On Computers

Give up Windows? Not even for a sleek MacBook

Several years ago, one of our friends announced he'd had it with Windows. He went out and bought two MacBooks, one for himself, one for his wife. We're slow, but we're starting to see his point. Feeling the same exasperation, we recently turned to a MacBook Air we'd had in the closet since 2012. The relief was instant. Websites loaded immediately. Joy didn't have to do four yoga poses before pictures downloaded .

Normally, when our main Windows computer gets screwy, we set it back to its factory defaults. You can do that with the Recovery option in "Settings" or "Control Panel." Once you do that, it feels brand new again. Unfortunately, it is brand new again -- all the programs you added are wiped out. You know, when you jump out of Windows, you gotta expect some bumps.

But this time, Windows 10 got in the way. All we got were error messages, stopping all security updates. Obviously, it was time to call Microsoft's Answer Desk. This isn't something we normally do, but there in our email was a Microsoft offer for a free PC tune-up, normally $99. It's provided for anyone who signs up for Office 365, a $7-a-month program. Answer Desk reinstalled Windows 10 for us -- using a remote control program over the Internet. When finished, the security updates came in without errors, but the computer was still pokey.

The most common reason a computer slows down is too many programs. So we uninstalled Flickr Uploader, Dropbox, YouTube Downloader, and a duplicate photo remover. All of these small programs load themselves onto your computer and stay there so you can easily access them, which the maker knows for sure you always want to do. Why else would you have put them in? Actually, we hardly ever use them. Poof! Away with you all. The speed-up was instantaneous and impressive!

Bottom line: We'll continue to use both Mac and Windows. Joy's Windows machine is an all-in-one (everything built into the tiny spaces in the monitor case). It's easy on the eyes and hard on your muscles when you try to move it. Bob's laptop is attached to a big monitor and full-size keyboard. The MacBook Air is the smaller, 11-inch model, and although the back-lit keyboard is a dream to use, the screen size causes eye strain. Sure, it will always be a little faster than our Windows computers, partly because it has a solid state drive and partly because it will never have a lot of programs on board, but there is a learning curve: We have to search Google for the Mac commands when we forget them. Finally, there are many Windows programs near and dear to our hearts. For Joy, it's her greeting card software and Web editing program. But mainly, Windows is what we're used to. Our use goes all the way back to version 1.0, which a salesman told Joy she needed it in order to fax. That sure was useful, because we've sent one fax in the past 20 years.

Google Search Tips

Tips on Web searching have been around as long as the Web itself. But all you really need to know is this: Start typing whatever is on your mind. The more specific you get, the better. For instance, we Googled "British pronunciation of pasta." If we'd Googled "British pronunciations," it would have taken a long time to find what we want. (Incidentally, the British pronounce "pasta" to rhyme with "fast-a.")

Don't bother with the complicated search tips you read from time to time. They involve colons, minus signs and other unnecessary symbols. Just type in your query. This works especially well when someone sends you an extremely outrageous political quote. Take the first sentence, copy and paste into a search engine. More often than not it turns out to be false.

Direct is best when it comes to searching. Here are a few examples:

• Google the phrase "Tip Calculator" and you'll get an online calculator. Suppose your restaurant bill is $40 and there are four of you. Type in $40, put the tip at 15 percent, and put in "4." Google says each person should pay $11.50.

• Want to know what day of the week Christmas falls on in 2016 or any other year? Type "Christmas 2016" and you'll find out it's a Sunday. Or use any other holiday or date.

• Want to search within a site? Use Google. It's better than the site's own search engine. For efficiency's sake, type your search term next to the website name. For example, type "inferiority PsychologyToday.com" to get an article on that topic. (Seems pointless, though; we don't know anybody who's inferior.)

100 Arcade Games from the Old Days

This spring, thanks to Atari, 100 arcade games from the old days will be available for playing online through the website Steampowered.com. The games include Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command, Tempest and Warlord.

We got a wee bit excited when we read that many of these classic games are already available on Atari's "Flashback" console, now out in version 6. But when we checked the reviews on Amazon, nearly half the reviewers give it only one star. The machine gets confused if your hand actions are too animated and the joystick is difficult to use. Missile Command is described as virtually unplayable. Some kids like it because they didn't know how these games worked in the old days.

And by the way, there's a great website for those who remember the old Amiga computers. These came out in 1985 and were far and away the most advanced desktop machines you could buy. They had music, color, animation and life-like imagery when no else did. They used a technique called "ray tracing," which made glass look like glass, and even showed internal reflections. Go to Amigaforever.com for the machines and programs; go to YouTube for demos.

Bob and Joy Schwabach can be reached by email at bobschwa@gmail.com and joydee@oncomp.com.

SundayMonday Business on 02/08/2016

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