As a computer science major, I fell into the job of doing freelance computer repair by accident a long time ago. Over the past five years I have fixed dozens of computers for countless people, and I have seen a lot of the same mistakes made again and again that cause a great number of unnecessary headaches for everyone involved. Now that the new school year has started, here’s a few tips to make sure your machine stays running smoothly this semester.
Don’t use the Web-based system for UMD mail as your primary mail client. The Web program is cumbersome and has terrible searching capability. Why should you spend a great deal of time with a horrible interface when you can forward your UMD mail to a better online mail client, such as Gmail?
Computer software is expensive, but a lot of students spend money on software they shouldn’t even be purchase. You should definitely have anti-virus software if you run Windows, but don’t pay for it! The Office of Information Technology provides McAfee VirusScan Enterprise software free of charge (with a perpetual license, to boot). Most people use whatever comes pre-installed with their systems, but this anti-virus software is often bloated with unnecessary features and runs a lot slower than its counterparts. Also, it’s important to not let your subscription to updates expire. The OIT version of McAfee gracefully solves all of these problems, so get rid of the trial version that came with your Dell and install some real protection.
You also don’t need to shell out several hundred dollars for the latest version of Microsoft Office. Open Office, available at www.openoffice.org, is a fine alternative for most students, and it’s free/open source software. Therefore, it is free of charge, and the community developing it is constantly improving it. In fact, this column was written in Open Office. College students can’t ask for a much better deal than free word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and even databases.
Even software you don’t pay for can cause some expensive and disastrous consequences. Under no circumstances should you browse the Web with Internet Explorer. IE has been the source of about half the serious infections I’ve encountered while repairing computers. The only time you should ever use IE is for Windows Update operations. You should instead check out another great F/OSS program, Mozilla Firefox. It not only offers better performance and security than IE – Firefox also has a great set of add-ons that will make your browsing more productive and enjoyable.
This next tip will be hard to accept for most students: Do not use the official AOL Instant Messenger program. AIM is unfortunately prone to a lot of security problems, and you can receive a virus through AIM with one wrong mouse click. In fact, the required text for CMSC311: Computer Organization discusses how this particular piece of software has been littered with bad security holes. But don’t worry – the development of the official client has been stagnating for years, and most of the new features have resulted from innovations by Gaim, a F/OSS alternative that will allow you to use AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, Google Talk, Jabber and more. Regardless of which program you end up using, please do your roommate and hallmates a favor by disabling IM sounds. The visual cue of a flashing window should be enough to signal your fingers to the Alt and Tab keys, and your dorm will be a much more tranquil environment without all the unnecessary beeps.
Of course, if you end up having to ask a comp-sci major for some assistance if something goes wrong, don’t act like fixing your computer is his or her job. It’s your job to follow basic maintenance steps. If you need help, ask nicely and reward with money (or at least free food), and don’t expect a lot of sympathy if that shady poker program you played in IE trashed your term paper. You had fair warning.
Chris Conroy is a junior computer science major. He can be reached at cconroy@gmail.com.
