Do you think computer problems are caused by:

how many of those ''10 machines a day'' are less than 2-3 months old?

i'm not exactly a ''newbie'', but even i get a nervous twitch when a window suddenly pops up and screams at me YOU HAVE A VIRUS SLOWING DOWN YOUR MACHINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CLICK *HERE* TO GET RID OF IT!!!!!!!!!!!

so what does a newbie do?
he just spent $400-2,000 on a machine that he loves more than his own mother, you think he won't click *HERE*?


.

There are enough news stories out there about this sort of thing that I find it hard to believe that even a newbie could fall for some of these scams. Take one of my favorite examples: The Nigerian bank scheme. People STILL get stung by this, even though it is always an obvious fake.

The bottom line is, these scammers rely on the gullibility of the populace. Of course, there are those like the PayPal spoofers who try and get your financial information and look pretty real, but even these guys can't do anything to you that you don't allow. And networks are vulnerable because people are too lazy to apply security updates to patch holes!

In the end, user ignorance is the #1 reason that systems and networks crash.


-Dave

You are correct for the population that finds computers easy to understand. However, there are many people out there who think that they can buy a computer, use email and the internet, maybe do some genealogy research, and all will work the way it is supposed to. They didn't grow up with computers and are not computer saavy. To tell these folks you have to install updates, patches, and install spyware, and all sorts of other stuff just is too much for them and they get overwhelmed.

True but nothing works the same way forever... not with out up keep... if they would just think about it alittle... NO one is going to make something that will last forerver... you wouldn't stay in business for long... but I under stand what you mean... I'm in that category.. but I was a little more in to it than most... Thanks..

Aha. It’s like telling people who buy a new car, that they have to break in the engine properly, take especial care in the first months of operation, and regularly carry out preventive maintenance, like changing fluids or brake pads. Sure, everybody should get overwhelmed.

Don’t you think the analogy is quite striking? And those who don’t get overwhelmed in the long run save thousands on repairs. Car, computer, any modern complex machine require proper routine of maintenance. It takes to learn “materiel”, but it pays off. Somehow my machine works fine all these years (one reinstall a year ago after two years before that) under heavy workload with virtually no stalls, and some people call me every two weeks (literally so) with broken computer. All I can say, good for me — I got extra beer money.

Ignorance and or irresponsible use are the cause of 90% of computer problems. It is the users responsibility to engage in safe computing. Those who do not should be prepared to pay the price.
If everyone were responsible and knowledgable with their computer, there would be little demand for technicians or support teams at the major sellers.
Likewise with the automobile and other machines that we have at out disposal.
Unfortunately, we have become a society of users.
If it breaks, throw it in the trash and pick up a new one at Wal-Mart or Best Buy. Many millions of dollars have been spent promoting this concept and it seems to have worked.
I'm old and have that old school mentality. I still believe in fixin' it myself.

It's more like you don't let it break in the frst place by the way of proper maintenance.

Like with cars, I adorn this romantic image of a driver hundred years ago, when driving was not simply "get up and go", but the whole ritual of starting the car, or just taking care of it in general. Sort of like with motorcycles to this day.

As for "consumer-based economy" or, in better words, society of waste, I guess it's what called a "job security", sort of social engineering -- produce the need for as many middle men as possible, so those middle men would have a job. E.g. me having beer money for fixing someone else's computers.

Thank you for understanding the Populace..
Remember I was all disappointed to learn that a
say Teacher does not know anything about the PC he or
she is using. Any program,,any software is installed
by an "Administrater" and the Person working with the computer only knows how to use the Programs already st
ahead to the End User. But it seems it the way it goes
Is thic you Mean by The Populace. Just thing of the
Aristrcrats: they were saying and thinking that the
people from the crowd the Pebleians could not go to
school nor of course to a ;University . Long Liive
our Aristocracy

It is ignorance alright; of the program designer. If the manufacturer of the programs can't keep their systems virus free without bothering the user of the program from using their computer, they are the ignorant ones.

Okay, now, show us a better way to do things, eh?

and Who is the Populace Am I the Populace Nero used to
have little consideratiion for the Populace and so did
and do the Aristocrats in Europe...

