Knoz'em Computers, LLC

02/17/2025

*** Ranking all 12 Versions of Windows, from Worst to Best ***

Here is an interesting article that I found, and yes, I agree with Windows 7, which I have, probably being the BEST version ever released.

Microsoft has been making Windows operating systems for almost 40 years, and though they've improved, there have been some wins and duds. We rank them here.

09/03/2024

*** Hurray for Solid State Drives and M.2 Drives ***

As some of you noticed, solid state drives (SSD) and M.2 drives are "taking over" nowadays, and traditional mechanical drives are losing their luster. I had a question on whether if an SSD drive gets dropped, if it is more apt to survive as opposed to a mechanical hard drive. The answer is YES! While the survival rate is NOT 100%, it's much like playing Russian Roulette with one bullet in the chamber as opposed to 3 or 4 or even 5 bullets in the chamber. If you have kids and/or animals running around the house, SSD's and M.2 drives are BY FAR better choices. As for mechanical hard drives, the bigger ones (physically), such as the 3.5" drives used in many desktop computers, are significantly more vulnerable to damage from being dropped, as opposed to their 2.5" counterparts, such as those used in laptops. As for external hard drives, again, the bigger ones, such as the Western Digital MyBook, are more vulnerable to dropping or even getting knocked over, as opposed to a Western Digital Passport series drive (uses a 2.5" drive inside) or a SeaGate Free Agent drive (also uses a 2.5" drive inside).

The biggest downsides of SSD's and M.2 drives are cost and fewer write cycles. As for the issue with write cycles, the main issue here is to TURN OFF the defragmenting / optimization software. These drives should NOT be defragmented. Because of their nature, fragmentation is not really an issue. Fragmentation is much more of an issue on MECHANICAL drives, where it physically has to "run all over the place" to gather up pieces of a file to load, or to save some here, save some there, save some somewhere else, and so forth. Regular defragmenting an SSD or M.2 drive will shorten its life.

I have a tip for mechanical drives in the presence of kids and/or animals in the house and/or for people are accident-prone. It is best to tape the drive down onto a table or desk, much like strapping a patient down onto a gurney. Get it SNUG. You really don't want movement of the mechanical hard drive, especially while it is in operation, especially when it is "reading" or "writing" (usually has a randomly flashing light to indicate this). In severe shocks, you can actually DAMAGE the data platter(s) and maybe the read/write head(s).

Lastly, if you have valuable data that you CAN'T AFFORD TO LOSE, get at least TWO backup drives, whether if they are mechanical (HDD) or solid state (or M.2), and back up your valuable data on both. My brother knows a guy who made the near-FATAL mistake of putting stuff only onto one mechanical external hard drive. Well, the USB connector broke off. Older drives have IDE or SATA connectors internally, and that included this one. I was able to crack the case open, remove the bad USB controller and expose the SATA connectors. VIOLA! I was able to attach a USB-to-SATA adapter and was able to read (and salvage) his data, treating the hard drive like a giant flash drive. Had a proprietary connection been the case here, I'm sorry to say that the person would have had to send the drive to a data retrieval facility, and this may have costed him HUNDREDS of dollars to recover his data. If you own a fire safe, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND putting a backup drive in there, maybe sealed up in a Zip-Loc bag or something--along with its USB cable (since connectors have a way of changing over time). That way, even if your house burns down to the ground, hopefully your valuable data will be safe. An SSD or external M.2 drive in a sealed bag and inside a fire safe might even survive a terrorist attack.

Anyway, may God's peace be with you all--in the name of Jesus!

From John Nozum
Owner of Knoz'em Computers, LLC

08/19/2024

Being the musician (including piano player) that I am, and a computer guru, I thought this video was COOL! This guy took some computer tunes / interludes and played them on the piano. I recognized most of them.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/2172088526488382

08/12/2024

I had a temporary problem with Frontier today and my web space that I have. I thought that my fear came true that maybe Frontier might be DOING AWAY with personal web space, just like Comca$t did (and still raised their prices). Fortunately, it appears to be a temporary thing, and I was able to upload something today (August 12, 2024). It could have gotten insanely busy or something.

While attempting to research the possibility of Frontier doing away with personal web space, I stumbled across an EXCELLENT article on the demise of decent customer support--and being REQUIRED to go through a bunch of AUTOMATED CRAP or having to talk to people overseas. Yes, these are cost cutting measures, but they are creating a host of problems of their own. In this article linked below, one customer COULD NOT GET THROUGH----until they contacted the Better Business Bureau. This is a lengthy article, but you might find it interesting.

https://www.vox.com/23571375/no-call-center-phone-number-frontier-facebook

Even the US Government doesn't seem to be willing to help, but are also part of the problem. When trying to contact the US senators for WV, I had to give a CATEGORY, and none of them were really appropriate. I got more of an AUTOMATED response, based on that CATEGORY----which HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT!!!

