Personal Computers Engineers

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Personal Compu ters for Engineers:How to Keep Your Computer Safe and

Functional

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Personal Computers for Engineers:

How to Keep Your Computer Safe and Functional

By Jack H Warner Jr, PE

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Overview:

The PC’s that engineers use to get their daily work done are very complex beasts. It canalmost be a full-time job just to keep your hardware and software up-to-date, runningefficiently, and free from threats. The purpose of this course is to give you a primer onsome of the issues that you need to be aware of, and to give you some basic guidance.

Hardware:

First and foremost you have to be aware of the current hardware thatyou are using, and future trends. The heart of the PC is the CPU

(Central Processing Unit), and it has a huge impact on how fast yourcomputer will run. It used to be a simple matter of buying a new PCevery few years with a faster “clock” speed. It has gotten morecomplicated now with multi-core systems. Let me tell you about “Moore’s Law”, and thetrends in processors.

Moore’s Law and CPU’s:

Moore’s Law, named for Gordon E. Moore, cofounder of Intel, observes that the numberof transistors that can be put on typical chips, such as CPU’s, doubles every 18 to 24

months. For the past 4 decades, this has proven to be pretty accurate. The funny thing isthat processor clock speed also seemed to be following the same trend, so many peopleassumed that Moore’s Law applied there as well, but it turns out that was just acoincidence.

Have you noticed that new machines the last couple of years have stopped theirexponential growth in clock speeds? If the trend of the past 20 years had continued, thelatest PC’s would be sporting 12 GHz CPUs. But a trip to the Dell web site reveals thatthe typical CPU I might order today is under 4 GHz. What’s the deal with that?

Aside from some slightly different design strategies that give a slightly lower “speed” forthe same performance, it seems that the CPU designers have hit a bit of a wall. They arenot having trouble increasing the number of transistors on a chip (which is consistentwith Moore’s law), but they are experiencing problems when trying to increase the clock speed. Heat seems to be a huge problem, along with other details such as current leakingfrom one circuit into another. This speed issue has caused a major shift from includingthe clock speed in the name of the CPU, to giving them cryptic names like Intel® Core™2 Duo processor E4600.






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Of course they are trying to speed up the other parts of the PC (memory, bus, drives, and

graphics), but I just want to talk about the CPU for now. So what are they doing? Theyare working on other methods to give the computer more power without increasing theclock speed. Since they can add more transistors, there are several possibilities.

First, they can increase the amount of memory embedded in the CPU chip. This memoryis called “cache,” and is very fast. Typically, the more cache memory a chip has, thefaster it can get things done, because it can often use data in fast cache memory instead of the slower system memory.

Next, they are working on making the most of each clock cycle. The much advertized“hyperthreading” is an example of this. It creates duplicates of some parts of the CPU,

and allows some instructions to be executed in parallel. This can boost performance up to30%.

Finally, a significant way to increase performance is to actually have multiple CPUs. Thisis not a brand-new idea. PC servers have incorporated multiple CPUs for years, butbecause of the limited alternatives for providing more power for desktops and notebooks,multiple CPU’s are becoming common. The new twist is that CPU designers are puttingtwo or more CPU’s on a single chip. This design is called “multicore.” This can bringsignificant performance increases under the correct circumstances.

The first catch is that two processors will not double the performance. Any time you have

more complexity, you will have extra overhead in managing it. In this case, there will beextra overhead involved in keeping the two processors in sync with each other and therest of the machine. So, even under the best of circumstances, you will not get 2xperformance with 2 cores.

The second catch is that it will not speed up many programs. This is because programshave to be written specifically to take advantage of two or more processors. If you arerunning more than one program simultaneously, you can get an immediate benefit, but if you have one application that is hogging most of the power, it will not run faster unless itis rewritten specifically for multiple processors.

