Zune HD vs iPod Touch

Just a relatively quick comparison between my Zune HD and the iPod Touch (2nd gen).  More information to follow sometime later.

• The OLED screen on the Zune HD is amazing. It is quite bright, and very vibrant. When I held my ZHD up to my Touch, the display on the Touch looked, well, pathetic. It hadn't ever been so obvious how much backlight seeps through until I compared it to a device without a backlight. And as a result of the backlight, colors on the iPod look very washed out and poorly rendered when compared to to the Zune. One quick photo to compare below… The original is on the left, Zune HD’s rendering in the middle, and iPod Touch on the right.
  
  
  
  I played with the camera settings to get a better image from the Touch, and I couldn’t do it.  Its display just isn’t very good.  I’ll be posting more pictures later.
  
• Brightness on the OLED is NOT a problem. At equivalent brightness levels (the Zune only has Low, Mid, and High to choose from) the Zune's display is at least as bright as the iPod's. The real plus side for the Zune is that picture quality doesn’t deteriorate at lower brightness levels like it does on LCD.  So you can comfortably use the Low setting and it doesn’t detract from the experience.
  
  In direct sunlight the Zune is a bit harder to see.  But the difference wasn’t huge, and who attempts to use their device with sunlight falling right on it?
  
• I have been trying for several days to take a picture that shows a decent comparison shot. But none come out quite right. The white balance of the two displays is quite different (ZHD tracks in at D6500, while the iPod Touch is closer to D5000), so either the iPod's display looks yellow, or the Zune's display looks blue when they are in the same shot. And for some reason the Zune's display shows up a little bit blurry in pictures, which I can't explain. When you see the display IRL it is extremely crisp and sharp.
  
• The Apps on the Zune don't even begin to compare to those on the iPod Touch. iPod wins hands down here.  Microsoft promises more apps later, and they will be free, but they’ll never catch up to where the iPod Touch/iPhone App Store is.
  
• The browser on the Zune is better than expected. It is a hair sluggish while a page is loading, but once the page is loading the Zune zooms and pans a lot faster than the iPod. Page rendering is fine, but it seems like a substantial number of web sites are serving up their mobile version to the Zune where they serve the full version to the iPod, so direct comparisons aren't really possible. On sites that serve the full version, though, the Zune page rendering seems fine. One obvious lacking on the Zune is that only one page can be open at a time. It doesn't attempt to mimic the multi-page capability of the Touch.
  
• The user interface on the Zune is much snappier and responsive than that of the iPod Touch. Where the iPod is rendering page transitions at roughly 10 frames per second, the Zune is easily doing 30 fps or more. Scrolling on the Zune is also at least 30 fps, where the iPod is less. The iPod Touch never really felt at all sluggish to me until I compared it to the Zune's interface.
  
• The experience of listening to music on the Zune is WAY better than the iPod Touch. Between having a more logical and flexible layout of the menu structure for finding music, and the additional features that MS has added to link between artists and provide information (and photos) about the artists in your collection, the Zune provides a much more pleasing experience. And these features are available without the Zune Pass subscription. If you add the Zune Pass subscription, the Zune leaps further ahead because you can not only download but stream any of the music in the Zune catalog in real time. So any track is available at any time so long as you have access to WiFi. And the Zune's Channels feature is a lot cooler than I had eve anticipated. It not only makes music suggestions, but it actually downloads the recommended songs directly to the device automatically so they can play anywhere even without WiFi. Apple ought to be taking notes here.
  
  I’ll be doing a full video or blog post about this.  The Zune HD changes the way you experience music.
  
• Video playback on the Zune is better primarily because of the better screen. It also does a better job of organizing your video collection, because you can manually tag video files as being movies, TV shows, music videos, or other. iTunes doesn't let you do that on your own; the only things tagged this way are the ones you download from the iTunes store. Letting the user catalog their own collection makes it much easier to find your way around.
  
• The Zune's battery capacity is technically lower than that of the iPod, but it seems to be better at managing it. After two hours of watching video my iPod Touch is dead (my unit could be an anomaly, but it doesn't seem to be). I watched more than 4 hours of video on the Zune HD and the battery meter hadn't fallen past half yet.
  
• The HD radio is cool, but I have a hard time picking up the HD feeds in my basement. Then again, I can't pick up stereo in my basement on any radio either. When I take the device upstairs or outside, the HD kicks in, and it is definitely clearer than the analog transmission. The primary benefit here is that all static goes away and you get a clean signal, and higher frequencies are much better reproduced in the digital feed.
  
• One feature on the Zune I find particularly useful is the WiFi syncing. It is very convenient to be able to click three buttons and have the device connect and download updated podcasts, music, and video from anywhere in the house.
  
• Another thing I noticed is that the Zune software automatically picks up on changes in files in the music and video folders, and reflects them in the software automatically and virtually instantly. So as I was moving files in and out of my music folders the tracks would instantly appear and/or disappear. It has always bugged me that iTunes doesn't automatically pick up on music or videos that I add to my folders.
  
• As demonstrated in my last blog post, the iPod Touch seems to have some issues with sound quality.  The Zune did much better in testing.
  
• The Zune desktop software is also significantly snapper than iTunes on Windows. And I think I like the design and interface better. With its polished interface, it is certainly snazzier and more refined. iTunes looks relatively dated at this point.

Complaints

My biggest complaint is mostly with touch-based devices in general, and isn’t specific to the Zune HD.  And honestly it is something that I’m surprised we don’t see talked about.  It’s the lack of physical buttons for navigating through music tracks.