I'm hoping my message will go VIRAL here and result in positive change.

May God rescue us from these AWFUL times--in the name of Jesus!!!

From John Nozum

Need to call Facebook? Frontier? Good luck — companies are axing call centers and phone call options to cut costs, and consumers are paying the price.

04/25/2024

*** MAJOR PROBLEM ON FRONTIER!!! ***

There is a NEW problem on Frontier, and it is SEVERE! I am often NOT ALLOWED to send email, due to "too many recipients", even when I have just ONE recipient!!! It is UNGOOGLABLE!!!

What is causing this??????????????

No, I haven't sent that much email lately, especially to more than maybe 15 or so recipients a couple days ago.

God help us all!

From John Nozum

02/01/2024

*** AARP's "Community Standards" GONE AWRY!!! ***

I was trying to be helpful in regard to phone photography tricks. I have a trick that they forgot, which had to do with how a phone is held. This post was DEACTIVATED---against "community standards"!!!

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Be aware that many phones, especially when using the selfie camera, will act like a mirror, transposing the left and right sides. Please note that many paint programs and photo editors and more, will allow you to do a "horizontal flip". You can use this feature to correct such issues. IrfanView, my favorite photo viewer (and editor to a small degree) can correct hundreds or even thousands of pictures having the same defect, such as color balance, brightness, and more.

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I did have some key words capitalized. I "corrected" that, thinking that this was triggering the deactivation. NO HOPE! END OF STORY!!!! What is wrong with the above message???????

I did some Googling tonight and found that other people's stuff is being deactivated for "no reason". Once source mentioned about AI going awry or something.

I even copied and pasted my comment, got rid of the caps for key words and posted is shown above. NOT ALLOWED!!!!

The above comment had nothing to do with politics, religion, or any other potentially explosive and/or threatening stuff. There was no weird humor here, either.

May God help us all--in the name of Jesus!

From John Nozum

01/01/2024

*** HAPPY NEW YEAR 2024!!! ***

Happy New Year 2024 to ye all!

12/23/2023

*** HEY MICROSCOPIC THUGS! ***

If you're on this list, HURRY UP and DIE! QUIT TRYING TO RUIN CHRISTMAS (and/or New Year's Day) for people! We've HAD IT WITH YOU! If you're on this list, NO MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU! DEPART FROM US, YOU EVILDOERS!

COVID-19
Flu
RSV
Cold (common cold)
Arthritis
Diabetes
AIDS
Tetanus
Diabetes
Stroke
Lou Gehrig's disease
Parkinson (the disease itself)
Alzheimer (the disease itself)
Various infections
Strep throat
Other sore throats

If you're on this list above, DIE, YOU CREEP! NO, you thugs aren't going to Heaven! Bad stuff doesn't belong in Heaven. Jesus did NOT come to save you, YOU MICROSCOPIC THUGS!

For the rest of us, there is Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior.

From John Nozum

12/18/2023

*** Old PC Tower Reincarnates as a Snare Drum ***

Here is a crazy video that I did today, where I "played" an old computer tower in which I "butchered" last week (taking out the motherboard, drives, and more) as a snare drum! I played along with my recording of "When the Saints Go Marching In". Anyway, here it is:

I am featured here playing an old Dell computer tower as a snare drum after the motherboard, drives, and more have been removed. I am playing along with a r...

11/30/2023

*** EXTREMELY INTERESTING Information on Our Current Data Transmission Rates ***

November 29, 2023

I was watching a video on stuff found by NASA's Voyager space probes 1 & 2, both of which were launched in 1977 and were initially expected to hold up for 5 years. They are BOTH STILL FLYING out there, even after 46 years! Most functions have been turned off (remotely) to conserve power. One very intriguing fact that I heard tonight is that the baud rate of their communications back to Earth was only 160 bits per second! THAT'S IT!!! The very first modem that I ever owned was a 300-baud VicModem, which was made for the Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore 64 computers (also worked on the Commodore 128 computer). I got this modem for Christmas of 1985. It was the next generation after the ones that had a coupler in which you stuck a phone's handset into----and probably had to BE QUIET. This VicModem required you to dial manually on your phone, and when you here the tone on the other end, you would have to hurry up and unplug the cord from the handset and plus this into the modem. Still, this modem was kind of state-of-the art compared to what NASA had, having nearly twice the baud rate. Nowadays, most people's internet is measured in MEGABITS per second. If you're RICH, you may be able to get internet over a GIGABIT per second! Remember these units when talking about data rates:

1 bit = around 1/10 of a character (including start and stop bits)
1 kilobit (Kb) = 1,024 bits, or roughly around 100 "bytes" or characters.
1 megabits (Mb) = 1,048,576 bits or around 100,000 "bytes" or characters.
1 gigabits (Gb) = 1,073,741,824 bits or around 100,000,000 bytes" or characters.