Bits

You might hear mention of a CPU being “32-bit” or “64-bit”. Most newer CPU’s arecapable of running in either mode, though some older ones might only run in 32-bitmode. The truth is it makes absolutely no difference unless you want to run a 64-bitoperating system on your computer. There are special versions of Windows and Linuxthat take advantage of 64-bit hardware, and if you run one of these, you get a few






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benefits. Processes might run a little faster, because more bits can be piped into and out

of the processor at one time, and your computer can access HUGE amounts of memory,rather than being limited to about 4GB, which is the limit with a 32-bit operating system.The main reason you might want to run a 64-bit system, though, is if the applications yourun to get your job done come in special 64-bit versions. Regular software will not runmuch faster on a 64-bit system, since regular software is designed for 32-bit systems, butif software is specially designed to run only on 64-bit systems, it could run much faster.So before making the leap to a 64-bit system, check the software that you use day-in andday-out to make sure there is a 64-bit version available. Otherwise, stick with 32-bits fornow.

OK, that covers the major trends in CPU’s. For all other computer components, they just

keep getting faster and cheaper. Memory is quite inexpensive, and is one of the mostimportant factors in making your machine perform well. Doubling the recommendedmemory (up to 4GB in a 32-bit system) is an efficient way to ensure good performance.Hard drives keep getting bigger and faster, and graphics cards do too. For engineers,making sure these are current is a must. You don’t always have to have the absolute latestproduct, but if you let either of these components get over a year or two old, you couldsee a noticeable improvement by upgrading to a more current product.

Operating Systems:

The basic choices are some version of Windows, Linux, or Apple OS. Apple OS is only a

choice if you buy an Apple computer, but lots of good software is available for Applecomputers, and there is also software available that allows you to run Windows softwareon Apple computers. If you run only Windows applications, an Apple computer isprobably not a good choice, but if you can do part of your job using Apple software, youcould seriously consider this option.

Linux is inexpensive and efficient, but it can be difficult to learn, difficult to get support,and the choice of applications is a bit limited. If the applications you need are availablefor Linux, and you are willing to do your own research and trouble-shooting, Linux cansave you some money, but this is not commonly the sort of commitment that an engineercan afford.

The current flavors of Windows are called XP and Vista. As I mentioned earlier, thesecan be purchased in either 32-bit or 64-bit versions, with 32-bit being by far the mostcommon for now. There is safety in numbers, and because Windows is so common (over90% of personal computers run Windows), there are lots of applications available for it,and support is easy to find. One disadvantage to Windows is it is a bit “bloated”(inefficient), and it tends to become more sluggish over time, so let me address that issue.






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Why Does my New Computer Start to Act Old?

Just like the “new car smell” wears off in just a few short weeks, so too does that “newcomputer smell.” Well, perhaps new computers don’t really smell, but they are just sodarn fast and dependable when they are new. But sometimes it seems that within just afew days things are not so good. The computer seems a bit sluggish!

Two basic phenomenon are at work here. First, there is the psychological aspect. Whenyou set the new computer next to your old one, you can see how much faster it is. A fewdays later, you have likely forgotten how slow your old one was, and are now comparingthe new computer’s speed to your ideal desired speed (which is “instantaneous” in my

case, perhaps yours too).

Second, we start touching our machines. Yep, I hate to tell you this, but they would stay“as fast as new” if we would simply not touch them! But what do we immediately do toour new computers? We rush to start installing software and peripherals. Obviously wehave to install some software in order to get our job done, but everything that we installon our computers has an impact on performance.

On the low-end of the impact scale is a simple software application that we seldom use.In the best of cases it simply takes up room on the hard drive, which may slow downother programs just a bit if we leave our hard drive fragmented by such installations, but

other than that, not much to worry about.

On the high-end is software that installs drivers, and various bits of software that hook themselves to the operations of the computer. Take an anti-virus program, for example.Every time you start your computer, it is going to take time to start up. It then runsconstantly, intercepting every file access that every other program makes. It can cause asmuch as a 15% slow-down in system performance. Now, in the case of an anti-virusprogram, I highly recommend sacrificing a bit of speed. But over time you wouldprobably be quite surprised at how many programs you have installed that are allcompeting for the attention of your CPU.

