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Archive for May, 2016
Reasons to upgrade to Windows 10
4 years
If you haven’t upgraded to Windows 10 (and you didn’t have your arm twisted and the upgrade forced on you), you might have been thinking of upgrading to Windows 10. I’m not getting into how to upgrade. But I’m going to discuss some of the key reasons why you should consider it and a few reasons why you might not.
Why upgrade:
It’s Free. At least for now. If you already have Windows 7 or 8.
Windows 10 is a free upgrade from Windows 7 upwards until the 29th July 2016. There is a ‘cost’ in terms of the time it will take you to upgrade and potentially work through any issues you might have after the upgrade but the software itself is free for most people for now.
It’s the new Windows, same as the old Windows.
Microsoft has learnt a lot from the mistakes of Windows (ahem) Vista and Windows 8. Windows 10 is a solid operating system and seems to have been well received around the world. It fixes a lot of the things users didn’t like about Windows Vista and 8 and improves on some of the things we liked from Windows 7 (like the start menu) .
Security and Compatibility.
The latest version of Windows is the Windows operating system is naturally the most secure and has the most compatibility with other hardware and software. They’ve spent a lot of time with security features such as device guard, credential guard, secure boot, bitlocker drive encryption and virtualisation based security. I’ll spare you the technical details of all of that but suffice to say it helps to add layers of protection to your pc that can make it more secure. On top of that it will receive constant security updates and new security features via Windows Update as they become available.
Most hardware that worked under Windows 7 will still work just the same under Windows 10. I’ve heard of the odd device here and there that doesn’t work in Windows 10 but there is usually a workaround or 3rd party driver that will get it working again. And you should be fine as long as the device isn’t 100 years old and requires a serial interface.
New Features.
Windows Hello, Cortana, XBox Streaming, Universal Apps and the App Store are all reasons that you might want to consider upgrading.
For power users, virtual desktops, Powershell, Bash on Windows and even copy/pasting into the command prompt (I’m actually pretty excited about that one) are interesting new features that warrant an upgrade.
You may never need to upgrade again.
It ‘should’ be the last upgrade you ever need to do. Microsoft will be rolling out upgrades and new features incrementally and automatically over time from now on. How long they can keep this up for remains to be seen but the theory is that this should be the last time you ever need to migrate from one operating system to a completely new version.
Why not to upgrade:
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Sometimes there’s nothing wrong in just staying where you are. If your current system is stable, works for you, is still supported with updates from Microsoft, and none of the above points are compelling to you then it makes sense not to upgrade. Mainstream support for Windows 7 has expired already but extended support for Windows 7 will continue until January 14, 2020.
Mainstream support for Windows 8 ends January 9, 2018 and extended support goes until January 10, 2023
You have old software or old hardware
If you’re still on Windows XP, I hope you have a good reason. A very good reason. There aren’t many good reasons left for staying with Windows XP and legacy apps that require low level hardware access and can’t be run as a virtual machine is about all I can think of.
If you happen to be on a computer with less than 1GB ram or 1Ghz Processor and 16GB hard drive space, then you don’t meet the minimum requirements for Windows 10 either – seriously time to buy a new computer.
Privacy Concerns
There is a lot of things in Windows 10 that call home to Microsoft by default. You can optionally turn most of them off during installation and depending on your view on trusting Microsoft and . But some don’t trust their computer phoning home and not knowing what it might be collecting and sending back to Microsoft. Security researchers haven’t found anything untoward but it is still a concern for some (and yet they will still use Windows). There’s more details in this Lifehacker post that detail what the settings are that have caused concerns and what they actually do.
Dependencies on Windows Media Player.
If you absolutely can’t live without your Windows Media Player or you have custom software that relies on it, stay with Windows 7. Windows Media Player has gone the way of the dodo in Windows 10 and has been replaced with the new Groove Player.
You’re a hardcore Mac or Linux Junkie.
Why are you even reading this?
Read More:
Backup
4 years
A lot of people around me have been talking about backups, asking about backups and loosing data because they didn’t have sufficient backups. For example, I know a with a guy who is a sale rep. He’s a great guy but took up a role in sales after his freelance graphics design career was cut short because his computer including his entire portfolio of work was stolen.
Another friend of mine is an amateur photographer. She backed up all her photos to an external hard drive. Her laptop was stolen and the thief simply stole the removable hard drive right along with it. Along with a huge chunk of her portfolio she also lost several years worth of family photos.
I recently rebuilt a laptop for a client with a failing hard drive. While I managed to recover some data off the drive before it died completely, there was some data lost.
In all of these cases data was lost due to not having sufficient backups and not understanding good backup processes.
“What do a computer hard disk and a gerbil have in common? Their average lifespan is about 3-5 years.”
T.E. Ronneberg
In other words – stuff on hard drives seems permanent but this is a mistake. Drives are physical devices and all hard drives – even SSDs deteriorate with age. Some will last much longer than others but it is never safe to have only one copy important data in a single location – be that hard drive or otherwise.
Backup Principles:
Back up everything:
Often that sort of information on your computer or electronic device is more valuable to you than the device itself. The amount of information that goes through our computers these days increasing and so is the importance of not loosing that information.
What should I back up? If possible, back up everything. You never know precisely what you will lose, how you will lose it or the impact it might have on your life if you lose it.
Sometimes the amount of data involved makes this difficult. Depending on your level of IT skill, you can sometimes get away with not backing up your operating system files and program files if you don’t mind re installing these and you keep the licences and keys and installations safe and handy. But you need to consider the downtime involved in needing to re-install this software and configure it.
Automate the process:
People are generally not good at repeated mundane tasks. You will forget, life will get in the way and it will become less and less important to you over time unless you automate the process.
Software is great for this purpose. A package that I recommend constantly is Crashplan – www.crashplan.com The basic software is free and allows you to back up to external hard drives and a friend’s computer. Most importantly it automates the process so once you have this set up, you can forget about it.
The 3 2 1 Rule. 3 copies, 2 locations, for every 1 bit of data.
A good rule of thumb for good backups is to have 3 copies of the data in at least 2 locations. This covers for the majority of scenarios.
Why do I need 3 copies in 2 locations? Say you are working on some photos on your computer and as a backup, you copy those to an external hard drive. Great. If anything fails on your computer, you have a backup. But what if the building with the hard drive and the computer burns down or both pieces of equipment get stolen simultaneously? Where is you backup now. This is why you need 3 copies in 2 locations. If you had an additional backup at a friend or family member’s residence or the files backed up to the cloud, then you have resiliency even if your first 2 copies and 1 location are lost.
Confirm the backups work.
Backups are useless unless you can recover information from them when you need it. Test your backups to make sure you can access them and copy files off your backup. Remember that you may not have access to your current computer or if you do, it may not have any of its current information on it. You need to confirm that the backups will do what you are hoping that they will do.
And test them regularly. Backup media can deteriorate over time just like the hard drives you are backing up.
Protect your backups
You need to keep your backups at least as secure as you do the main data – if not more so. If you are backing up to an external hard drive, and not encrypting or pro.
If you need help or advise with your backups – Get in touch!