By Milt Hull
Users Group members, I found out, are a little more tech savvy than the average user. They tend to have more than one machine and dabble a little in adding hardware as well as installing their own software. When the average user purchases a machine from a company like Dell, they get whatever comes configured with that machine and stays on that machine until it dies.
Let me give you an example. I am a technical consultant and work with a wide variety of companies. Many times, individuals at those companies call me and have me work on their computers at home. I see all the familiar software choices that many computer builders install onto a new machine so the end user can make choices about what they want. One choice an end user has to make is that of an Internet Services Provider (ISP). Many times, software is installed to help jump-start these choices. AOL is one of these choices.
AOL, which I despise, comes pre-installed with connection drivers (connectoids), dial-up adapters and system agents, and consumes system resources, memory and hard drive space, even before they've subscribed to AOL. MSN, Earthlink, and other companies have loaded their startup programs as well, enabling the user to get up and running fast once they've chosen which will be their ISP.
However, if the user has their own access such as DSL, cable, or another dial-up connection, AOL, MSN, and all the other software is still there and never gets removed. User group people can spot this and remove these setups and software providing much more space and resources on their machines.
It is not only Internet services that are installed. Many computer builders also install Anti-Virus software and much, much more. These pre-installed software applications can be removed saving as much as a gigabyte of space on your new machine. Microsoft provides you with their Works Suite (including Word), Microsoft Money, Encarta, Streets and Trips, and a whole lot more. Now, you might say you plan on using Word so you would choose to keep that. Or you might want to keep it all since most standard issue hard drives are now 80GB's - plenty of space.
The thing here is, many items are taking up memory and space. These applications may have core parts of themselves automatically started when the operating system is started. Just look at the buttons showing up on the task bar and system tray. These items take up resources and memory, they may even cause your system to not have as snappy a performance as it could. You can stop most of these parts of applications by removing their icons from the Start Menu.
My main point is that most of our users group members either build their own machines, or they purchase a machine and customize it themselves based on their extended knowledge of computers. Why would anyone buy a pre-loaded computer then trashes most of what's on it? Because AOL and a few others give a kickback to the computer company, drawing down the cost. Well, I can say for myself, it takes a lot of time and energy to keep abreast of the computer industry and a Users Group helps doing that.
Stay with us and we will grow together.