Lol, If you love your computer as much as you say you do I have a suggestion... Don't click on pop ups. I don't care if it says your computer will explode in 5 minutes. You have virus protection and other utilities that windows provides that can effectively keep you calm and your computer virus free.

i know not to click them, but your "average" newbie flips out when he sees them, he thinks "WHAT??? me? lose my precious $1000 computer???? NO WAY!!! i'll click this 'friendly' pop up and be safe!!!

.

Pop ups to me are like panhandlers.I also disably auto fill,Some of those weasels will make it difficult get rid of the add.

I must have purchased 50 machines where the software installed by the distributors, (in order to generate the hardware low price by providing advertizing software pre-installed) conflicts in function calls producing system errors.

I run a small business and buy consumer machines for those low prices, but have learned to strip off the promotional advertizing critters as soon as possible. The first one accessed from the desktop does it's setup and often my functional application is stymied.

In comparison, I have bought portable/laptops which were very well set up, including the advertizing stuff, because they often need some OS tweaking to use laptop-unique hardware. Which says to me that there's more greed and sloth in the desktop market.

Just wanted to add my 2-bits, but it looks like it's been covered already. Truly, greed and sloth sum it up well enough.

I repair 40-50 machines a week and it is usually caused by people who know no fear of the internet and "indulge" themselves in spyware and virus infested sites. (I let out a small sigh of monotany when I see another spyware infested PC) What really blows my mind is when I tell people how their machines are getting infected and then they bring the machines back to me weeks or months later and say "I don't know how this happened again!". (Little do they know that temp folders tell the sad tale of how it happened again. Some situations force me to keep my mouth shut and just clean it and wait for it to come back again.)At any rate these people know no fear and will go right back to those places if they feel that someone clean their machine when it gets dirty again.

awagner Danielson, CT

Why doesn't the operating system design a automatic setup where no popups will appear, no known virus will infect and automatic updates to prevent and/or eliminate any new virus as it is developed and identified. An OS where no creditable program can screw it up ("good housekeeping" approval programs)and if it does it can be fixed from a remote support site. An OS that a two year old cannot confound or confuse. Spamming, etc., cannot be done. Crashes are obsolete without prior notification of hardware failure due to whatever reason. All hardware should be guaranteed for at least 5 years with better equipment available for longer times. Maintenance schedules should be one of the only "popups", to insure longevilty of the hardware. If a person feels conpetent to cross over these boundaries then they must sign off the above standard protection items at their own risk...like some of you guys. There are other protections that should be included but the "brains" who design the OS can handle it...education by the user must be minimal so they can get work done without wasting time "learning" they can't program.

If a program can't be designed to withstand damage by a monkey on a computer keyboard it is a poor program and does not justify the price paid.

Only based on my own observations and experiences,

Most problems are caused by end-users from the following two areas: (1) Novice users: They generally don't understand how to "protect" themselves or do some "maintenance" works, (2) Advanced users: Problems usually from tweaking systems.

But for novice users, we can't blame them for why do they have to "learn" how to protect and maintain computers? Do users or consumers of other stuffs, such as for car, TV, and so on would need to do the same? Does anyone need to know if he/she would need air bags in the car (or how to install or maintain it)?

Why can't the industry and makers of computers can't do the same good job as those in other industries?

I've seen the anology of computers being more like cars elsewhere in this thread. One was even from a tech-type. What people seem not to realize is the fact that when the automobile industry was as young as the computer industry, people did have to know something about cars when owning them, or at least have someone around who did.(There was no ''On-Star'', no triple A, no warning lights, ect. If you got a flat you had to know how to change it, you had to know about overheating, ect.)

The reason I'm replying to this post is that I truly think that some of the issues that Microsoft had/has is in their attempt in trying to make the OS too easy to use and try to advance to quickly. (I'm no expert and may very well be wrong about this.) Most likely to appeal to a broader consumer base. (Remember when Win95 crashed at the unveiling of it?)

This leads to a problem: new users are led to believe that they need to know little about computers in order to use them, which may be somewhat true these days. (but inevitability they will have to learn, especially when using the internet comes into the mix.)

I know that probably alot of computer users merely need to use a computer as a tool for work/business and neither have the time or desire to learn more than they absolutely have to. But with any tool a person needs to either learn how to maintain and/or repair it themselves or spend the money to have someone else do it. If they also use the computer for recreation (i.e internet access at home) then learning something about it is a must. (But actually the only way to learn how to fix problems is by doing, like anything else I guess.)