Let’s just take my notebook computer as an example. I have had it over 2 years, so it hashad a few various things installed over the years. It runs XP, so I can simply hit ctrl-alt-del, press the “task manager” button, and see that I currently only have Lotus Notes andMS Outlook running. These may be the only two full-blown applications running, but if Iclick on the “processes” tab, I can see all the smaller bits of software that are currentlyrunning. I have 64! How many do you have? You can also get a clue that your computermay be running too many things by looking at your “system tray” (the icons on the rightside of the taskbar). Your computer came from the factory with maybe a dozen. Has it






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grown by leaps and bounds?

So what are some of these 64 things that are running on my computer? Every one of theseprocesses is using memory, and competing for my computer’s CPU. Some I can guess:DrgToDsk.exe I think installed itself as part of a CD-writing package. Sr_GUI.exe,SR_Watchdog.exe, and SR_Service.exe seem to be parts of the SecureRemote client thatI use to access a remote Network. WCESMGR.exe and WCESCOMM.exe appear to beresponsible for synchronizing my iPaq with my notebook. RealPlay.exe is RealPlayer forsure, which is taking 9 Meg of memory even though I am not running RealPlayer! Whoknows what this 9 Meg program is doing, probably checking every 5 minutes to see if there is a new version of RealPlayer for me to download. Trillian.exe (my IM client) isusing 21 Meg of memory just sitting in my system tray. Do I need these things? Most,

yes, but after looking things over, I’m thinking I might not need all the bells and whistlesof the CD burning package.

There are several sites that can help you identify the various processes that you haverunning. One good one is www.answersthatwork.com. There you can find analphabetized list of common processes. This can help you track down how they got onyour computer, whether you still need them, and how to remove them.

So what’s to be done? Some people firmly believe in formatting their hard drive andreinstalling Windows every 6 months and starting over. Though this works, it might be abit over-the-top. Take a look at your system tray, and look at the applications running on

your computer. Are you running a bunch of extra stuff you do not really need? Figure outwhat they are and uninstall them.

Once you’ve cleaned up the hard-drive a bit, run the defragmenter. Run a registry cleanerto streamline it. Stop streaming music over the Internet while you work and invest in anipod. Go to the performance settings and set them for faster performance with less eye-candy (yes, those icon shadows and scrolling menus take CPU cycles!). Replace thatgiant picture of yourself with some simple wallpaper (yes, it redraws faster!). Move allthe extra icons off your desktop (the system has to go get icons for all of them onstartup!). There are lots of ways, you simply have to figure out what is really necessary.Of course, buying a new computer helps a lot too! Just don’t immediately load it up witheverything you “might” ever need.

Drivers:

While we are talking about operating systems, let me discuss drivers a little bit. Driversare a concept that engineers can really appreciate… the idea is brilliant. But, they are oneof the most common reasons for computer instability, so we have a love/hate relationship






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with drivers. Pretty much every piece of hardware attached to your computer is linked to

the computer with drivers… printers, monitors, hard drives, scanners, mice… you nameit. Printers are just one example, so picking on printers rather arbitrarily, I’ll describe howdrivers came to be and what they do.

Before windows came along, those of us that developed software had to modify ourprograms for every printer that we wanted to support. Sending plain text to a printer waseasy, but if we wanted to support fonts, or draw graphics, we had to get specifications forthe type of input that the printer was expecting, and modify our program to write thatexact format. For engineers in the early years of PC’s, the most important thing tosupport was HP plotters, and fortunately they all used a similar input format, calledHPGL (Hewlett Packard Graphics Language), so that was the main thing that engineering

software supported.

Today, the variety of printers being manufactured is quite large, and the types of datasoftware developers are asked to output (text, bitmaps, fonts, vector graphics) are quite abit more varied as well. Windows solves this problem for software developers byproviding something called a “Hardware Abstraction Layer” (HAL, no relation to thepsychotic computer in “2001 – A Space Odyssey” ). The hardware abstraction layerallows programs to interface with a “generic” output device (abstract, in other words). Itis then up to windows, and a printer driver supplied by the printer manufacturer, to takethe generic output commands from the program and convert them into something thateach specific printer understands.

In fact, windows gives each program such a generic view of the output device that itmight not even be a printer at all. The program code to draw a joist on the screen turnsout to be exactly the same code that draws it to a printer. The only difference is if theprogrammer knows he is drawing to a printer, he might want to draw on more than onepage, set it to portrait or landscape, or a few other things that only make sense for realprinters.

