Update the OS before adding new hardware

This is the time of year when we often treat ourselves to new hardware for our computers or pockets. A new phone, a new music player, a new printer, a new tablet and so on. There are lots of sales on and this is the peak selling period for many stores.

If you have just bought or are about to buy a new gadget, accessory or peripheral for your computer there are some simple maintenance steps to take that will ensure that everything works well together. There is nothing more irritating than buying something new and then finding that it isn't compatible with your computer or that it doesn't work as expected.

The first thing you should do is to use the operating system's update facility and this means Windows Update on PCs or Software Update on Apple Macs. (Linux users should use their distro's update facility too.) Make sure that you select optional updates and not just the compulsory ones.

What this does is to ensure that all the drivers and patches are installed and that the operating system's database of supported hardware is up to date. Operating systems maintain a compatibility list of supported hardware and if you have an outdated list then a brand new gadget might be flagged as incompatible when in fact the OS has recently been updated to support it.

After updating and rebooting you should then plug in the new hardware. Should you install the software that came with the device? Modern operating systems contain basic support for a wide range of devices and frequently simply plugging in the hardware is enough to get it working. The OS has drivers for webcams, scanners, printers and other devices, so if you want to keep the system light and fast then don't install the supplied software.

The only snag is that operating systems usually only provide basic support for devices, so it will work, but special functions may not. What's more, sometimes the software supplied with devices is pretty good and has useful functions and features. It is often a good idea to ignore the software supplied with a device because it is on CD and was probably written moths ago. Instead, go to the manufacturer's website and download the latest version of the software. I recommend installing that instead of the CD.

After installing the software and the hardware, restart the computer and then use the operating system update facility again. This will ensure that if there are newer drivers for the device then they will be downloaded and installed.

To summarise then,

1. Use the operating system's update facility
2. Download the latest software from the manufacturer's website
3. Install the software and the device
4. Use the operating system's update facility

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Want a loan? Pick your Facebook friends carefully

There is an interesting story I came across recently on BetaBeat that reveals how banks and other financial institutions are considering using social media to assess your credit rating. The next time you apply for a credit card or a loan they may turn you down on the grounds that they don't like your Facebook friends. It's a scary thought don't you think?

It's all because of a company called Lenddo that uses social networking to analyse your credit worthiness. It is an online loan service and when you sign up you must provide details of all the social networks that you belong to. In the FAQ is this description:

"Lenddo is a scoring engine that analyzes your online social footprint (sometimes called a social graph) and provides a score that can be used to access financial services such as personal loans."

So it looks at your friends, relatives and work colleagues that you are connected to in your social networks and...

"Friends that don't pay their debts will negatively impact your Lenddo score, and your ability to access credit."

This means that you can't be friends with anyone who struggles to pay their bills because they will negatively affect your own credit rating. Just think, if you have a problem and miss a loan or credit card payment your friends won't help you, they'll all abandon you because you're affecting their credit rating. Got a problem? You're on your own!

It gets worse and just take a look at this from Lenddo's FAQ:

"Failure to repay will negatively impact your Lenddo score, as well as the score of your Lenddo friends. Lenddo MAINTAINS THE RIGHT TO NOTIFY YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY AND COMMUNITY."

Yes, they'll tell all your friends, family and contacts that you've slipped up and missed a bill payment or two. Do they post messages on your Facebook wall? That's a scary thought!

Now Lenddo is based in the Phillippines, so it won't effect most people, but you can bet that western banks and other financial institutions are looking at this and considering it themselves. It makes you wonder whether social networking is a good idea if it can be used against you in this way.

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App updates from iTunes

If you have an Apple iOS device like the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch then it is also likely that you have a large collection of great apps downloaded from the App Store. Keeping them up to date sometimes seems like a full time job if you have a lot of apps. The badge on the App Store on the home screen tells you how many updates are available for your apps and I don't know about you, but it is rarely zero on my iPhone or iPad.

How do you update the apps on your iOS device? The obvious way is to tap the App Store icon on the home screen and then go to Updates. You can then update them all in one go or individually.

However, this is not always convenient. Some of the apps are large and they can be 200Mb or more. If there are several then the downloads can amount to a gigabyte or more.

This is only possible over Wi-Fi and only small apps of around 10Mb or less can be downloaded on 3G (to avoid running up huge data bills.)

A better option is to download the updates on your computer and then to plug in the iOS device and sync it. You can download large files much more quickly and easily with a desktop computer than with an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

If you have a fast broadband internet connection you should start iTunes and then select Apps in the left panel. Down in the bottom right corner is a link showing the number of app updates that are available. Click it.

