Techy Misconceptions

#1 Facebook wants to charge you money for its service

It seems like a week doesn’t go by that the rumor mill churns yet again that Facebook wants to charge you some kind of fee for its service. Basically, put them out to pasture - Zuckerberg and company loves your information that we all (maybe too) freely give out to want to charge us for the privilege of paying him to give it. So, feel free to grouse about the latest changes to the format but know that for now and into the foreseeable future, The Facebook is content to just be happy mining YOUR data.

#2 Apple “invented” the PC (or the MP3 player; or theTablet computer).

All of these are an astounding no. Apple marketed one of the first Do It Yourself (DIY) personal computers (for an astounding $666.66 (no, Steve Jobs is not the Antichrist either) and had a strong foothold in the market well before IBM unleashed its version of the PC onto the world a few years later - but many companies marketed computers well before Apple (some notable examples are the MITS Alter; HP 9100 (and even if you want to dig further back you can find examples like Honeywell’s Kitchen computer and even the DIY Simon that you could purchase the plans for).

Ditto for MP3 players (remember the Genica Tavarua) and tablet computers have been around for ages (it just took Apple to make them fun and bring them out of the business world and into our lives - with tons of knock-offs coming on its heels screaming “me too! me too! ”).

#3 Running Windows Updates will ruin my computer

Actually, quite the opposite may be true - if you avoid running updates, especially security updates, you put your computer at risk. While it is true that every once in a while an update has some - unexpected consequences - for the most part you are better safe than sorry running the update. However, it has to be said that if you update an entire operating system, then there is the strong possibility that many of your favorite programs will not migrate well to the newer version of the operating system (not that this has ever held me back - thank goodness for Virtual Machines and especially for XP Mode on Windows 7)

#4 Dell (or Apple, or HP, or Acer; or “insert companies name here”) manufacturers their own computers

While some companies may still ASSEMBLE some of their computers to order, most computer companies no longer own any manufacturing facilities or make their own computers. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part, large computer companies have third party manufacturers build their computers. (which is why some of the largest BUILDERS of computers are companies that you may have never heard of, such as Quanta Computer, Compal Electronics and Hon Hai Precision (aka, Foxconn Electronics)).

Be assured that the computer you are probably reading this Tech Tip on was more than likely not actually MADE by the company that is on the label. This is one of the big reasons computers are basically considered commodity items (yes, even that shiny Apple PC - rolling off the same assembly line with Dell, HP, etc) and tend to have similar repair rates (which also means that they also tend to use many of the same OEM parts and components as well).This doesn’t mean that your computer was made poorly; or even that one computer may be “better” than another - it just means that they are all pretty much the same.

In Conclusion

Hope you liked this week’s Tech Tip! While urban legends and myths run rampant in the tech arena, rest assured that we here at Tech Tips have your back and are ready to beat back the hounds of ignorance and set a world on fire with Geek Busters!