Post interesting tips for the novice computer user

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Ok, I'll bite.

Why is it then that the more competent the user, the less problems they have? Granted, UNIX based systems require a high degree of understanding to use and administrate properly, and hence they are used in enterprise environments. But by that stroke of logic, you have to pick between secure and hard to use, or insecure and easy to use.

And don't even get me started on Apple. Yes, Apple's OSX is considered very secure. It's also locked down to the point that the end user can hardly do anything that Apple doesn't agree with, and that happens to be a lot.

I don't mean to start a flame war or to troll, just my opinion. I think that if people too the time to educate themselves a little bit better, they would find that the situation isn't as bad as it seems at first glance.

Ok, I'll bite.

Why is it then that the more competent the user, the less problems they have? Granted, UNIX based systems require a high degree of understanding to use and administrate properly, and hence they are used in enterprise environments. But by that stroke of logic, you have to pick between secure and hard to use, or insecure and easy to use.

And don't even get me started on Apple. Yes, Apple's OSX is considered very secure. It's also locked down to the point that the end user can hardly do anything that Apple doesn't agree with, and that happens to be a lot.

I don't mean to start a flame war or to troll, just my opinion. I think that if people too the time to educate themselves a little bit better, they would find that the situation isn't as bad as it seems at first glance.

Because they tend to be more circumspect with what they use the computer for and are much less likely to open attachments in EMails from unknown users (a Windows-only problem), much less likely to respond to nonsense such as "click here to check your computer" links on relatively unknown websites (another Windows-only speciality), much less likely to feel the need to grab software from unknown sites and just run it (on Windows, users would almost certainly be running it with the default Administrator privileges - which won't really help much), much less likely to download music files from less than pristine sources (carrying the risk of other Windows-specific problems) - and so on.

In other words; a user with little understanding of what they're doing while using this 'oh so friendly system' needs to somehow know in advance that what they're doing could be problematic - again, only with that particular operating system.
And it's ironic that, discounting the technically competent users who would have a much better understanding of the 'why', the majority of competent users will have simply learned to not do certain things otherwise bad, malware-related things will probably happen - because the OS itself is incapable of stopping them from happening.
So the competent user basically ends up wet-nursing the OS and holding its hand, while the others suffer the consequences of not doing so.
Neither is acceptable.

Not really true. It's just not Windows and doesn't come with any "click here to make a network" buttons, and anyone technically competent with Windows and not afraid of typing a few commands won't have significant difficulties with learning it. You're expected to understand to some degree how it works because that's the most effective way of getting the best from a computer.
There is no jam spoon; you have to bring your own.

But very little that the average user might use to cause problems if they were allowed to go ahead and do it. The OS implementation is protecting itself from the user, quite apart from being considerably more secure by design. Then again, I suspect most of the limitations you're referring to apply to the GUI interface and what it allows a user to do.
That said, I don't much like Apple's "bind 'em tight" approach either but if it came to choosing between that and whatever it is that Microsoft dumps on a user, I'd go for Apple.

Indeed. It's actually considerably worse than it seems at first glance.

Well, I don't agree. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

As far as tips and tricks, here are a few concerning that odd little "Windows" key on keyboard and what it's used for.

WinKey = Opens the Start Menu
WinKey+D = Minimizes all open windows to the desktop
WinKey+E = Opens My Computer
WinKey+L = Locks the computer
WinKey+Pause/Break - Opens the System Properties Menu

Well, I don't agree. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

As far as tips and tricks, here are a few concerning that odd little "Windows" key on keyboard and what it's used for.

WinKey = Opens the Start Menu
WinKey+D = Minimizes all open windows to the desktop
WinKey+E = Opens My Computer
WinKey+L = Locks the computer
WinKey+Pause/Break - Opens the System Properties Menu

I am going to have to disagree with you here. Windows and linux are equally capable at stopping malware. Both are multi-user operating systems with protected memory. Evil code can only mess up things to which you give the code access (a problem that is not unique to windows).

