Over the years I’ve fielded hundreds, if not thousands, of questions from listeners, family members, and friends. A lot of these questions make there way into the podcasts, but some of them aren't long enough for a show. Here are a few that didn't fit in any other episode, so I thought I'd combine them into a segment.
1.) Why do we use control-alt-delete?
If you are a Windows user, you’ve probably had to use the infamous control-alt-delete. This is a really strange key combination to ever have to press, so why do we have to use it? Where did it come from?
Way back in the days of the IBM PC, engineers would use the key combination to soft reboot the computer when a program they were working on froze. The soft reboot allowed them to unfreeze the computer without a full reboot. It was never intended to go mainstream, and the key combination was made to be obscure so that you couldn’t accidentally reboot the computer.
This caught on even more when the new Windows operating system used the same key combination to login and present the task manager. Now the unique key press is used in modern Windows operating systems as a way to protect your login screen. If you press “control-alt-delete” on a fake login screen, Windows will bring up task manager instead of prompting you to login.
It’s one of those combinations that comes from the very beginning of personal computers and has carried over to today. There is no rhyme or reason why exactly it came to be “control-alt-delete” other than the fact that it was obscure enough not to be pressed accidentally!
2.) Why do we need to restart after updates?
I get this question a lot from friends. It seems like an age old frustration of needing to reboot your computer in order to install updates. Personally, my computer only updates when I’m working on something that’s time sensitive, and it always takes forever.
So why in 2016 do phones, laptops, desktops, and most devices require you to reboot your computer after you install updates? Well picture it like putting new tires on your car. When programmers make a change to a program, they are literally changing the instructions a computer is using to perform operations. Changing out critical instructions while a computer is running is like changing the wheel of a car while it’s on the freeway: it can easily crash.
Now programmers are clever and there are ways they use to update computers that can’t restart, but this is a delicate process and can go wrong easily. It’s just easier to reboot and start with a fresh instruction set. Now if you’re on a Window’s operating system, this article will show you how to schedule your updates so they don’t happen unexpectedly. Apple isn’t nearly as annoying as Windows in the the update department, but if you want to disable automatic updates here is a tutorial for you.
3.) Why do we change passwords so often?
If you work for a company of almost any size, you’re probably used to changing your passwords frequently. Sometimes it’s once a month, once a quarter, or once a year. In any case, it can be annoying to change passwords so frequently. So why do we do it?
The reason it’s a good idea to change passwords is a security measure for a password getting hacked or lost. The idea is that if a hacker steals your password and you change it every month, at best they will only have access to your password for a month before you change it. This also prevents hackers from trying to ‘crack’ your password. If a hacker doesn’t know your password they will try and guess it. Typically this will take a really long time, but hackers can use their computer to guess for them. A good password can take years, or even decades, to guess. So if you change your password monthly, a hacker would have to start over each time
This is also why most systems won’t let you keep a similar password to your last one. For example most systems won’t let you change “Password1” to “Password2.” If I saw that you had an old password of “Password12,” I would simply try “Password13”, “Password14” and so on to see if you had in fact just kept adding a number each time you had to change it.
Ultimately changing passwords won’t protect the strength of the password, they just make it harder for hackers who try and steal passwords and reuse them. It limits the time they have to access a system and the time they can crack a password and have it still be useful
While this practice is annoying, it’s generally not too bad if you use a password manager like LastPass which securely stores and remembers your passwords.
A driver is a special program that tells your computer how to interact with hardware.
4.) What is a driver?
I’ve had the question asked to me a ton of times, “What is a driver and why is it installing?” If you use Windows, you’ve probably plugged in a mouse, keyboard, or some other USB device and seen a little Window pop up that says “Installing Drivers.” A driver is a special program that tells your computer how to interact with hardware.
Imagine the following scenario: someone hands you the keys to a motorcycle and asks you to take it for a spin. This is what happens to your computer when you plugin a device, it says, “What the heck do I do with this?” If your computer has the right driver, it says “oh ya I know what to do from here!” If it doesn’t know what to do, it looks for a program that might know how to use the new piece of hardware. This is just like the keys to your motorcycle, if you know how to ride you’re set and ready to go. However, if you’ve never ridden a motorcycle, you’ll have to seek out some instructions on how to do so!
So why don’t computers have all the drivers installed ahead of time? Well, that would be a lot of wasted space. I mean why would you have the drivers for 1000 different types of USB mice if you only used one or two? It makes a lot more sense to download only the drivers you need from the internet, instead of just having them all on hand!
Be sure to check out all my earlier episodes at techtalker.quickanddirtytips.com. And with that, I’m the Tech Talker, keeping technology simple!
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar