How much time do you spend on your computer? Time savers?

adamm321 · 13-Feb-2008, 05:13 PM #1

Hi,

I hope this is not too personal a question, but I am very curious as to how my time spent on the computer stacks up. I would also like to know out of the time you spend, how much of a percentage of that is time spent actually using the computer to do your 'real work/play' and how much is spent working on the computer for the computer's sake? Installing, tweaking, maintaining, troubleshooting, reading computer forums, etc.

I am not looking for X amount of hours spent...just if you are a heavy user, intermediate etc., and an estimate of how much of your overall time is spent on computer issues.

I am curious about those things, but my primary question, is what do you do, that helps you spend less time fixing the computer and more time using it?

Thanks,
adam

jbm1991 · 13-Feb-2008, 05:21 PM #2

i come home from school and my computer is on from about 4 o'clock in the afternoon till about midnight and beyond almost every night. i spend about half an hour or so of those 8 hours tweaking and installing new things, although i don't always do it, its not neccessary, its just for my own personal preference that i do it. the other 7 and a half hours (obviously this includes the time i eat my dinner etc) i spend doing work or just messing about on different programs, msn, or the internet.
the tweaking i do is i am slowly clearly as much crap off my computer as i can. by this i mean useless programs i no longer use. i also tweak settings, i make my own custom wallpapers, and i fiddle with almost every setting in my computer, because im that cool

why do you want to know anyway, you doing a survey or something?

Stoner · 13-Feb-2008, 06:24 PM #3

Quote:

Originally Posted by adamm321

..........................

I am curious about those things, but my primary question, is what do you do, that helps you spend less time fixing the computer and more time using it?

Thanks,
adam

Hello adam

I'm on the computer a lot in the winter. Not a power user, mostly looking for info, news, spending some time in TSG's Civilized Debate . Some creative endeavors.
Being on XPmce SP2, I've found if I don't tinker/tweak it......I don't need to fix it often.
15 months of use on my Acer and no issues.

My Mother, 94 years of age, uses her laptop through out the day. It's hardly ever turned off with up times of about 6 months.
XP Home SP2.
No tweaking

It did have a dard drive failure at 4 years, but I had a drive image to put on the new drive.
Almost 5 years on the original install. Not bad

Other than critical updates and periodic scans for malware .....I mostly just set it and forget it .......until I see an interesting app to try out.

I do blow out the dust about every 6 months.

Not visiting porn sites probably also helps

mclarenvj · 14-Feb-2008, 03:36 PM #4

every single moment of my life =D, if its working and im not at school =D

avengeda7x · 14-Feb-2008, 05:17 PM #5

Hey. how random, but what the hey lol

erm mine has been on for around 2 months now non stop, at night all that goes off is the monitor and speakers lol ohh and a big blanket *cover* for my pc, got 4 x 12" cathodes and 2 x 4" cathodes and 3 x 120mm blue led fans

an a nice watercooling system. dont like the idea of it beeing on with just a couple of fans keeping it cool.

but anyway, its on all day and night for downloading movies etc. so i would say around 12 hours its idle, 2/3 hours playing crysis, UT3 etc and 1/2 tweaking, testing new software etc and the reast on msn and bebo

jbm1991 · 14-Feb-2008, 06:05 PM #6

Quote:

Originally Posted by avengeda7x

but anyway, its on all day and night for downloading movies etc.

i hope these movies are being legally downloaded

avengeda7x · 15-Feb-2008, 03:29 AM #7

Of Course, What do you take me for

torrents are legal right.?

SIR****TMG · After work till 11:00pm

After work till 11:00pm

adamm321 · 15-Feb-2008, 02:27 PM #9

john...sounds like things are humming at your house. :-) That is really great if you can only spend a half hour a day on computer related tasks. But you must have problems come up from time to time that take a great deal more time than that? No? What about spyware and viruses, do you ever get them on your machine and if so, does it take a long time to resolve? Are you in the IT field, or have you had training to know how your computer works and can troubleshoot your own machine without help?

Stoner,....that is really great to go 15 months without an issue! So the secrets of your success are:

You bought the machine and leave it alone and don't tinker with it
You are careful of which sites you go to.
You blow out the dust every six months
Download critical updates
Scan for malware

Do you have a warranty on your machine and with problems like the drive failure, is that something you can do yourself or do you have to call tech support for that?

mclarenvj....looks like you have built your own machine there...and do you have an secrets to share to stay issue-free with your computer and out of the forums?

avengeda7x....looks like another home built machine. So would I be correct to assume that you have spent hours and hours learning computer systems?

sir***tmg...So you do spend a lot of time on your computer, but do you have to spend much time troubleshooting? I see you have a ton of programs for virus and malware protection. Do you find you end up with malware and viruses despite having all these programs? Do you ever run scans and they come clean? Does running scans with all these programs allow you to feel that there is no way that anyone can put something on your machine without you knowing it?

Thank you all for your responses, I appreciate it. John asked why I wanted to know, was I taking a survey. [g] No, I am just trying to figure out how I can be more self sufficient with my computer without investing huge amounts of time to do it. Looking for what the secret is, for people who don't have to spend lots of time on computer related issues.

