a Mac … it’s what I use all day at work (I set type for a living, although it’s called graphic design these days); the operating system is 100% intuitive and so much less intrusive than Windoze.
Although, at home, I must admit, I use the dreaded PC. There is something weird wrong with my Windoze ‘cuz whenever it tries to do the update thang, it gets stuck, reports an error, and then shuts down without updating. Fine with me. I don’t need no steenkin’ updates. ;)
–R
Scot Herrick
Apr 6, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Of course, in the old days, there wasn’t the need for all of the protection of firewalls, viruses and spyware waiting to turn your PC to mush. And, the data we have on it today is much more critical to doing our work then back then.
Commentary on products: Norton takes too many PC resources in my mind; I switched to Zone Alarm’s suite of products.
And, yes, it is frustrating!
Anne Wayman
Apr 8, 2007 at 8:01 am
Nancy, I’m looking at macs…
and Scott, I may ask for a refund and switch!
Carma Dutra
Apr 8, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Anne, Adobe has messed me up a few timew with their updates.
I have Norton and spy sweeper and I set up an automatic scan and sweep for each Friday evening. So far I am pretty happy with what I have.
I do run across some technical issues occasionally and that can be very frustrating when it happens late at night.
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