A Message from the Owner

On experience, I can say many people ask many questions about computers which, to me, seem trivial, but perhaps not well-explained. My goal here is to Address some of these questions. Just remember, though: sometimes the questions you have in mind might not be the ones you should be asking.

General

This section is for some of what I would call the more "general" questions.

How often do I need a new PC?

Believe it or not, a good PC can last ten to fifteen years with regular maintenance, but after that, if you can't upgrade it, you should probably replace it.

How do I build a computed?

Well, speaking from experience, you need to know what parts you need. Knowing what works with what is one thing, but knowing how to pick the best components for the job - especially within a budget - is entirely different. I made the rookie mistake of just building my first PC around parts that went together rather than seeing if those parts were any good. My first PC was stable, but not all that capable. I upgraded it multiple times before it approached anything resembling a capable PC.

Should I get a Mac?

In the general sense, no. They have use cases, of course. For example, they are fairly well-established in the media production space. Operations of that sort may be easier on a Mac, but that doesn't necessarily mean getting one is the right choice. If you've been running Windows since forever, you may have to adapt to a new work flow.

What's a good CPU to buy?

You know, someone asked me this once - a long time ago. I'm still not sure if she meant an actual CPU, or a whole computer which some people call a CPU. You see, a PC consists of multiple individual parts. A CPU is just one of them. There are currently only two CPU manufacturers for custom PCs: AMD and Intel. Their products have different use cases, but unless you have a very specific use case in mind, either one will usually do just fine.

How did you make this website? It looks kinda...

Kinda tacky? Somewhat unrefined? Very '90s? Yeah, that's what I was going for. It uses modern HTML and CSS, but still manages to pull off that straight-out-of-the-'90s look. Done almost entirely with text editors, too.

What the heck even is a "Linux"?

In the interest of keeping all these answers reasonably short, I'll say that it's an Operating System that's not Windows or Mac OS. But if it wasn't clear enough how big this question is to me, I do have a full page on just this topic itself.

My family member can do everything you can!

Not really a question, is it? Regardless, I'd like to meet people with more skill than me. As a business owner, I must compete, but knowing competition strengthens my position. That's just one of the many reasons why I'm here.

Why don't you just get a job with [insert company name here]?

Well, that's an interesting question. Answer is, to me, equally perplexing. While there is a significant market for my skill set, the market seems to be everywhere but here. I'm aware of my competition in this area, too. They all are missing something I have. Up to them to figure out what that might be.

Why do phones and computers say they're 16GB and 512GB?

That's a difference between storage and system memory. In the general sense, the lower number is the system memory, and the larger is the storage. The larger the small number is, the more apps it can run at the same time. The larger the large number is, the more files it can hold. If you have a lot of games you want installed, that larger number will need to be larger. If you want to run more things at the same time, the smaller number will need to be larger.

My internet says it's gigabit, but I've only seen it download up to about 100MB per second. What gives?

This has a few aspects associated. First, your ISP advertises speed in bits, but your software (browser, FTP client, Peer-to-peer file sharing client, and so on) will usually measure speed in bytes. The difference between the two is 8 to 1 - that is, there are 8 bits in a byte, so in theory, a gigabit connection can transfer up to 125MB per second. Second, there is the issue of other computers and devices using the same connection. If you have someone lisening to Spotify in one room, someone else watching YouTube in another, and you are trying to transfer files, your speed will be slower than the advertised speed of the connection. Third, there is always the possibility of server load. A server can only handle so much traffic, and much like on your local network, its resources must be balanced. Lastly, there is the issue of tranfer overhead. Information must be added to data being transferred in order for it to properly reach its destination. This can make the transfer slightly slower.

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