I have come up with an analogy of the computer industry to the car industry. There are lots of people who work on cars as a hobby, people who are mechanics, trained and experienced with engines, who in their spare time work on their own cars, but for the most part, my perception is that most of the population just buy a car as transportation. I would fall into that category. I have no idea how an engine works, or where the spark plugs are. I buy cars fairly new and drive them until they start needing a lot of repairs..average of 6-8 years. I try to choose one carefully but it is based more on what someone else knows about cars then what I know. What magazine reviews recommend..like Consumer Reports etc. I try to get a good warranty, then hope for the best. I put oil/gas/water in as needed, take it for scheduled maintenance and buy AAA road service and that's that. I drive it.

In comparison, I find it harder to purchase and own a computer than a car. [g] I have to spend way more time in researching what I am supposed to purchase for what I need and what is going to give me as few problems as possible. Thankfully there are great warranties that you can purchase and that makes a big difference, but they don't cover the software or virus problems. Which if you have a problem with these it can just unravel your week if you have a schedule that doesn't allow it.

I have actually had a pretty good experience with this last laptop I have had. A Dell Inspiron 8200...that is about five years old with XP on it. The last six months I have had very few issues, but I did have hardware issues that thankfully I had warranty coverage for. But now it is time to buy a new machine and I find that I am way behind in knowing what is going on with new machines and spending hours and hours online in forums, on manufacturers websites, trying to get up to speed and make sure I don't make a mistake buying something that will become a headache for me for the next five years.

Right now, what are my biggest issues are virus protection/malware/peripherals.
I find it challenging to be up to speed in these areas and these would be where I would anticipate future problems. It seems to me though, that I should be able to address these issues with the new purchase, so I won't have any ongoing headaches over the life of the machine. I basically am pretty set in what I use the machine for now. I can't remember ever having added software to a machine once I bought it. I tried to learn what were good maintenance tasks and try to keep doing those. I have never reformatted a hard drive in thirteen years.

I'm also really unhappy with all the controversy about Vista so I am leaning toward XP on a new machine. I really hate IE because I feel that is where I used to get the most malware issues from using it and since using Firefox and Adaware and Spybot, I seem to have fewer problems in this area, but I really have a pretty unattractive experience on websites with the Firefox browser. Plus, I don't feel like what I am doing is enough to keep me out of trouble with viruses and spyware, but doing more seems like it would need a lot of time invested just to learn enough to know what to do.

So...bottom line, can I stay at this level of knowledge and be self sufficient with a computer if I have a good machine and a good warranty? Are there any tips you can share about purchasing decisions that will avoid/create future problems? Is there ONE book you can recommend that would give me a basic knowledge of computers that I should have? Are there any regular maintenance tasks that you can recommend that will prevent problems? Is there a way to be more secure on the computer without spending a lot of time doing it? These are the 'time savers' I was asking about. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

Thanks very much in advance...I really value your input and your time.
:-)
adam

B-Subs-Me · 15-Feb-2008, 05:14 PM **#10**

I get home from soccer after school and game for about an hour and a half with friends. If my friends aren’t on, I play about 30 minutes, get bored, and just browse the web for whatever's on my mind for about 30 minutes or so. (check out http://www.pandora.com/ best site ever

Good for burning time) As for my tinkering experience; I overclocked my CPU and GPU and I pretty much leave my computer alone.

Do you want to buy a new desktop or a laptop? What will the computer be for? If your going to spend around $1000 or more, you should build your own desktop. Do you know how to build a desktop? Learning is easy and can save you a good amount of money. I recommend you consider it. Researching and comparing hardware will take the most time, but will also be the part that will save you the most money. You will probably need to do this whether you build your own computer or not if you want the most out of your money. Manufactures charge you more than you would pay if you built it yourself. When you build your own, you get exactly what you want, not just what the manufacturer offers. Newegg is my favorite place to shop, and they have cheaper prices than most other people for MOST THINGS.

As for antivirus - Mcaffe does a pretty good job, but your best defense is what you do on the internet. Siteadvisor is very useful. Mcaffe automatically scans my computer every day at 3:00am.

So, with your level of knowledge, sure you could just buy a computer, but if you spend some time learning to build and overclock, you can save yourself money.

jbm1991 · 15-Feb-2008, 07:45 PM **#11**

ah no problem

generally with computers the phrase "if it aint broke, dont fix it" applies. i only tinker with my machine because i get bored, and its 4 years old and my hard drives slowly failing so its going to die sooner or later

as for anti virus's ive used mcafee since i got the computer and its catches, cleans and removes everything i need it to. and it never gives me any bother when playing games, like norton for example. it also has loads of useful tools in built, like a shredder, and a quick clean app for removing all the junk off your PC. dont bother going for XP because i dont know why everyone whinges about vista. i have it on 2 of my machines and i really like it

Stoner · 15-Feb-2008, 10:21 PM **#12**

Quote:

Stoner,....that is really great to go 15 months without an issue! So the secrets of your success are:

You bought the machine and leave it alone and don't tinker with it
You are careful of which sites you go to.
You blow out the dust every six months
Download critical updates
Scan for malware

Do you have a warranty on your machine and with problems like the drive failure, is that something you can do yourself or do you have to call tech support for that?

Quote:

So the secrets of your success are:

I wouldn't call them secrets. Just good advice I've picked up from help/tech sites.

Quote:

Do you have a warranty on your machine

Not now....it's expired.

Quote:

and with problems like the drive failure, is that something you can do yourself or do you have to call tech support for that?

Drive failure is something I've read about often, so when it did occur, it was easy to diagnose and replace.

My experiences with my first computer and tech support were so poor, I decided to read up on computers and learn how to fix them myself ..........and find a friendly site like TSG where good advice is available for what I couldn't figure out. Google is also a powerful tool for finding answers to hardware/software problems.