[Grandcheapskate]

I love hearing the old guys say everything was better...
So yeah... sign me up for some of that old school slowness any day of the week, with regards to the good old days of computers.... they can stay right there.

I'm not saying that the technology today is not leaps and bounds better than the technology of yesterday, or that it is not far less expensive. All I'm saying is that the software is out of control. For every step forward for hardware technology, the software requirements take a giant leap forward without necessarily giving you anything that you really need.

When you combine new hardware with new software, you may get some new features that you'll actually use, but mostly you are getting Bloatware; and a lot os useless, unwanted features.

I liken this to what has happened to golf with all the new technology. New technology allows you to hit the ball farther, so they make the holes longer. What is the point? If you want to hit the fall farther down the fairway, just use the ladie's tees and save yourself some money.

Technology has obsoleted some wonderful golf courses and eliminated anyone but the longest hitters from contention in tournaments. Software has obsoleted very useable PCs.

Joe

 

[martybauer31]

All my stuff was strictly tongue-in-cheek Joe, I do agree with you that software bloat gives me the jingles at work every day. I'm a data storage architect/implementation guy so I know all too well.

I'm convinced that updates to Java are nothing more than making the logo prettier to look at while I am waiting for my interface to come up while working at client sites....

 

[slotcarman12078]

Back to ebay so I can vent a bit.. I noticed the bay got slower when they started plastering the pages with 20 ads, and adding useless options that are so touchy, God help you is your curser even gets close to a "larger view". If I wanted a larger view, I'd click on the listing!!! Once the darn thing is enlarged, you have to scroll all over creation to get rid of it. I guess jacking up the sellers rates for listings didn't raise enough capitol, so plastering the pages with useless junk ads was the way to go.

 

[AfxToo]

software is out of control

Au contraire my punch card and paper tape heathen. It may appear that way to an outsider. But there has never been, and never will be, anything created by man that has more potential to change the way we live our lives than software. From a computer engineering and architecture perspective, there has been very, very little progress on the hardware side of computer design in nearly 50 years. Most of the advances in capacity and performance are a consequence of vast improvements in material science, fabrication technology, and manufacturing technology.The latest multi core, multi gigahertz CPUs are largely built around the same architecture and design patterns that were devised in the 1950s. Rather than taking up an entire room, they now take up only a few square microns on a silicon wafer. Very impressive evolution, but one that is starting to hit a wall due to absolute physical constraints and lack of evolution of computer architectural design.

Software on the other hand is still at the caveman rubbing two sticks together to make fire level. There's no denying the apparent sophistication of some software today, Leisure Suit Larry notwithstanding, but where software is today versus where its potential resides, that's a huge delta almost beyond human comprehension. Software is infinitely malleable and extensible, unlike any other tool that man has ever devised.

Still, the potential and the manifestation of the potential into everyday utility is still one that may elude our best intentions. The most remarkable computing entity that's ever been assembled, or evolved, is the human brain. But anyone who has been behind the guy in the checkout line who is taking 20 seconds to make the "paper or plastic" decision using that remarkable cognitive machine may wonder how we'll ever get beyond the rubbing two sticks together level with software technology.

 

[Grandcheapskate]

Au contraire my punch card and paper tape heathen.

You've been looking through my desk again, haven't you?

Well, I'm going to grab my wooden driver and balata golf balls and head out to the newly expanded 600 yard par 4, which is now drivable off the tee with the new Nitroglycerin insert and radar technology built into the latest drivers.

Joe

 

[DesertSlot]

Ht

My Hobby Talk has been slow the last couple of days. Anyone else?

 

[Grandcheapskate]

My Hobby Talk has been slow the last couple of days. Anyone else?

No. Even with dial-up, my HT sessions are very quick.

I did an experiment today with eBay. I decided to try putting eBay into my restircted sites list (TOOLS - INTERNET OPTIONS - SECURITY for IE6). When I did this, the pages loaded much faster. The bad part was that I could not sign on; I'm guessing this was because cookies were disallowed.

I'm not really up on all this new kaka that web pages use, but is it possible that putting sites into the restricted list disables some of the CPU eating features and allows pages to load quicker?

Joe

 

[Illinislotfan]

Slow for me too. Slower than ebay.

 

[grungerockjeepe]

actually THIS site has been loading slow for me, both at home and at work....

 

[AfxToo]

If you are using Firefox...

1) Install AdBlock Plus (this works on all operating systems)
2) Install and run this: http://www.crystalidea.com/speedyfox

Firefox uses SQLite and over time it gets fragmented and needs to be optimized. That's what SpeedyFox does. Run it periodically.

 

[ParkRNDL]

(snip)

The first PC I bought actually cost me $1700, it was a 486-33DX (math co-processor built right in, woohoo!) with 2 MB RAM and a 170MB hard drive which friends said I would NEVER fill up.

(snip)

oh my gawd. in 1994, right after we got married, we went to Monkey Ward and bought a Packard Bell 486-DX2-66 with a 40 MB hard drive. flippin' thing was TWENTY FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS. I remember upgrading the RAM to something like 16 or 32 MB and it was a big deal. the machine i am working on now was around 500 bux--it's an Acer 2.4 gHz dual processor with a 640 gig hard drive and 4GB of RAM. the DVD drive has been giving me fits, but other than that it's lightning fast and works well...

my how times change.

--rick

 

[Grandcheapskate]

I did an experiment today with eBay. I decided to try putting eBay into my restircted sites list (TOOLS - INTERNET OPTIONS - SECURITY for IE6). When I did this, the pages loaded much faster. The bad part was that I could not sign on; I'm guessing this was because cookies were disallowed.

I'm not really up on all this new kaka that web pages use, but is it possible that putting sites into the restricted list disables some of the CPU eating features and allows pages to load quicker?

Joe

Just to expand on this, I seem to have found a partial solution to the slowness problem without having to buy a new machine every other month.

I IE6, I modified the options (TOOLS - INTERNET OPTIONS - SECURITY) for the Internet zone to disable Java and set to PROMPT all the options for Active X and Scripting. This has allowed my eBay, Yahoo and other sites to load much faster than I could have imagined.

The Internet zone is the default for all web sites that you have not placed in other zones. If you've never used this option, all your web sites are treated as if they are in the Internet zone.

Now, there are problems. First of all, you are going to get prompted on almost every page (and multiple times) asking to allow scripts and/or Active X to run. It seems most times you can reply NO, but there are times when it must run in order for the page to fully work. For example, in Yahoo Mail, I don't seem to need to let scripts run unless I want to use my address book.

Same with eBay. I can actually browse very quickly now and only need to let scripts run when I want to sign on or bid. The beauty of this is that you can choose only those pages that you want to run scripts. If you bring up a page that doesn't work quite right because you didn't let the scripts run, just reload the page and let them run this time. The pages will take a lot longer to load, but you'll get the full functionality.

After a while, you'll probably learn where you must let them run, and where you can turn them off. If you have a site where you always need the full functionality (Paypal fr example), put that site into your Trusted Sites list and you will not get prompted.

It seems scripting is the big CPU eater. When a page does scripting, my CPU gets pegged at 100% and everything slows down. With no scripting, the CPU only gets to about 20%-30%.

Before I did this, a page would display and yet the screen would stay locked for about 20-30 seconds. Now, when a page displays, I'll get a prompt asking if I want to run scripts. I say NO, and the page is freed up.

Hope this helps.

Joe

 

[AfxToo]

No reasonable person would still be using Internet Explorer 6 if they have a choice.

It's not an IE versus Firefox versus Safari versus Chrome thing either, IE6 is simply a horrible piece of technology that has done more to sully Microsoft's reputation than anything that's come out of Redmond. Yeah, Windows Me was a train wreck too, but it went away on its own rather quickly. IE6 needs to be killed before it inflicts any more damage. If you must use a Microsoft browser, use IE8. Otherwise, take your pick and make your pick your new default browser.

I am not alone in my assessment of IE6: (there are many more)

http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/internet/we-come-to-bury-ie6
http://ripie6.com/

This is obviously a case where the "It needed killin' " defense would most certainly lead to an acquittal.

 

[Grandcheapskate]

No reasonable person would still be using Internet Explorer 6 if they have a choice.

Ah, but what are the resource requirements for IE8 or another more recent browser? The machines I'm using for the Internet are maxed out at 256 meg using a 600Mhz and 900Mhz processor, and W2000. I'm sure new browsers are not more efficient; clearly the operating systems are not.

So the choice comes down to buying another machine or trying to get along with something that does work except for the extraneous garbage on a web page. If IE8 runs on 256 meg and W2000, great. If not, I'm left trying to figure out how to circumvent the software obsoleting the hardware.

Right now I can tell you that turning off scripting on web pages has made my web browsing fly - even on dial-up. It takes less than 2 seconds to load pages here on HT.

Joe

 

[AfxToo]

I think IE8 requires Windows XP minimum, even though the hardware requirements are low, in the range that you would be able to use. A better solution with Windows 2000 is Firefox 3, which has a recommended configuration (not minimum) of 500 MHz CPU, 128 MB RAM, and 52 MB disk space. An added bonus of Firefox is its huge plug-ins library, the first of which to install is Adblock Plus. It removes most all banner and animated ads from web pages, further speeding up your surfing. I use FF3 on all of my computers, the lowest end one being a PIII-550 with 384 MB RAM running XP. It runs fine.

The issues with IE6 are mostly due to its noncompliance with web standards (which is why no web developer wants to develop web sites for it) and it opens up big security holes in your computer unless you keep up with all of the updates, 150+ security holes in IE6, and still counting.

Dial-up is a huge problem with any computer these days, but especially Windows machines with the constant updates and patches. The last time I installed a fresh copy of XP on a machine with a modem I calculated that it would take between 40 and 60 hours of modem download time just to bring it up to snuff on all required security updates. That was a few years ago too, the situation would only be worse today. This situation has gotten so bad that next week, when Windows 7 is released with much fanfare, users are going to install this brand spanking new ("cough cough") OS on their machine and find out that it already has many megabytes of required updates waiting for them. Brand new and already broken before you get it out of the box. By the way, there is no direct update path from XP or earlier to Win7. It will not bring over any of your existing applications or settings unless you are upgrading from Vista. Monty, please queue the donkey behind door number one ...

Incidentally, the situation with the Mac is not much better. Snow Leopard required a huge update (~60 MB) within a few days of its release to fix bugs in Safari. Same with Ubuntu, constant updates that force you to have a high speed connection just to keep up with the constant changes. The big difference though, with Windows you pretty much HAVE to install all security patches. With Mac and Ubuntu (Linux), nobody is out there trying to break them or hack into them all of the time like they are with Windows. Windows, with its near 90% market share, is under constant attack.