My answer to the question would be both the end-user and software. I think some software manufacturers try to make their software do more than it was originally designed to do. They add-on in an attempt to make it easier to use (which is what alot of end-users want which leads to a false sense of security). The result is a bloated, problematic application. (Earthlink Total-access comes to my mind when I say this. I had alot of problems with it, so I got rid of them as a ISP.)

I do have one gripe about a certain (un-named here) security software company who in their website articles suggests doing a number of problem preventive measures when installing their software, but make little mention of it all in their little handbook, or even where the info can be found on their website. (I stumbled upon the article when looking for something else.)

I must admit though that I am one of those who caused many of my own problems and then had to learn on my own how to fix them. Calling some tech support in those cases was definitely out of the question! All of it caused me to pick up on other things along the way, so I'm glad I did.

By the line of work you are in, I'd say that you are a computer guru. I'm in a different line of work, and although I try to keep up (using such things as CNET) I just don't have the time. I know enough to be cautious about downloading some online software, but the people who create this stuff are also computer gurus, so sometimes I think it's OK to trust them. Thank goodness our doctors have to go through REAL certification before prescribing to us (although on second thought I guess there are a FEW quacks out there). Problem is, in the computer world, there seem to be more quacks than legitimate organizations.

I thought I was going to read about the greed and sloth of the OS issuers ie: Windows ME - something that was built in with a "time to fail" just to get something on the market to compete with others that were coming out with 2000/Mellenium related items.

I also work on PCs for people. I would say that 90% of the problem is internet ignorance. People keep downloading all kinds of "security" softwre. They also let their kids get on "fly-by-night" chat sites. Many of them are loaded with cookies from porn sites that run havoc with their PCs. Most of the time I just format and re-load their operating system and try to educate them on internet use.

I was very surprised to see that there was zero percent response for hardware-associated problems. Maybe I just have my own gray ccloud. Eighteen months ago I thought I would upgrade from my Dell 500 MHz machine to a 3 GHz P4. Now, because I was in electronics R&D, I have used HP equipment in the lab for almost 40 years. It was the best obtainable, so I thought that an HP computer would be a quality produce, also. WRONG, wrong, wrong!

It took three returns to get a computer that lived more than a week. The third computer sounded like a coffee grinder when I turned it on.

Finally, as I said, number four seemed to work. For nine months, anyway. Then 25 GB of my 160 GB suddenly became "BAD SECTORS." About six weeks ago I suddenly lost ability to log on to the internet. The LAN connection failed, and, being on the mother board, required MoBo replacement.

So I vote stronlgy that the hardware needs to be improved.

(I confess that I have had many self-induced horrors, but was always able to get cured. It's just so much fun to try new stuff!)

Vince

I build computers from the many different companies parts and repair others PC's. I can say that HP-Compaq is not what I would choose for computer personally. I've owned a Parkard Bell, two Compaqs, and one HP computer. None of the PC's were any good for software, hardware, or support. This is the reason why I now build my own. I can say from personal exp. with people that I've built other PC's for that the end user is the computer problem 90% of the time, although you have had hardware problem(Hard drive problems) most computer hardware is reliable. Viruses, Peer-to-Peer music sharing, and opening emails from poeple they don't know are what users do....by the way I have an HP with a dead Hard Drive sitting on my desk from a somebody else right now. I also have a Compaq with a cooked Proccessor because the cooling fan failed. These PC's are less than a year old.

I bought my first computer in early 1995 - a Packard Bell purchased at WalMart! I owned it for four years without even the smallest problem (which confounded repair people that I know). When I started to add upgrades, that's when the sh** hit the fan - each upgrade required new parts here and there for compatibility including a new motherboard. When I looked at the cost of the whole picture, it seemed more cost-effective to just buy a new system, which I did. Not another PB but a Gateway, because I was configuring a large order for my office and threw in one for my home. After many upgrades, updates, and fiddling with hardware and software, it's still running like a top seven years later - just did a maintenance hdd reformat and reinstalled the OS. My fingers are crossed that I'll stay this lucky after reading the posts here! :o)

I build my own computers, that way I control what goes in it.

Hope this helps, Rick.

P.S.
I am no Electrical Engineer, but I do know how to spec and what to do to avoid hardware conflicts.

http://www.rickswebfactory.com/