Thread: Computer/program help

Bat, cron, etc. Most of what you said made no sinse to me. But iwill look at it.

I see its talking about window 10 and 7 and... I have window 11. So this could be a problem already.

Originally Posted by Aggelos

Yeaaaah... I go with the accounting rules myself, they tend to amortize a computer in 3 to (max) 5 years. After that it is too much of a hassle to use.

I only upgraded my 2012 alienware laptop just before christmas, and it's still working grand other than the battery dying.

When I get round to replacing that I plan on using it as a pen testing machine.

Geek

Originally Posted by Gasman

Bat, cron, etc. Most of what you said made no sinse to me. But iwill look at it.

I see its talking about window 10 and 7 and... I have window 11. So this could be a problem already.

Did you have a look at FreeFileSync yet? It looks EXTREMELY non-geeky though I could be wrong. It is cross platform so probably installs and runs just fine on W11.

Honestly though, there really isn't much of a way around having to learn something or another, to get your backups to appear and update themselves for you. I know, Microsoft doesn't exactly make stuff like that easy for you. The dirty little secret is they don't care about the users. They club the manufacturers into submission so that they buy a license for windows for every computer they make. You of course pay for it in the price of the machine. Even if you delete windoze and install Linux or FreeBSD or some other free OS, you don't get a refund on your windows tax. You pay your money to MS no matter what, so they have little incentive to offer a truly great OS to the user. They are all about locking in manufacturers and software authors for licenses and upgrades, and protecting their near monopoly. Ever wonder why the source code for windows is top secret, while the source code for Linux is freely available to anyone who cares to have a look, and maybe edit their copy with their own little tweaks or patches, and compile their own custom installation? And maybe that has something to do with all the windows computers that get compromised by hackers in spite of the users PAYING for "protection" in the form of anti malware packages, while most Linux or Unix users don't bother with even basic antivirus? Windows is evil, plain and simple. JMHO.

If you have an "old" computer that doesn't seem to be up to the task of running WinDOHs for you and getting things done quickly without crashing, please give some thought to using it as a test bed for Linux. You don't even have to install linux on it to use Linux on it! You can download Ubuntu 22.04 (skip 23.04, upgrade next April to 24.04) image file, and follow the directions to create a LiveUSB thumb drive. Then just boot your old obsolete computer with it plugged in. You might have to change the boot order. When you power on, just hit the F10 or F12 or F1 or whatever key repeatedly as it boots. You will have to experiment to find the right one. The LiveUSB boot menu will give you some choices, to install Ubuntu, or just run it from the USB drive. It runs a bit slower on the LiveUSB, but you can play around with it without making any changes to the computer other than maybe changing boot order. If you piddle around with it for an hour a day after a few days you will be over the hump, and performing all your normal computing tasks via the GUI, just like Windows.

Eventually you will find yourself dragged kicking and screaming into the Terminal, but it won't take long to see how much really cool stuff you can do with it. Probably the first thing you will find yourself doing in Terminal is adding a third party software repository and installing an app that is not available in the Ubuntu software store. Have no fear. You can usually just cut and paste right from the website. You don't have to understand it right away, just simon says.

Peer support is excellent in the Linux community, especially with Ubuntu. Just type in your browser, "Ubuntu how do I back up my hard drive in terminal using the dd command" or whatever, (hint: for that particular task, pay close attention to instructions so you don't clone your drive to the wrong drive!) With your hard drive cloned to another drive, either internal, external, or cloud, you can easily manage your backup either by copying new or edited files to the backup and overwriting the old version, or maybe renaming the old file so you have the older version, just in case. Or go back to peer support and advice on how to use rsync to manage your backup, you guessed it, in terminal. In a year you will probably want to ditch WinDOHs altogether!

Ubuntu and Mint are probably the two most popular distributions for those familiar with Windows, who want a painless transition to a grownup operating system. Mint is slightly more windows-like, Ubuntu slightly bigger user base and more available software that is just click to install from the software store. Personally I would go with Ubuntu but I might be a bit biased. They are both descended from Debian, along with a couple dozen other flavors of Linux. The whole Debian family is very similar.

Linux Lite and Zorin are two other distributions that are tailored to the Windows user.

Avoid Arch or Slackware based distributions if you don't want the geeky stuff. They are good systems but you spend a lot of time under the hood and you won't get much hand holding from that crowd.

I did not find anything called free cile or any download links. I tried to read it but half way through the page I had no idea what they were talking about.

Now you think I could put some other kind of something/computer thing that would change the basic info i understand into something i cant understand at all. Ha. Doesnt sound like a smart thing to do to me.

Hell, if it wasnt for spell check you wouldnt undefstand what the hell im typing.

Originally Posted by Gasman

I did not find anything called free cile or any download links. I tried to read it but half way through the page I had no idea what they were talking about.

Now you think I could put some other kind of something/computer thing that would change the basic info i understand into something i cant understand at all. Ha. Doesnt sound like a smart thing to do to me.

Hell, if it wasnt for spell check you wouldnt undefstand what the hell im typing.

https://freefilesync.org/

Thank you for the link.

When i get back home as Im in CA right now on vacation. Well, fixing at the things i can for my dad around the house as he just cant do it any more at over 80 yrs. Im working until i cant every day. Not much of a vacation.

I will try it out after im back home. Im just glad im flying back tomorrow as another week of this would kill me