So, which printers should work fine for your software on your hardware? Any printer thathas a proper driver. Still, there can be problems, often with the drivers themselves. Thedriver sits on the other side of the HAL from your programs, and is written by the printermanufacturer to talk to a specific printer. It is a lot of work to write a driver, and becauseit has to work with the hardware, it is allowed greater access to the delicate innerworkings of your computer than most programs are allowed. That’s why a bad driver cannot only cause printing problems, but can cause system instability… even crashes.

To try to keep things under better control, Microsoft has made an effort to reign-in sloppydrivers by creating a certification process. When you buy a new device, look for thecertification logo. Also, when installing the driver, Windows will alert you if it does not






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meet the latest requirements, so think twice before allowing a non-conforming driver to

install.

Safe Computing

Even when you have your hardware, operating system, and drivers all working in perfectharmony, there is the potential for bad things to happen. That’s why you must takeprecautions so that they do not cause a huge drop in your productivity. These are theissues I want to cover next.

Viruses

A virus is a computer program that can replicate itself, and “infect” acomputer without your knowledge or permission. A virus will inject itself into other programs, and then when you share those programs with otherpeople, the virus will then replicate itself into their program files. A virusmight do very little to your system, or it might delete your files or cause

other mischief. Though viruses were some of the earliest threats to watch for, there arenow many new types of malware, such as “worms”, “root kits”, and “Trojan horses”.

It is essential that you install a good anti-virus package before you connect your computer

to the internet. There are many good options out there. I recommend reading somereviews to pick the best one for you. You want one that is thorough, but does not slowyour system down too much. There are even some free programs that are quite good.

Spyware

Remember the old “Spy vs. Spy” strip from MAD magazine? OK,then, perhaps I was the only one who read that sort of thing. Anyway,it came to mind the other day when I was thinking about spyware. Incase you have not heard, spyware is the latest thing we computer usershave to worry about. Not that we didn’t have enough problems before,with viruses, worms, Trojans, and blue-screens-of-death, but now wehave one more problem to add to the list.

So if spyware is just another problem on the watch list, what’s the newtwist? What makes it unique? Spyware is something that gets on your computer tomonitor your activities without your consent. The simplest form of spyware is what’scalled “adware,” and it generally is the least odious of the variants. It basically watches






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the internet sites you browse, and then uses this information to either put advertisements

on your page views that it thinks would be most likely to sell you something, or they sellthe information to someone else for much the same purpose.

Most of the adware people do not lurk in back-alleys… they call this a “business model,”and much like spammers, they keep a low-profile, but operate mostly within the law.Legal or not, most people would choose NOT to have someone monitoring theircomputer use, therefore the adware people are usually pretty sneaky in doing it. Theymight do it via invisible links in web pages that communicate with their servers, cookiesthey leave on your system, a button that looks like it will do something you want, orsoftware that gets installed while installing something else.

Do you ever read all the way through those licensing agreements that software asks youto agree to before installing? Some free or inexpensive software actually has vaguelanguage in the agreement that gives them permission to install spyware on your system!Be wary of free software… you sometimes get bonus spyware. The worst offenders arethe free peer-to-peer file sharing programs. Avoid these for sure.

The more dangerous spyware is watching your computer use for key information, such ascredit card numbers and network passwords. These guys DO lurk in back-alleys, butunlike virus writers who are just malicious, these guys know they can sell the informationon the black market for significant money, so they are relentless. They can also mess withyour computer, changing settings, slowing it down, and generally doing things you’d

much rather they not.

Keeping your computer safe has become such a chore that my old HP-97 is lookingpretty good again :-). But, I think I would find it sadly lacking when I tried to send an e-mail, so I guess I’ll deal with protecting my computer.

There are several products available to check your system for spyware. The goodproducts monitor your system continuously and stop spyware before it installs itself.There are free scanners available, and many products available for a fee.