A grid showing all the app updates is displayed and you can click the Get Update button next to the ones you want or click Download All Free Updates to get them all.

You can plug your iOS device into the computer afterwards (or the next time that is convenient), and sync it.

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SkyDrive improved file handling

Microsoft's free cloud storage service, SkyDrive was recently updated and there are a few welcome changes that people have been asking for for quite some time. One is the way that PDF files are handled online. If you have uploaded a PDF document to your SkyDrive online drive, what should happen when you click it? Should it be displayed in the web browser or downloaded to the local disk drive?

Up until recently there wasn't a choice and a PDF file was treated simply as a file and you could only download it. This was irritating if you wanted to read it because you would need to download it first, then run a PDF reader like Foxit or Adobe, then delete the PDF afterwards or leave it cluttering up the disk drive.

A recent update now enables you to read PDFs in SkyDrive in the web browser. If you click a PDF file the browser uses whatever plug-in, add-on or extension is available to display the document. This is useful. (If you do actually want to download a PDF you just tick the box next to it and click the download link on the right.)

The new feature appears to be experiencing some teething troubles though. I prefer Foxit Reader to Adobe Acrobat because it is a small, lightweight and fast application. Foxit is a 14Mb download (36Mb installed) and Adobe is 65Mb (108Mb installed), which gives an indication of the size difference. I've always found Foxit Reader to have fewer problems than Adobe Reader too. However, SkyDrive doesn't recognise Foxit. Click PDFs on other websites and you can view them in the browser using Foxit, but not on SkyDrive. It just says go and get Adobe Reader. Chrome works fine though and this is because it has a built in PDF viewer.

If you want to view PDF documents on SkyDrive without downloading them the only option is to install Adobe Reader at the moment. This works as advertised and it's a shame I can't use my preferred reader, Foxit.

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Apple Macs will dominate in 2050

Apple Macs will dominate the computer market in 2050. How do I know? Take a look at the data at Netmarketshare.

I am joking of course. It's not that it couldn't happen, but it's simply too hard to predict what will happen next year never mind in 40 years time. It is interesting to look at data like this though and to see the trends over the past year.

Usage of Microsoft Windows is down by just over 1%, but Apple Macs is up by 1%. If the trend was to continue this way then Macs would be the dominent computer platform by around 2050 (hence the headline). However, we are going to see a lot of changes to Windows and Macs over that time so there is no reason to assume that this year's trend will continue for another 40 years though. Apple and Apple fans frequently boast about the fantastic growth in sales and usage and how poorly Windows and PC companies are doing in comparison, yet the figures from Netmarketshare don't really reflect this. Yes, the Apple Mac market share is growing and Windows PC is declining, but the change is tiny. It's a lot less than Apple fans would have you believe.

It is also interesting the see how slowly Linux usage is growing and a mere 0.3% in a year is odd. Linux enthusiasts will tell you how great the operating system is and how people are switching to it in droves. That's not borne out by the figures. Linux is free, so if it really is that good, why don't more people use it? The answer must surely be that Linux does not satisfy people's needs. It just doesn't do what people want, otherwise why would they reject something that is free?

There are also some fascinating web browser usage statistics at the Netmarketshare website. Internet Explorer is clearly the most used web browser and this is hardly surprising because it's part of Windows and Windows accounts for 92% of all desktops. It's use has fallen over the year though and it is down from 58% to 52%. The question is, what are people switching too?

For several years Firefox grew its market share and it has been steadily catching up with Internet Explorer, but the browser stagnated and new versions were slow in coming. This could be why Firefox market share has fallen over the year from 23% to 22%. However, there have been several significant updates this year - Firefox 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 - so it might start growing again soon. I used to use Firefox, stopped, and then started again as it picked up development speed again this year.

Opera's market share is down and this must be so disappointing for the developers. It has been banging away at this for 10 years or more and it's never had more than a couple of percent market share. It is hard to see why because the browser has some unique features. Perhaps people want simplicity and speed though. This could be why so many people are switching to Google Chrome. This browser's market share is up and it has grown from 11 to 18%. This time next year it could be well ahead of Firefox and be the second most used web browser.

Is all this data accurate and where does it come from? There can be few people these days that don't use the internet on their computer and never visit any websites, so if you collect browser and OS statistics from enough websites covering a sufficiently wide range of subjects and interests then it should be good. Netmarketshare gets its information comes from around 40,000 websites and such a large number means that it should be quite accurate.

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