1 byte = 8 bits (not including start and stop bits)
1 kilobyte (KB --- NOT to be confused with Kb !!!) = 1024 bytes or characters.
1 megabyte (MB --- NOT to confused with Mb !!!) = 1,048,576 bytes or characters.
1 gigabyte (GB --- NOT to be confused with Gb !!!) = 1,073,741,824 bytes or characters.

Some of you may notice powers of 1,024 and not 1,000. This is because computers LOVE to think in powers of 2. 1,024 is a power of 2, while 1,000 is not. However, for normal practical purposes, most of the time, it is safe to round this off to powers of 1,000.

Getting back to NASA's Voyage 1 & 2 space probes, they are transmitting only 160 bits per second----or about 16 bytes per second!!! However, we have to remember that these were built in 1977---and probably had little to no data compression.

Anyway, here is the URL to this video.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1739088933264692

Imagine what NASA could do nowadays if they really put their minds to it!!!

Anyway, may God's peace be with ye all--in the name of Jesus!

From John Nozum

08/01/2023

*** Computer Running REALLY, REALLY SLOW? ***

By John Nozum

Is your computer running REALLY SLOW? For many years, my first instinct was to check for MALWARE (i.e. viruses, adware, worms, trojans, etc.). However, I've done this on many systems, plus defrag (ONLY for MECHANICAL hard drives, not SSD's or M.2 drives), but often with very marginal or temporary success at best. If you are running Windows 10 or 11 and have "only" 4 GB of RAM in your system, that's probably the problem! Windows 10 (64-bit versions) and Windows 11 now requires around 8 MB. Anything less than that is likely to SIGNIFICANTLY SLOW IT DOWN!!! Even if you are a light-duty user (i.e. email, word processing, getting on the internet, etc.), you NEED at least 8 GB of RAM. Generally, 64-bit operating systems need AT LEAST about 4 GB of RAM, but Windows 10 and 11 need at least about 8 GB. Please note that 32-bit operating systems (up through Windows 10) will address only about 3 to 3.5 GB of RAM due to the limitations of 32-bit architecture. Adding more RAM (beyond about 3 GB) will NOT help 32-bit operating systems. Starting with Windows 11, it is ALL 64-bit stuff now.

If you are not tech savvy, you can take the computer to stores like Best Buy, Staples, Office Max, etc, or to an independent computer tech, such as me at Knoz'em Computers, LLC. However, the chain stores are likely to have various RAM sticks in stock. Independents, such as me, often have to order this, for it is not cost-effective to stock a bunch of RAM frequencies and such (technical stuff here). In addition, it is best to run tests on the new memory. Sometimes, you can get a bad stick of memory, and it is likely to require in blue screens of death and/or programs crashing abnormally frequently---VARIOUS programs crashing.

Now if you have an "all-in-one" computer, where everything is inside a "thick" flat screen TV", you may want to take that to Best Buy, Staples, or some other big chain store, for they probably have more experience and probably have more liability coverage. These can be DELICATE to work on, especially HP all-in-ones. In addition, lap;top computers that do NOT have a "trap door" underneath can be tricky to work on--and usually require more INVASIVE "surgery"--and are easier to damage. I've seen one or more HP laptops that have NO trap doors, and these require much more disassembly--and much higher risks, just to do a memory upgrade.

If you decide to do a RAM (memory) upgrade yourself, first you have to know how many slots you have. You'll have to know what frequency (speed) of RAM the system uses. SOMETIMES you can put in a higher speed RAM module, and the system will "clock it down" to where it is supposed to be. However, a few systems, including one Dell PC that I worked on are VERY FUSSY and may require THAT BRAND of RAM for it to work properly--and AT THAT FREQUENCY (speed). In addition, you may have to obtain a "service manual" to see what RAM capacities and frequencies (speed) is supported for your motherboard. In addition, you MUST install the right TYPE of RAM (i.e. DDR, DDR2, DDR3, DDR4, or now maybe DDR5). Sometimes, you'll see this expressed as PC2, PC3, PC4, etc.). This is the same thing. In addition, STRICT antistatic caution should be taken, such as using an antistatic wrist strap connected to a ground connection or to the system chassis. Static electricity to be DEADLY to computer parts, such as RAM modules and processors, even if you can't feel it. It's even DEADLIER YET to parts that are by themselves and not currently plugged into a motherboard. These issues are worse in the Winter and on certain types of floors, especially carpeting. Certain medications can make your body more prone to static electricity, thus more apt to damage computer parts. Please note that many systems can NOT be upgraded that much, if any. DDR or DDR1 systems can typically have only up to 1 GB per slot. DDR2 systems can have only up to about 2 GB per slot. DD3 systems allow up to 4, sometimes even 8, GB per slot. You'll need to check the service manual for your system or motherboard.

Anyway, may God's peace be with you all--in the name of Jesus!

From John Nozum
Owner of Knoz'em Computers, LLC