willghatch blog: Posts tagged 'introductory'

configuration tips

William G Hatch — Thu, 12 Nov 2015 15:00:21 UT

As an avid computer configurator, I want to share some tips about how to effectively customize and keep track of your configuration. I want to highlight the different types of configuration needs that exist, and suggest some good ways of managing them.

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symlinks

William G Hatch — Wed, 11 Nov 2015 23:57:55 UT

A quick introduction to symlinks. They are indispensable for configuring your computer!

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Windows is terrible

William G Hatch — Fri, 06 Nov 2015 17:33:22 UT

I’m always saying that Windows is awful. Here is a list of some reasons why.

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federation: stop texting me, but use text before facebook

William G Hatch — Sun, 26 Jul 2015 13:25:45 UT

In this post I will try to explain what federation is among online services, and why it is vitally important. Also, I will explain why cell phone texting, which actually is federated, bugs me so much.

[Also, see the end of this post for my updated recommendations of federated software and services to use.]

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pc bios or why smartphones are lame

William G Hatch — Thu, 23 Jul 2015 12:26:29 UT

Today, let me tell you a story about the PC BIOS. Or, why smartphones are lame. I will explain to you why the PC BIOS (and its successor, EFI or UEFI, which I will treat as equivalent for this post) is awesome, and why systems lacking something like a BIOS are lame (generally so-called “smart” devices).

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what are package managers

William G Hatch — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 13:26:21 UT

What are package managers? It is very important for sane, safe, and reliable computing. Yet most computer users don’t know what package managers are. Windows doesn’t have one (well, there are some third party ones that nobody knows about or uses), and this may be one of the biggest reasons people I know still get malware. In this post I hope to explain what they are, what they accomplish, and why you should use one.

So here are some common scenarios I see:

1 - Suzy has installed some programs such as anything from Adobe (particularly Flash), something that required the Java runtime, and various other third party programs for Windows. Every time she boots her computer, it slows down so each of these can phone home, check for and maybe download updates, and pester her with notifications that each of these things needs to be updated. What a pain! Package managers fix this.

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line endings

William G Hatch — Fri, 02 Jan 2015 05:00:00 UT

You know what really bothers me? Line endings.

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