[FRIAM] Advice on configuring computers

Thu Oct 11 13:22:34 EDT 2018

Thanks, everybody.  I now think I understand what is happening: the demand for speed in hard disks has overtaken the demand for size.  Or to put it another way, for most of you, you will gladly accept the added cognitive burden imposed by having two hard disks in return for the added speed provided by a smaller internal ssd.  

As to my present situation, I am beginning to have a Dark Suspicion. It’s just not right for somebody whose computer use is as primitive as mine to be using up so much HD space.   And as fast as I clear space on my hard disk, it get’s used up again.  I am wondering if some program isn’t gobbling up space fast as I can free it.  I found about a gig of old I-tunes pod casts tucked away, and have been trying to beat I=tunes in to submission.  Are there other places to look for misbehaving programs that are piling up garbage in large stinking plastic bags on my hard disk? 

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Gillian Densmore
Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2018 9:44 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Advice on configuring computers

Nick these all sound like pretty good ideas.  To me it seems like their's always some need to get a pretty good sized hard drive. FWIW I didn't guess right for my computer. I thought 1 terabyte would be plenty. I am wrong.  As to the cloud. Yeah I don't know. For back up? It's pretty good. I just think it's about the right thing for the job.  

I don't know if anyone else has suggested this: ram; Windows eats surprisling large amount.  

Question: do you particularly need or really want to stay with a laptop? 

HP isn't all that good of a computer company. Just my experience it hasn't been all that good since...forever at least the 90's and really since the 80's I'd say.

My brother (Tim) a while back got a think pad. At the time seemed to like it. I don't know  what their like now.  Anyone have some opinions their anygood still?  I thought his wife

The reason I suggest thinking about a desktop. Is it might be a lot less hastle to get a good hard drive and ram.  Plus installing them is not at all straitforward even at a shop with a ton of equipment. experience. I have done it with a hand me down from owen(dad). But let me tell you on the apple it was not that straitward and seriusly had a few moments: Oh fuck please tell me that dropped screw didn't hork something up.

I totally agree with the SSD(their really big thumb drives basically)..and I didn't know that a 500 gig  one is about 90.. that's awesome !

.

On Wed, Oct 10, 2018 at 12:01 PM Roger Critchlow <rec at elf.org <mailto:rec at elf.org> > wrote:

I think getting the largest SSD you can afford is a good idea, 500G SSD internal drives are around $90, a terabyte is less than twice that.  Get a laptop with a small SSD in the best technology and have someone swap in a bigger and badder drive.

Just don't lose the laptop.  My dad spilled orange juice into his laptop case once on a visit, never did find out why he was travelling with it.  Or maybe you should just do that first and solve all your data storage problems up front?

Micro SD cards are great, but I can't find any of mine other than the one that's plugged into my laptop.  And the slots tend to be all connected with USB 2.0 buses last time I checked.  Which I had to do by bench marking the same card in a USB 3.0 adapter vs the builtin reader slot, because no one specifies how the built ion SD card interface is provisioned.

-- rec --

On Wed, Oct 10, 2018 at 1:42 PM Alfredo Covaleda Vélez <alfredo at covaleda.co <mailto:alfredo at covaleda.co> > wrote:

Marcus idea is good. During years I have been using a cheap Chinese SD card as main drive using LINUX OS running on an old tiny laptop which lack of a mechanical hard drive. I have just updated to a newer Linux distribution and I also installed Dropbox there, so I always bring my important files. These days you could buy 1024 GB SD for less than 50 US dollars.   

On Wed, Oct 10, 2018 at 11:59 AM, Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com <mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com> > wrote:

If the issue is bulk, most laptops will accept these cards:   https://m.newegg.com/products/N82E16820173374

Marcus

On 10/10/18, 11:31 AM, "Nick Thompson" <nickthompson at earthlink.net <mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net> > wrote:

    Thanks, everybody.  

    In my world, hyperspeed is not a big deal.  The big deal for this 80 year old is cognitive burden.  So a this point I have stuff on the hard drive, stuff on  a 1t drive  and stuff on Carbonite, and this, for me, is a ticket for disaster.  So also is a system in which every where I go, I have to carry not only the laptop but a hard drive as well.  The one thing eighty-year-olds don't need (as you will soon find out) is another thing to lose.  SO, the obvious solution is to spring for a a machine with a huge SSD drive, on the theory that it is the last machine I will ever buy so what the hell.  

    Is there some reason why that ISN'T the obvious solution?  Is it just COST that has driven you all to have little boxes and wires sticking out of your laptops, or am I missing something here?  

    I HATE to spend more than 1K for a computer.  It seems a mortal injustice, an assault upon my mongrel puritan soul.  But perhaps it's time to suck it up?  

    The other kind of "suck it up" message you all might give me is to rationalize my digital storage so I don't need so much.  But for the above mentioned reasons, I will need help to do that, in which case, members of the Local Church might suggest a Digital Storage Rationalization Consultant to help me straighten out the mess I have made. 

    Nick

    Nicholas S. Thompson
    Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
    Clark University
    http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> ] On Behalf Of ? u???
    Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2018 9:33 AM
    To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
    Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Advice on configuring computers

    You may already know this ...  Because you're probably using that *thing* called Windows, in order to do this effectively, you have to pay attention to where programs are installed.  Windows installers will try to put everything on your "C" drive.  But they usually give you the option of installing it somewhere else.  Given Windows' massive disk space requirements for Updates, I tend to keep only Windows (and the virtual memory page file) on the 1st drive and put everything else on the secondary drive(s).

    On 10/10/18 8:25 AM, Barry MacKichan wrote:
    > My guess is that your 460 GB drive is a spinning hard drive, and that the new computer has a solid state drive (SSD). This is a /good/ thing since the SSD drives are much faster. The prices on Amazon for 1TB drives are around $50 and the 2TB drives are close. My suggestion is to get the new computer, add a relatively humongous hard drive with a USB 3 connection, and make some decisions about what you want almost instantly available, and what is merely almost instantly available.
    > 
    > Better yet, buy two hard drives and start backing up regularly (there are programs to make that automatic).
    > 
    > --Barry
    > 
    > On 10 Oct 2018, at 2:25, Nick Thompson wrote:
    > 
    >     I was about to give up on my  460 Gig hd HP because [it was old 
    > and] I was running out of disk space, only to discover that the standard machine offered by my university to replace it has LESS disk space.  Wondering how people are storing stuff.  Are the days of buying larger and larger hard disks and never making any decisions over?  [sigh} Note that cloud storage is not an option to me for half the year.  Are people buying terabyte sized USB drives and running software from them or telling some software to store to them?  How’s that work?
    > 
    >      
    > 
    >     Sorry to bother you with this.  I know the rest of you have real 
    > work.

    --
    ∄ uǝʃƃ

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