You need to scan regularly, with the latest detection software, and just like anti-virussoftware, you need a subscription to keep it up to date with the latest spyware tricks. Itmight even be wise to use two different tools, as I have not yet seen one that could findand remove everything. Some do not even TRY to remove some adware, because remem-ber, some of the spyware people call it a “business model,” and they have threatened tosue companies for stopping them. I use two free programs because I am what my friendscall “cheap,” but for those who are a little more likely to crack open their wallets, check the latest product reviews.






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Phishing

I’m going to mention “phishing” here not because it is a software issue like a virus oradware, but because it is a real threat, in much the same way as spyware. Cyber-criminals“phished” Americans out of $1.2 billion last year. These phishermen really bother me,and they can catch even computer nerds off guard.

In a nutshell, a con-artist sends you an e-mail that looks like it is from a legitimatecompany, such as a credit card company, PayPal, a bank, etc. In the e-mail they tell youthat you need to update your account information for their records, and they convenientlyprovide a link in the e-mail that you can click and it takes you right to “their” site, where

you are asked to enter your personal information, such as account numbers, user IDs, orpasswords.

These sites often look just as good as the real sites, but they are scam sites set up just tocollect this information from you, and then they are shut down before they get caught.They then run off and steal your money as quickly as possible using this personalinformation.

Sometimes it is really hard to tell when an e-mail is a fraud, but you don’t have to worryabout it if you follow one simple rule. Never click a link in an e-mail to go to a site thatasks for your personal information. If you think that perhaps it is a valid request, and that

they really need you to provide information, you need to go directly to their site by typingtheir name into your browser, not clicking a link in an e-mail. I would insert a samplephishing e-mail here, but they creep me out so much that I immediately delete them whenI receive them.

Be sure to update your web browser to the latest version, as some of the new versionshave features built in to help flag fraudulent sites. If you believe you’ve been scammed,file your complaint at www.ftc.gov. Then visit the FTC’s Identity Theft web site atwww.consumer.gov/idtheft. Visit www.ftc.gov/spam for other ways to avoid e-mailscams.

Backing Up

I’ve got to cover this topic at least briefly. If you already have a regular backup schedule,good for you… keep it up! Most people, however, don’t get serious about backups until itis too late. It is unfortunately very easy for a virus to wipe out files, for your hard drive todie, or for you to erase a file that you later discover you needed. There could be an entirebook devoted to backup strategies, but I’m going to give you my quick advice/ The






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simpler you make things, the more likely that you will actually use it.

First, get a “thumb drive”. That is one of those USB devices that are about 2” long, andact like a floppy-disk drive, but they are faster, smaller, and can hold tons more. Theycome in different capacities, but you can easily get one that holds 2 GB or more for under$20. Plug it into a USB port, and copy the critical files that you work on each day onto it.It is not automatic… you have to remember to do it… but it is quick, easy, and cheap.

Second, go buy an external hard-drive. You can find several to choose from withhundreds of Gigabytes of storage for $100 or under. Some use USB ports, some useFirewire ports, and some can use either. Most of them come with software that allowsyou to quickly and easily back up your entire hard drive… sometimes with the touch of

one button.

Again, there are all kinds of complex strategies for backing up, but if you back up yourentire hard drive every week or two, and make copies of your important files daily, youwill be worlds ahead in case of disaster than you would have been with no backup plan inplace.

Software

Obviously you are going to have copies of the software that everyone in your office

uses… CAD programs, analysis programs, and an office suite. Each office is going to bea bit different. Don’t be afraid to try alternatives to MS Office. There are some very nicealternatives available for less… some even free. There are two other bits of software thatare necessities for any engineer: a compression utility and a pdf reader. These are bothpretty cool if you stop to think about it, so let’s do that!

Compression Utilities

There are plenty of tools available to compress and decompress files… I use Winzip, butthere are several other very good tools. The most common compressed file format forPC’s is the zip format, and the compressed files will end with .zip. Zip utilities can makefiles occupy anywhere from 5% to 50% less space on your computer. How does thiswork? The compression program basically looks for repetition, and replaces these repeatoccurrences with an abbreviated version. Let’s do a simple example. Let’s say thesesentences are what is in your file:

If you find yourself struggling with loneliness, you're not alone. And yet you are alone. So very alone.






