Editor’s note: While Mr. C. enjoys some well-deserved time off, we are reprinting a few frequently-asked reader questions.
Q. I have a Dell 8200 Pentium 4, with Windows XP and USB ports 1.1 installed, purchased in 2002.
The latest peripherals I bought, such as printer, card reader, etc., are all USB 2.0 generation. Even though they accept the USB 1.1 configuration, they run slowly, and the computer constantly shows a screen message that suggests improving the connections.
How can I upgrade the system? Is it possible to do it myself, installing whatever is needed, or should a technician be the one doing the job?
Lorenzo [email protected]
A. You can, indeed, personally install a new USB 2.0 card in one of the empty PCI slots in that Dell, Mr. C., but first let’s discuss saving time with a screwdriver by simply telling the computer to stop those warnings.
This annoying message vexes many people with fairly new computers and can be switched off using the Device Manager tool.
To find this, right-click on the My Computer icon and select Hardware and Device Manager. Now, scroll down to the bottom of the list of all the computer’s peripherals, to the USB controller.
Open this heading and find your USB 1.1 setting. Give it a right-click and select Properties.
In the box that comes up, you will find a set of tabs. Pick the one called Advanced, and you will find the click box for giving or withholding those USB 1.1 speed warnings.
I suggest a cover-up, because most peripherals work just fine at the slower 12 megabit-per-second USB 1.1 speeds, even though adding USB 2.0 increases that data movement to whopping levels above 400 mbps.
If you use something speed intensive, like a scanner or a USB-driven external hard drive, the difference is meaningful.
But if it’s a printer or a card reader or a camera, the slower speeds are pretty acceptable.
If you’d rather not just gloss things over, you can find PCI USB 2.0 cards everywhere from $10 up to $100.
Try using the Froogle shopping feature in Google (http://froogle.google.com), and you’ll see a huge number of cards.
The great thing about this is that the PCI cards simply get pressed into one of the empty card slots that are available when one removes the case of desktops like your Dell.
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Installing one isn’t much more bother than changing the batteries in one’s home fire alarms.
This means that even I can do this particular upgrade.
Q. I have a daughter going to college next year, and I’m planning to buy her a laptop.
I’m hoping to get something not only good now, but that will not become obsolete over the four or five years of college.
What is generally recommended in terms of a laptop’s technical capability/requirements? I’m presuming Windows XP and Microsoft Word/Excel/PowerPoint as required operating system and software.
I know I don’t want to rely on a salesperson giving me recommendations.
A. Your answer, Mr. K, lies in the fact that when it comes to bread-and-butter computing, obsolete isn’t as bad as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs want you to think.
As these tech mavens will tell you, five years from now just about every bit of electronic gear that surrounds us today, computers most certainly included, will be obsolete.
Think back. If you wanted Internet access at a Starbucks five years ago, you would have needed to get the manager to lend you his telephone. America Online’s slow dial-up product was the most commonly used Web and e-mail portal, and computers finally were coming with built-in 56,000 kilobit-per-second modems.
Computers were based on the Pentium II at 600 megahertz and were a great many times slower than today’s Pentium 4 3.6 gigahertz howlers.
Back then, most folks got by with 128 megabytes of memory, which today would clog a computer so badly that Web surfing would have to be done without streaming video and audio downloads.
That little trip down memory lane should tell you this: Bells and whistles change quickly, but the basics endure.
All the software you mentioned, Word/Excel/PowerPoint and such, would be running just as well on a year 2000 PC as it runs on one of today’s multimedia monsters. This little-discussed reality is a big reason that technology sales have flattened.
By 2000, computers had reached the levels of speed and data storage to handle just about every computing process a business needs. They remain at that level.
So here’s the bottom line: Nobody wants to be saddled with an obsolete computer, but it looks very much like in five years obsolete will be just fine for workaday computing, including all Web stuff shy of high-speed, full-screen video. Use price and the reputation of the seller when you buy.
However, nobody can accurately say where technology will be in the next half-decade. I’m betting you will be using your wide-screen digital television set for the Web, your video-capable cell phone for e-mail and your Bluetooth plasma iPod linked to citywide Wi-Fi to do much of the stuff we now do with multimedia computers.
That means look for a solid laptop with a mobile-optimized Intel Celeron or AMD chip with built-in wireless Internet and at least 512 mb of memory, a DVD player, a CD burner and 60 gigabytes of hard-drive space.
That should be enough in 2010, just as the baseline computers from 2000 work quite nicely in 2005.
Q. Despite my Internet service provider catching the bulk of junk mail, spam and porn and preventing it from being downloaded to my inbox, I have had a deluge of this type of mail getting through the filter. Usually between five to 10 messages a day get through.
I changed my filter to high, but it caused problems with the genealogy lists to which I subscribe.
I have drafted all the message rules I can find to try to intercept them at the server, but too many of them are still getting through.
My ISP tells me they can do nothing, since they are not from their (ISP) address. Is there any remedy that you can suggest?
A. You should consider a permission-based e-mail scheme like the $39.95 Choice Mail software, Mr. B. The software sends a message to the sender of each piece of unrecognized e-mail asking for a “registration” response before it will be delivered to you.
Most spam senders use fake return addresses and won’t know you replied. Outfits that do get your permission message can answer a question or two, and the software will use rules to decide whether to pass it along.
Since the vast majority of desired e-mail comes from people who are on your list of addresses, this scheme doesn’t insult many people.
And once these folks get through the first time, you can decide whether to accept them in the future or put them in your delete queue.
This seems ideal for folks in your position, even though it also sounds like a whole lot of bother at first.
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You can find details and a free demonstration download of the Choice Mail software at www.digiportal.com/index.html.
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Contact Jim Coates via e-mail at [email protected] or via snail mail at the baiduhai, Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago IL 60611. Questions can be answered only through this column. Add your point of view at chicagotribune.com/askjim.