I would even argue that windows is moving toward being MORE secure than linux, with the introduction of the user-mode driver framework, which allows certain drivers to run in a protected environment. If a linux driver is exploitable, then getting root on that box is trivial. If it's buggy then it can easily crash your whole system. Third party servers and drivers make up the vast majority of windows vulnerabilities, and as more and more proprietary software and hardware developers start supporting linux, linux's monolithic kernel could become a real problem.

Don't get me wrong, I personally use linux quite often (and use GnuWin32 (native win32 ports of common gnu command line tools) on my work computer), but it's kernel architecture leaves a lot to be desired (same with windows, but Microsoft is at least taking steps in the right direction).

What I would like to see is an OS that runs only managed code. No buffer overflows to worry about, and no slow memory protection. There are some esoteric ones around (Microsoft's Singularity and JNode), but they are not really useful at this point.

I just can't wait for Windows 8 to be honest.
I have a window of a example video of Windows 8

Of course, but what is unique is that this access is granted by default on Windows. I assume this is so the user doesn't have to bother learning about different access rights and permissions. That's pretty dim.

Heh. While "moving toward" is relative, I think Windows would need to be broken apart and redesigned from scratch to achieve this - but maybe the more visible moves towards 64-bit systems generally will become Microsoft's lucky break in this regard.
Time will tell.

True in principle, but having proprietary binaries incorporated into Linux 'goes against the grain' and the preferred solution, implemented in most cases, is fully open source 'community driven' binaries. Some more enlightened manufacturers are also realising it's easier to provide information about their hardware to assist this process, and often receive useful feedback as a result.

On a theoretical level, maybe - but unlike traditional monolithic kernels, device drivers in Linux are easily configured as loadable kernel modules and are loaded or unloaded while running the system.
Many problems experienced by end users would be resolved by simply producing better-crafted code in the first place, irrespective of the kernel architecture.
This monolithic/micro debate is highly technical and raged for some time (and probably is still); the gory details are best unearthed by Googling the Tanenbaum–Torvalds debate - but maybe these as tasters:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum% ... lds_debate
http://www.realworldtech.com/forums/ind ... 5&roomid=2


Anyway, this is all highly off-topic and I really don't want to set myself up as a Linux evangelist or as a dedicated Windows iconoclast.

Tip: asking for help on any computer forum may spark this debate.

Back on topic: more keyboard shortcuts.

When drafting up an important document, pressing Alt + F4 will save an extra copy to your hard drive for you.



Edit: sorry, couldn't resist. This tip is not to be taken seriously.

So back to seriousness:

Want to clean temp files for multiple user accounts in one go?

Download TFC from:

http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/files/do ... -oldtimer/

on windows, go to run and type in , cmd


type , net user , into the command prompt to display users on the computer

net user {username} , {fill this space with a username to show information on them}
net user {username} [password] , {same as above} [type something in to change password]
net user /add {username} , {add a user name to the computer}
net user /add {username} [password] , same as above but add a password to the the account you want to crerate.
net user /delete {username} , deletes the selected username.
net user /? , shows a basic help page with some commands. if you want more, google it.

ipconfig , 'displays all current TCP/IP network configuration values' - wikipedia
ipconfig /all , shows a more detailed version of the above
ipconfig /release , releases the configuiation of ip addresses for your adapter(s)
ipconfig /renew , renews the configuiration settings. this and the above one are useful if internet connection fails, sometimes.
ipconfig /displaydns ' shows the contents of your dns resolver cache
ipconfig /flushdns ' empties dns cache. the same one as above.
ipconfig /? , shows a much more detailed help page than the net user equivalent. maybe because its a newer command or something.

(the commas are there to split up the text, not to be typed.)


i hope i've contributed well. this took me a while to compile together. there are plently more out there. good luck to you all.
there is the shutdown command, which maybe later, i will go over if it hasnt already been gone through.

good night all, and thanks for all the fish, lol.

Provided they were assigned via DHCP in the first place.
Provided the interface is configured to obtain data from a DCHP service, and that it is reachable.

[quote="Cornflake"]
thanks for pointing out what i missed.

Yeah well, I was just being picky. It's what I do best.
For most domestic users who would likely be using DHCP anyway, what you suggested would work fine.