Author Topic: Anyone still on Windows 7?  (Read 5195 times)

SteamyTea

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Re: Anyone still on Windows 7?
« Reply #45 on: 15:21:17, 20/02/20 »
What is cloud?
It is where you upload all your personal files to a server connected to the internet.
Think about that for a moment.
You are asking a company to look after your data, often for free, for safe keeping.
All sorts of assurances are given that it is safe and secure, but there are large data breaches on a regular basis.
Now there are things you can do to keep it safer, you can encrypt your data, make sure there are no identifiables in your data, or only keep things you are willing to share with the world.
And the company that you choose to store your data with can withdraw the service at very short notice.
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fernman

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Re: Anyone still on Windows 7?
« Reply #46 on: 18:46:53, 20/02/20 »
All very true, however some services do encrypt your data, the one I use does, it's worth checking if a provider does this.
If they do stop providing the service, I was once with one who did just that, you don't lose anything if you have copies on a local client on your machine. I even do a belt-and-braces job by including them in my regular backups.

ninthace

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Re: Anyone still on Windows 7?
« Reply #47 on: 19:57:34, 20/02/20 »
The thing I find amazing about cloud storage is your files are scattered in fragments in server farms anywhere in the world where electricity is cheap and cooling is easy and yet it is just like another drive on your computer.
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SteamyTea

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Re: Anyone still on Windows 7?
« Reply #48 on: 22:16:41, 20/02/20 »
All very true, however some services do encrypt your data, the one I use does, it's worth checking if a provider does this.
If they do stop providing the service, I was once with one who did just that, you don't lose anything if you have copies on a local client on your machine. I even do a belt-and-braces job by including them in my regular backups.
Some only encrypt the transmission of the data, but as you say, worth checking.
I have lost 2 email providers in the past, one was in Egypt and got bombed, the other was the one that Snowdon used, the owner closed it down after giving the private keys, as a print out, to the CIA.
But you only have to look at what Google did to Nest (I think) and what SONOS have done to the home entertainment business.
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SteamyTea

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Re: Anyone still on Windows 7?
« Reply #49 on: 22:21:19, 20/02/20 »
The thing I find amazing about cloud storage is your files are scattered in fragments in server farms anywhere in the world where electricity is cheap and cooling is easy and yet it is just like another drive on your computer.
It is convenient and seemless, 20 years ago there was a service called XDrive that did the same.  Dial was slow and broadband back then, was none to fast.
You can get your own wireless NAS that works in the same way, costs more and is only as safe as the place is kept.
Sometimes I think that loosing all my data may be a blessing, this week I have backed up about 100 GB of data, and now have a collection of 3 TB network drives cluttering up the place.
Do I really need to keep the car insurance from 2005, and my Masters paperwork from 2009.
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gunwharfman

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Re: Anyone still on Windows 7?
« Reply #50 on: 11:12:31, 21/02/20 »
I don't want anyone to take this the wrong way, but some of you write with the confidence that you know all about what is going on in the computer world and in your own way you present yourself to people like me as 'experts' I like reading it all and welcome your knowledge, but at the same time I note that people like me are bombarded from the world around us with 360 degrees worth of positives about them and 360 degrees of negatives about them, so how am I supposed to have real confidence in them?

For example, 'the cloud,' some say great, some say not great! Isn't this the case with our world today, everything is wonderful but everything is awful at the same time. Is it reasonable to suggest that in our own individual way we all like to get our minds fixated on something and then we convince ourselves one way or the other that is our 'truth' now, or it is THE 'truth' now?

I have never had a problem with my information yet so I'm happy for my stuff to be on a hard disk, backed up on another hard disk and backed up in the cloud, but there is always this nagging uncertainty in my mind about 'the cloud' in particular. So when I read SteamTeam, why am I more confident about his views than say other views? So why him? For me, his most telling sentence that got deep into my brain was, 'Think about that for the moment!' So I did.

I know nothing, very happy to admit that but I obviously must believe subconsciously that I must know something otherwise I would have ignored the words 'Think about that for the moment.' I'm now sitting here now thinking what's my problem, so where did those thoughts about doubt actually come from?

SteamyTea

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Re: Anyone still on Windows 7?
« Reply #51 on: 12:18:36, 21/02/20 »
I don't want anyone to take this the wrong way........So when I read SteamTeam, why am I more confident about his views than say other views? So why him? For me, his most telling sentence that got deep into my brain was, 'Think about that for the moment!' So I did.
Thank you.
I do not consider myself an expert, but I did lecture in IT. Half the trick is to just consider what a computer system is. Just a glorified filing cabinet.
Remote storage is just where you put a copy of your 'stuff' off site.
The other half of the trick is knowing how to describe it.
I found it much easier teaching grown ups than teenagers. Teenagers used to fiddle too much and then wonder why it went wrong.
For anyone old enough to remember using DOS, they will know the dangers of * and ?.
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ninthace

