Help I think I'm a Geek

Help I think I’m a Geek ©

By Michael Casey

Back in 1978 I listened to my brother and applied for a job in computers, I got that job, I stayed 21 years, market research into alcohol sales. Back then people were impressed when you said you worked in computers, 37 years ago, when I was still a teenager. It was a DEC PDP 1170 computer with a row of flashing lights and toggle switches, it was as  big as two wardrobes. There were even tape decks as big as dinner plates, not forgetting a cardreader, because you had to screw on the tapes I still to this day have a very strong twist action. This is perfect for opening and closing bottles of pop or salad cream. The other thing to remember is that we ran out of space, so we had to delete things to make sure the job wouldn’t crash. It was like Wallace and Grommet where they ran out of track and had to race as they hurtled through the living room.

Now in 2015 a home computer will have a terabyte or 1000 gig in plain English. If we had 10% of 1 gig at the time I’ll be amazed. I think when we updated the computers 15 years later we had 4 gig or something. So with this background you can understand my attitude to home computing.

I tidy up, I tidy up every time I finish on the computer, I delete History and any other files I can find, just in case I run out of space. So I still have 60gig plus, but it may as well be 60 bytes, I must tidy up. All because of 1978 in my computer room.  On the night shift I’d come in and the lads had left a trail of stuff for me to tidy up, lads can be like that, just like our own teenagers. So I always spent 20 mins tidying up after them, rather like our kitten Totoro who is running around behind me.

I know somebody who never, and I mean never did a disc cleanup. So their system went slower and slower over the years. I know somebody else who never used their company email account, when they left after 3 years it took an hour for the email to open, as there were thousands of emails waiting to be looked at. There was print room email account which he did look at, but the personal one, never.

I also know of another place where no backups were done and the company could have folded when disaster struck.  Modern companies are not that stupid, law firms save everything to a server, every email and document is numbered and filed away for posterity. So FIFA will have a lot to answer for, not unless the computers or server room are destroyed, though didn’t somebody say their computers were destroyed…..

Now everybody should have, must have an antivirus, AVG, Avast, Avira start the alphabet and ZoneAlarm finishes it, there is Norton in the middle. If you google FREE antivirus then you’ll get a load of results. Just read the reviews and then decide which is for you. In computer terms just like any marketing FREE does not mean FREE, its means FEE in one month’s time, but you can downgrade to a free version.

As they are free you could be tempted to have 2 or 3 on your PC or laptop, and guess what, your processor can be wadding through treacle. Trial and error helps. 360security is a Chinese antivirus, it also tidies up really well, though some will say too well. Again have a look for yourself.

Now when I came out of hospital after my surgery, my triple heart bypass I came home and switched on the computer and everything was gone. My books, my stories, my babies. It took 3 days to restore the computer, it had gone back to factory settings while I was away. I nearly cried, but as you can imagine I had backups.

The simplest thing to do is to use your email. Every time you send an email you copy it to a folder. So you email your mother-in-law after you send it you drag it to the DEVIL folder, or when you email your accountant you drag it to the BASTARD folder, when you email your Rabbi or Priest you drag it to the GOD folder, when you email your daughters you drag it to the DEBT folder. And so on, so that you instantly know what is in each folder. Now for the actual files you attach them to an email and then they are safe.

So you email michaelgcasey@hotmail.com attaching your stuff, once you have sent it you then put the message into a folder, such as FUNNY. What you also do is get a few email accounts, so that you can email your stuff to yourself on Hotmail, yahoo, gmail, gmx, aol and any other account. Now if your computer dies your files are safe, they are on servers all over the world. You can send your stuff to your family and friends with do not delete in subject line.

Of course you should go to Argos or Amazon or PCWorld and get a few USB sticks too. For a few quid your company, and I mean company is safe. I tell my daughter to do all this when she is doing her homework, so how much more important are your company files. You can also download your special stuff to another device you have in the home or at the office.

We all have 1000s of photos of our kids, as we all have digital camera and phones nowadays, so 10,000 photos taken over 10 years are worth protecting. My nephew said he had 5000 photos on his phone, can you believe that? You can pay for storage or you can just use the free storage on Hotmail and Gmail.  30 gig on Hotmail and 15gig on Gmail. And you can get multiple accounts.

Computers are fun, until they go wrong, and computer engineers are all mad, they don’t get the job unless they have a bizarre sense of humour, ditto for industrial printer engineers. I know this to be a fact, so trust me. However you can look after yourself if you are careful.

Get a couple of email accounts. Put everything in a folder after you have sent it. Back up your files to the Gdrive or Hotmail’s drive.  Always make 3 copies at least to usb sticks. Password is not a clever password, Drowssap is better but still not good. Add a few Upper case and numbers too. For example my inside leg is 35, my hair is brown, and I am French, so a good password could be 35BRUNfrancais.

Get an antivirus and use it, and don’t forget to tidy up not unless you want to be like Wallace and Grommet and the train track. My real password is fatBastard2015HeartAttack, but don’t tell anybody.