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I borrowed this sentence from a demotivation poster (www.despair.com). The

compression program would look for repetition, such as the sequence “ alone.”, andsubstitute each occurrence with a shortcut, like â. It then might substitute ^y for everyoccurrence of the sequence “you”:

If ^y find ^yrself struggling with loneliness, ^y're notâ And yet ^y areâ So veryâ

That shortened things just a bit. Zip compression works like this, but since a computercan do a ridiculous amount of searching for possible shortcuts, it tries MUCH harder thanI just did, and it usually has a lot more data to look through. You can get an idea, though,why different files can be compressed by different amounts. Some files simply containmore repetition than others.

Zip compression is “lossless” compression. That means regardless of the type of filebeing compressed, when it is uncompressed, it will be exactly the same as before… nodetails are lost. There is compression technology that is not lossless… in other words is is“lossy”. This is used for digital pictures, audio, and video. You would not want to use itfor CAD files or engineering data.

PDF Viewers

There are not really a variety of pdf viewers out there, since the creator of the PDFstandard (Adobe) lets you download a free one. What is a PDF? It’s an acronym for

Portable Document Format. The idea behind it started in 1991 at Adobe Systems(www.adobe.com) as a way to create a “paperless office”... and to have a paperlessoffice, documents needed to be easily read by anyone on any computer. That was nominor feat, as usually when you wanted someone to see one of your documents, they hadto have the correct version of the application installed, as well as all the same fonts, andother miscellaneous files. To share an AutoCAD drawing, for example, the recipientwould normally need a copy of AutoCAD, and the required fonts, textures, shapes, andall XRefd DWG files. If the recipient’s application or files were a bit different, theymight be able to see something, but it might not look like it did on the sender’s computerscreen.

Adobe had most of the technology needed already under their belt. They had PostScript,which allowed all sorts of fonts to be used on any hardware and Operating System, andthey had some experience developing applications that ran on multiple OS’s (such asAdobe Illustrator, which they ported to both Windows and Macintosh). The importanceof PDF’s PostScript roots were evident, in fact, as the technology was originally dubbedIFS, for Interchange PostScript.

The file format was introduced to the world at the 1992 Comdex show, where it won a






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“Best-of-Comdex” award. Early adopters were Adobe itself, and the US Government, but

it did not exactly catch on like wildfire with the rest of the world. For many, it seemed“like a solution in search of a problem.” Certainly one deterrent was price, as PDFcreation software started at about $700, and a reader (viewer) was $50 . As the pastdecade or so has unfolded, Adobe has improved the technology, and reduced the price.Since 1993, they have referred to the software that creates and views PDF’s as “Acrobat.”

In 1994, Adobe began distributing the Acrobat Reader (the PDF viewer) free of chargeand the next year Acrobat and its PDF capability really took off. That’s when theyformed an allegiance with Netscape enabling the Navigator browser to open PDF files onthe Web (later they made the same deal with the Microsoft browser). The words “free”and “internet” were a winning combination! It now allowed people to create documents

in any application, and know that anybody they e-mailed the document to, or anyonevisiting their website, would be able to view the documents correctly.

Creating PDF’s is easy, though not as cheap as viewing them. Adobe sells a suite of products that allow PDF creation, plus various extras. The common element is a PDF“printer driver.” This little bit of software installs on your computer as if you wereinstalling a new printer. After installation, any document you want to print from anyapplication can be converted to a PDF simply by selecting the PDF printer, and printingthe document. Extra features that help make this a real “paperless office” tool include theability to encrypt and password protect documents, the ability to create forms that can befilled out and changes saved, document routing, and change management.

Today, more than 400 million copies of Acrobat Reader have been distributed worldwideand the PDF is second only to HTML in terms of ubiquity on the Web. If you don’talready have the Acrobat viewer, run up to their web site and download a copy. And if you want to see what creating PDF’s is like on the cheap, there are several free PDFprinter drivers available on the web as well.

In Closing…

I hope I have informed more than confused. Most of us want our computers to just getour job done without us having to mess with them. Unfortunately, that is not the case.They require care, and knowledge is required for us to know what is essential and what isnot. I wish you “Happy Computing!”

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