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Re: Anyone still on Windows 7?
« Reply #52 on: 13:55:05, 21/02/20 »
Ah dear old DOS.  I started in 1968 on mainframes with Algol 60 then Elliot Algol and then migrated to Fortran IV on ICL and IBM machines.  I also had a flirtation with Mr Sinclair's products before I went on to Windows 3.1.  I also went over to the dark side for a while (Apple SE, IIsi and then a pizzabox)) but the lack of software drove me back to Mr Gates.  I did teach a bit of IT but primarily I did IT strategy and policy followed by spell in software development and IT service management for a large military organisation.  I also had one glorious tour going to different countries helping to develop and run computer based wargames - bliss!
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SteamyTea

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Re: Anyone still on Windows 7?
« Reply #53 on: 14:08:17, 21/02/20 »
I also went over to the dark side for a while (Apple SE, IIsi and then a pizzabox)) but the lack of software drove me back to Mr Gates.
We have all been there, why I feel qualified to criticise, that should open up some debate.
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fernman

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Re: Anyone still on Windows 7?
« Reply #54 on: 14:17:08, 21/02/20 »
I cut my teeth on a word processor, and remember very well when I opened an A4 twinlock binder on top of the keyboard and wiped out two and a half hours' work.
My wife later got a PC, when a very nice woman, now sadly no longer with us, created a tailor-made botanical database for me in MS-DOS, that would have been in the late 80s / early 90s, and it served me well for a few years.
When my then employers went paperless we spent a Friday evening to Sunday evening in January 2000 at the BT training centre at Milton Keynes (no, that wasn't who I worked for) where our vans were taken off us, stripped of all of our folders of manuals and fitted with laptop cradles and hands-free phones while we sat in a classroom being taught how to use the laptops. Then on the Monday morning we went live, we were thrown in at the deep end (something the company was fond of doing).
Being very much a novice (or a crawler, take your pick) I paid for a council course on computing for beginners. I was robbed, it was an almost total waste of time, consisting mostly of teaching shortcuts to use in MS Office and Excel for those who used them in their work. I left halfway through the course, but I have to admit  that on the very first lesson we were taught how to save and how to back up.
« Last Edit: 14:20:09, 21/02/20 by fernman »

SteamyTea

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Re: Anyone still on Windows 7?
« Reply #55 on: 14:23:54, 21/02/20 »
I was robbed, it was an almost total waste of time, consisting mostly of teaching shortcuts to use in MS Office and Excel for those who used them in their work. I left halfway through the course, but I have to admit  that on the very first lesson we were taught how to save and how to back up.
My favourite Word shortcut/key stroke/wind up is Ctrl+N
Scares the living daylights out of some people and you get to hear the cry 'where has it all gone'.
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ninthace

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Re: Anyone still on Windows 7?
« Reply #56 on: 16:18:40, 21/02/20 »
Do you think using control codes without thinking gives our age away?
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Bigfoot_Mike

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Re: Anyone still on Windows 7?
« Reply #57 on: 16:22:08, 21/02/20 »
Do you think using control codes without thinking gives our age away?
I think you might have let it slip when mentioning you started programming in 1968.

ninthace

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Re: Anyone still on Windows 7?
« Reply #58 on: 16:39:46, 21/02/20 »
I think you might have let it slip when mentioning you started programming in 1968.
No such thing as Windoze in them days, or mice or user VDUs. You could always tell a programmer by his stock of felt tips and elastic bands.  Personally I think the rot set in with the advent of paper tape!
The first “network” I invented consisted of connecting the output of some data loggers to a mainframe. I found the punched tape coming out of them would eventually reach the room where the mainframe was so I put newspaper down side of the corridor and let the tape go out of one door, along the corridor, into the computer room and into the reader. I thought it was a good idea and it saved lots of running around with rolls of tape.  The Boss took a different view when he caught me at it.
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vghikers

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Re: Anyone still on Windows 7?
« Reply #59 on: 18:36:26, 21/02/20 »
Quote
I'm now sitting here now thinking what's my problem, so where did those thoughts about doubt actually come from?

I'm heartened to see that even on this board there are at least a few people with the vast experience and knowledge to get an idea of what's really going on with Big Tech. I could write a book on it but I very briefly summarised my view on the VPN thread. The tragedy is that the vast majority of users just don't care about even the most intimate personal surveillance of their lives and data, they're sleepwalking into a potentially very dark place.

I use a cloud syncing service but only for a very small amount of data, just a few critical files that I need up to date on all machines. They are encrypted locally and then encrypted again by the sync client before leaving this computer.

Uploading all our files to the cloud is impractical anyway, even we wanted to, we currently have ~14Tb.

I have a couple of cyberlocker accounts in the cloud but for downloading only, none of our original data is in there, that's a different scenario entirely.

Quote
For anyone old enough to remember using DOS, they will know the dangers of * and ?.

Or even older, Unix boxes.
For the old techies:- I wish I could conceptually go to the top level of Google, Microsoft and Facebook empires and issue the command:
    rm -r *

Another ancient computer nerd here back to the days of PDP8, toggling-in programs directly on the cabinet keys until paper tape and teletypes came in. I've built my own desktop computers from components for years now, slick and lean they are.  :)

 

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