Which Laptop Should You Purchase, 2016 New Year's Edition

I'm going to make this short and to the point.  Well, maybe not short.

• Laptops are a commodity.  Their sales are being squeezed by sales of tablets and smartphones.  This means you can get bargains at places like Amazon, Newegg, Costco, and Walmart.  
• The best bargains are near the end of each quarter.
• Because laptops are a commodity, quality is "shaved" as close as it can be- cheaper components made with "dirty" elements, with little extended testing after assembly.  Many will fail soon after the warranty is up.  But, then, like inkjet printers, it is usually cheaper to buy a new one than repair the old one... with some exceptions if you are a power user. 

Consumer Reports came out with their quality/repair reviews.  The data were obtained from CR subscribers.  Does the CR subscriber population statistically represent the overall population.  I haven't researched this.  This is what they say.  Based on my experience, this survey is skewed because the respondents are just CR subscribers and I suspect the computers they buy and use are not typical.  With that observation, CR says the quality is ranked in this order, from best to worst:

1. Apple, 10% after 3 yrs
2. Samsung, Gateway, 16% "
3. Acer, Lenovo, 18% "
4. Toshiba, HP, Dell, Asus, 19%

The first year failure rate, typically when the device is under warranty, is Apple by itself, then everyone else about the same, around 9 or 10%.

Other than Apple, there is only 3 % difference after 3 years.

One comment in the article raised my suspicion about the knowledge of the people doing the survey:  "It stands to reason that the more you use your laptop, the more likely it will break down."  I spent 25 years in computer/semiconductor component test.  My experience:

• As long as your device has good power management and heat dissipation, leaving your computer on is better than turning it off and on.  It is the off and on cycles that stress the electronic components.  It is heat that causes them to fail prematurely. 
• Typically to almost always, Chinese made components are way more likely to fail than Taiwanese, US, etc components.  Chinese components are made of "dirty," less pure, materials.  That, and less testing, mandated by the intense price competition of the commodity market, make all laptops, including Apple products, more sensitive to failure due to on and off cycles.   

My experience, based on computers I repair, is, quality from lowest to highest quality

• HP, Acer, Toshiba (Toshiba getting better)
• Samsung, Gateway
• Dell, Asus
• Lenovo, Apple

Apple is the mystery- why it is rated so high in the survey but why I see many more problems with Apple, especially the iMac (that's the desktop, not a laptop).  The root cause problem with Apple is that heat management, aka fans, heat sinks, is not best of breed.

Two more points:

1. Hard drives are failing earlier than they used to.  IMO, that is due both to the high density = high reliability risk of the new generation of the hard drives and inadequate heat management. 
2. The feel of the keyboard and mouse is an important consideration.  Many people have trouble with the big single pad for a mouse.  Touch typists have trouble with the chicklet keys.  Of course, you have the option of getting a separate keyboard and mouse.  

Another key issue with new laptops is the amount of "junk" software on the computer, usually supported by a piece of software called Wildtangent, which some security analysts, including me, consider spyware. (See this article on junkware removal.  I use both tools discussed in the article.

Don't overbuy.   Buy a computer that can do what you want to do but don't buy a computer that does more than you will ever need.  Assume you will need to replace it due to failure in about 3 years.

Back up your important data.  Don't back the data up on your computer.  Use an external drive, or best choice, use a cloud backup solution, from Google Drive (free) to Carbonite or equivalent (fee).

Often, an Intel i3 processor laptop is all you need if you aren't a power user.    Get 8gig of memory.  If you do a lot a financial stuff or do video streaming, then you need a better graphics processor (eg NVIDIA graphics) and an i5 processor.  If you are a gamer and do a lot of photo stuff, then get an i7 processor.  (AMD makes competing processors and graphics processors.  Go with Intel unless the AMD is significantly cheaper.)  Go to 16 Gig of memory for an i5 or i7, though 8 gig might be OK if you have a great sale... It is a cost/performance tradeoff.  In general, the constraint in my use is memory.  I usually have a lot of stuff going at once, so 16 gig is attractive to me.

Oh, on touch screens, I find they aren't used unless the laptop can be converted into a tablet, eg, a "flip."

Questions:  use the comment section below to ask.

How to update from from Win7/8/8.1 to Win 10 using a downloaded copy of Windows 10

Over the past couple of months those who have Microsoft Vista-Microsoft 8.1 on their computer got a sometimes unwelcome message to upgrade to Windows 10.  If you clicked on the pestering pop up, you go to the Microsoft store and "start the process."  This downloads a lot of bits (about 3 g) that is the Windows 10 operating system.  Some of the time, maybe most of the time, the upgrade goes without a problem; but some of the time it fails.  There are some reasons for this that are user issues, such as not knowing how to answer the various questions that have to be answered before the install begins.  If it is successful, you will have Windows 10 installed and all your personal applications and drivers will work.  

If you have a problem, or if you have multiple computers to upgrade, it is easier to download the Windows 10 operating system to a flash drive (or CD, but many computers don't have CDs now; another blog topic).  The procedure is well documented and the download to do it is provided at this url:  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10.

It is one of the more painless Microsoft procedures I've encountered.  

Here are pictures of the dialog sequence to complete the download.  I assume they are self-explanatory.  (BTW, the tool that is downloaded and runs this dialog is called 

MicrosoftCreationToolx64.exe.

In the following frame, the first one, pick the second option "Create installation media for another PC": 

Pick USB Drive.  Use a clean 4Gig drive.   By clean I mean that the drive has been freshly reformatted to a "bare" drive and as FAT32.  This USB will be dedicated to Windows 10 installations until you don't need it any more.  

Once the USB Drive is completed, the contents looks like this.  The setup.exe will be the program you run on the computer you are upgrading. 

How to add a new user to your Windows 10 device

Today I wanted to add a new user to my Windows 10 machine.  On the "normal" Windows 10 Settings for adding a user, I could NOT find a way to add a local user.  The only options available required adding a Microsoft account.  You know I don't like those accounts because it logs you into the Microsoft Cloud at login and I don't use Microsoft.  Early on, it was frustrating because the login took so much time.  That's how I discovered the Local User option, which works like a pre Windows 8 user account.  That's the way to go if you don't want to be just a client to the Microsoft Cloud.

Anyway, Microsoft help was no help.  It was wrong!  But I did find a web page that definitely works.  So go here if you want to create a new user account on Windows 10.

For those who have delayed switching to Windows 10

Windows 10 capability has, to date and in general, been released in bits and drabs:  updated features here, fixes there.  This past week was the first very major refresh, meaning that the complete operating system was pushed out by the Update facility.  At this point, it is probably reasonable for most non-business users to switch to Windows 10.  Microsoft will continue to add features and fix bugs before the next complete reissue of the operating system, which will probably be in June, 2016.  Most of the activity will be in the business side of the Windows operating system, so I expect only bug fixes for the non-business user (other than Edge).

The new browser, Edge, now seems to work most of the time, but I still wouldn't rely on it as my only browser.  If you insist on using a Microsoft browser, go to the start button, left click, and then type "iexplo" in the search bar.  iexplore.exe should pop up as the result of the search.  This is the "old" IE 11 browser.  Left click to start the browser.  Then right click on the browser's icon on the task bar and click on "pin to taskbar" to keep the icon for easier access from that point on.  In general, I am an advocate of the "three browser" approach:  whatever Microsoft provides that works, Google Chrome, and Firefox.  Each browser has its advantages.

I would recommend a few minutes of 'handholding' during the installation process.  There are a number of "traps" associated with the default install process that could be unwelcome to most users.

Editorial comment:   Microsoft has "commercialized" Windows... literally... why do you think it is free?  The normal process ties you to logging in to the Microsoft Live Cloud environment at the time you log in to your computer.   The action is one and the same.  It is perhaps reasonable to have an email service that logs you into "commercialization," but I don't expect it with what is supposed to be (to me) an agnostic operating system.

The way around it kind of hidden in wording that suggests you shouldn't "go there" during installation.

Interesting Phishing Technique: Dangerous!

I got this email today concerning jobs at Amazon:

The link has an interesting url:  web.jameye.allaboard.com.  Plus some gibberish after that.  I'd like to know what is at the other end, but could get nothing off the internet.  It is certainly a phisher and could be a trojan as well.  Beware of job ads like this.  

Computer Death by Stink Bug

This is a real computer bug story.  You know those smelly flat bugs that are into everything this time of year.  They seem to be able to get into airtight, watertight, whatevertight spaces and wait to emit their patented odor.  Well, I think I have the first documented case of computer death by stink bug.  I got an ailing computer in and, as I was cleaning the main fan, out popped a stink bug.  It is likely the stink bug was limiting air circulation in the computer and one or more of the computer components succumbed to the lack of cooling.

Conclusion- check your computers; clean out the cooling system and all the pathways.  You just might find a stink bug!

DSL service down at Glassy

As of 9 am, my DSL service is down, with  a comment that  "it will be restored within 24 hours."   OK, for those who say that 4G wireless service is unrealiable,  by 4G service has never been down.  DSL goes down several times a year.  No storms this time.  Storms will cause DSL outages.  In national disaster events, FEMA relies on satellite uplink trucks as a  worst case scenario and cellphone as the next most reliable.  Cable next.  DSL last.

Oh, that's right, you can't read this blog entry because you don't have internet.  Dah!  Well, this can be an historic record.   Wait a minute!  If you have a data plan on your cellphone, then you can read this in "real time." I stand corrected to my correction.