Free is cheap!

Free is cheap and often better than paid programs. This article from the Boston Herald reiterates my disdain for the "Make your computer faster" ads on TV.

Make your computer run faster, and all for free
By Paul Restuccia
Monday, September 20, 2010
You’ve all seen the ads on TV for programs to make your computer run faster. They go something like this: “Spyware, malware, pop-ups and spam have slowed your computer to a crawl.” The remedy is go to a Web site for a free check-up, which turns out not to be free. They’ll fix one problem, but you have to buy the program to get the rest of the repairs.

Well, from my own experience I have a piece of advice that borrows one of these ad’s taglines: “Don’t Waste Your Money.” These programs are no better than what you can easily find for free on the Web.
Rest of the story

There are some good things to be had from the Verizon DSL, but you have to keep the land line. $20 for simple DSL or $30 for faster DSL. Both give a router/modem for free, but require a land line and a year (maybe 2) contract.

I have had a DSL for a while @ $30 per month for a few years.

I have had both computers, a guest laptop and iPhone running at the same time with no degradation.

Verizon doesn't know what they want to do. They offer some great deals, but they aren't getting out of the copper wire to house market yet. They haven't yet got Fiber Optic (FiOs) to house yet, so the best speed they have is about/advertised 3 Mbs down .7 up.

UP TO 3/7! Sometimes I get better than 3 down, I run .71-.73 up. My ping has increased from 22 ms to up to 39 as shown by a recent test.


Sometimes it's OK, sometimes I want to scream. YMMV. I had to deal with a Cape-wide Comcast outage this summer. No phone, cable TV or Internet. I was at work and couldn't run credit cards. I had ONE back-up copper line than got maxed out with a few phones and a dial-up connection. I had unfriendly in-house calls from guests.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

OpenOffice is a FREE office software suite that is compatible with most every other office application. I've been looking at it for a while but after a reformat, my Microsoft Word and Office wanted too much from me. I downloaded OpenOffice (takes a while) and installed it painlessly. After an hour of playing with the functions, I have more than a clue because it's so much like those other office programs I used to use.

Go Team!

To the Dungeon!
What are the names of the nasties?

OOo is like MS Office, Works, Word Perfect and Word. It takes up less room though.

After I did a "Non-Destructive System Recovery", some of my "old" programs, that worked just fine, were deemed "too old". Word didn't work. Word Perfect didn't work. For some $$$ they would sell me the new versions. Nope. Works didn't work but would let me upgrade for free, however it's not the defacto / default program of choice and doesn't plat well with others if I were to sent a document via e-mail.

Suite just means it does a few things like write letters, databases, graphics, and all the stuff the other programs use.

Plus I kinda like the idea of open-source programs. They're not written for $$$, just the love of programming a functional bit of software. It just made sense to ditch the old programs that no longer worked because M$ wanted to sell me something "new & improved" (bloated & slow).

Betep wrote;
"Plus I kinda like the idea of open-source programs. They're not written for $$$, just the love of programming a functional bit of software. It just made sense to ditch the old programs that no longer worked because M$ wanted to sell me something "new & improved" (bloated & slow)."



I like the way you think- Plus, only you could come up with `bloated & slow` description. You are an original!

I can't take credit for using those terms.
From PC Mag.com: Definition of: bloatware

"Software that is so overloaded with functionality that its performance suffers. At the very least, it takes a long time to load the program. Software vendors have the perception that more is always better, or at least more marketable."