Recently, I had to buy a new car. Well, a car, as it’s only new if the first ten years of something’s life don’t count. In which case, huzzah! I’m still in my twenties.
Outside of that though, it wasn’t a new car, it wasn’t all that expensive, and boy, was it in great shape. In such great shape, in fact, that my trusty old VW Golf – which had been making horrible sounds that universally caused new passengers about five minutes of alarm and asking ‘No, really, are you sure it’s okay?’ – seemed to rise up, Jacob Marley like, from the metal grave to which it had been consigned to shame me for its ill treatment. It was nearly the same age, after all, and the only reason for the discrepancy (outside of the fact that I drive an absolutely insane amount, I suppose) is that I was much more of the school that as long as I could squeeze the last remaining, clanking, staggering miles out of the vehicle, well then, why take it in for repair?
We don’t really need to go into why that’s dumb. It is. Very. When you own a car, you factor in more than just the cost of purchasing it, but of gas, insurance, tires, and if you’re not a moron, maintenance. Thank you Captain Obvious, yes I know.
But it made me think about similar Total Cost of Ownership considerations for a computer. The obvious ones are there, of course – computer, internet connection, printer, and so on. Then the not-so-obvious but even more critical backups. What about maintenance? Smart people ask me about what they can do for their computers all the time.
Some people really want an easy answer, and I’ll tell them the usual litany of things. You have a Mac? Repair permission, Verify your disk, Zap the PRAM (woo, there’s that ’90s blast), hold down the shift key on startup, and if you’re really hardcore, clean out the caches. Windows? Sure, repair your registry, defrag, disk check, sacrifice a goat and hope for no viruses.
I feel a little guilty, but we all want our placebos sometimes. (Note: goat sacrifices are not a placebo for Windows XP, and may be your only hope.)
The reality is, all of those things can create miracles – and they do so about as often as actual miracles occur. Yes, those are the quick easy things you try when things start going south, and every once in a while, a problem goes away miraculously, or an unresponsive computer is restored to former glory.
Most of the time, though, nothing happens. And as far as maintenance goes – well, I’m doubtful that it accomplishes zip (much less than zip if you use such hideous tools such as MacScan and MacKeeper which should really be renamed MacScam and MacWhoNeedstoWorryAboutVirusesWhenYouInstallThisBecauseItBasicallyIsOne. I had a different funny name in mind that was shorter, but it devolved into toilet humor, something I’m holding out on until I get really desperate).
And for a long time, for the people who I thought could take The Truth, I essentially told them this:
Sorry, not much you can do.
But then, I realized this: there is, it’s just far more tedious. One of the most important maintenance things you can do for your computer is backups and updates.
Backups are a no brainer, but apply particularly to updates, because those can frequently hose your electronic device and make it Never Work Again. At which point you might be asking yourself a very valid question – why on earth would I want to update a machine that’s working perfectly fine?
Updates are a problematic cookie. On the one hand, they can be disastrous, it’s true. On the other hand, that’s relatively rare, and it’s not like Microsoft and Apple and Adobe and Flash and so on are churning out updates just to keep their code monkeys busy. They’re doing it because these updates are identifying bugs, and even more importantly, security holes that can be exploited by nefarious people everywhere. This is particularly true on Windows – ever wonder how someone might get a virus when they have antivirus software installed? Well, that’s one way. And while you think an update might cause a problem, that’s nothing like the pain of a nasty malware infestation.
True, on the Mac, that’s not much of an issue. But outside of the very real qualifier that it it someday will be an issue, there’s also the fact that updates are a pretty good way to make sure your computer is running tip-top, will be able to play nice with other computers, and actually view cool youtube videos.
So are you supposed to just forge ahead, fingers crossed? Damn the torpedos, lets hope our updates will not explode?
Not exactly. See, without doing proper backups, doing all your updates is, in fact, not the best of ideas. Skipping for the moment that not doing backups is inviting disaster from an overall perspective, backups of your operating system and applications are part of the two part maintenance policy that will do more than anything when it comes to dealing with problems on your computer. Because in the long run, it’s not just what problems they prevent, but how easy it makes it to recover.
Setting up an appropriate backup system that backs up both your OS and your files involves some cost. Installing application updates, even the ones that are ‘automatic’ takes some time and can be annoying. But just like changing the oil on your car, buying good tires, and fixing issues as soon as they come up, it’s a cost you just have to factor into owning a tool.
Or you can skimp on maintenance and live life on the ragged edge! In which case, you and I will be in the same camp, you with computers, I with cars. But I’m determined to flip a new page. And I warn you, when I do, I’m going to come at you a-preaching about the glories of maintenance!
But for now you’re safe. For now. Dun dun DUN.