Posts tagged computers

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

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

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.]

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).

So my last post was a simple introduction to what package managers are, and some problems they solve. Here I will put forth my thoughts for the ideal package manager. This will be a much more technical post.

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.

You know what really bothers me? Line endings.