Recently we have had the dangers of text messaging while driving crammed down our throats, and it surprises me that some of this hasn’t spilled over into other areas.  Attempting to operate a touch-screen music player while driving is just as dangerous.  In order to control the device you have to take your eyes off of the road for significant amounts of time.  And many operations on both the Zune HD and the iPod Touch require two hands to perform effectively.  Just adding two buttons for changing tracks would be huge in attempting to fix this problem.  But the current trend is to move away from buttons, and I believe this is a mistake.  I’m not asking for a device with 47 buttons for every possible function, but there really ought to be dedicated buttons for the most basic functions of the device.

I took my Zune HD with me the day I got it when I went out running a few errands.  I found that it was extremely inconvenient and potentially dangerous to do even the most basic of tasks.  This isn’t limited to the Zune, either; it is a problem with every touch-screen based music player, whether it be the Zune, iPod Touch, or iPhone.  It’s enough of a problem that I must publicly shun anybody that operates one of these devices while behind the wheel.  It’s dangerous, and it shouldn’t be done.  Apple and Microsoft both really need to rethink their designs a bit to make these devices a little more friendly to situations where full attention can’t be given to their operation.

As a result of this, I will continue using my previous Zunes in my truck.  The Zune HD will probably become my primary travelling device, but not the PMP that gets used the most.

Wrap-up

So to summarize, when comparing the Zune and iPod Touch, people looking for a device primarily for music and video, the Zune will provide a much richer and more interactive experience. For people looking to take advantage of the App Store, the iPod Touch can't be touched (hardy, har, har). So if you’re buying to listen to music, I recommend the Zune. If you’re buying for the App Store, the Touch is the only way to go.  For web browsing, the iPod has a bit of an edge, but it isn't much.  Both will provide a similar experience there.

If someone already has a significant amount of DRM protected content from the iTunes store that they want to keep, there is probably no reason to consider the Zune (though they need to get out from under the thumb of the music industry). But if someone doesn't care much about the App Store and their main focus is music and video, the Zune HD provides a significantly better experience for both. Since the Zune can play all of the file formats supported by the iPods (plus more), switching from the iPod to Zune isn't too painful, and it’s a switch that I bet a lot of people would be thankful to have made later on.

MP3 Player Performance

I purchased a Zune HD earlier this week and I intend to fully review the device here on this blog over the next little while.  So this is the first of several posts with my findings and thoughts on the device.  This first one represents the technical findings of how the Zune HD compares with other common MP3 players.

So as part of that I’m going to try to explain a little bit about the technology behind why a particular MP3 player sounds good or bad, beyond the technical specifications given by the manufacturer.

This post will be a little techie in nature, but I’m going to try to break the technological jargon down into such a way that anyone can understand it should they so desire.  I think it’s important to put some of this information out there, as there are a lot of misconceptions about which players have the best sound quality. 

For this test I included all of the players I have at my disposal.  If someone would like me to test another player, I’d be happy to do so, as long as you are willing to loan it to me for a couple of days.

The players I have included in this test are an iPod Classic (80GB), iPod Touch (2nd Generation), Zune 8GB (flash-memory based), Zune 80GB (hard disk drive), and the brand-new Zune HD introduced this week (flash memory). 

Frequency Response

The frequency response of a player is a measurement of how equally produces different frequencies of audio across the audible frequency range.  It is expressed in terms of a frequency range (usually 20 Hz to 20 kHz, the typical range of human hearing) and the response (expressed in +/- decibels). 

Decibels are a bit of a tricky thing to understand.  They are logarithmic in nature, so a 3dB change doesn’t sound like 1/3 of a 10dB change.  In terms of human hearing, a 10 dB change represents a perceived doubling of volume, and since dB are logarithmic, 20 dB is perceived as twice as loud as that.  The smallest change that an untrained ear can detect is generally about 2-3 dB.  (3 dB is considered “barely perceptible, while 5 dB is “clearly noticeable.”)

In practical terms, frequency response is manifested as a difference in volume between different notes.  If a middle C is heard at 80 dB, but a C in the next higher octave is heard at 76 dB, there is a 4 dB difference in volume between the two.  This is a difference that would be heard, but would not seem particularly significant.  In an ideal world frequency response would be +/- 0 dB over 20 Hz to 20 kHz.  So when measuring the output of a device, the volume level wouldn’t change by any more than 0 dB over that entire range of frequencies.  Fortunately, most electronics these days are able to deliver something very close to that.

In fact, all of the devices I tested were within +/- 0.5 dB over the entire 20-20 range.  The Zune HD was the only one with an actual measurable variation in its response, dropping 0.5 dB between 17 kHz and 20 kHz.  But considering that (A) this range is at the highest frequency range of human hearing and that even the most highly trained ears just aren’t very sensitive to it, and (B) the change is only 0.5 dB so very few people would even be able to pick up on it, this is essentially negligible, and the end result is that all players do extremely well in this area, at least in lab tests.  The Apple devices, on the other hand, while generally flat, did exhibit a very slight exaggeration of frequencies above 10 kHz, but the numbers didn’t show this as something that anyone would be able to detect audibly.  As far as I am concerned, all of the devices tested do extremely well, with extremely little difference between them.

Harmonics

Before I post too much on the results of testing, I need to explain harmonics a little bit.

For each note on the scale, and every sound that we hear, there is a fundamental (primary) frequency, and harmonic frequencies that define the sonic character of the sound.  The first defined harmonic is the second harmonic.  It is a sound produced at exactly twice the frequency of the fundamental. The 3rd harmonic is at three times the original frequency, and so on. 

A piano sounds different than a guitar playing the same note primarily because of the different harmonics of the two instruments.  Different instruments emphasize the different harmonics differently.

The relationship between fundamental frequencies and harmonics is, well, complicated.  But there are a few general rules:

• Fundamental frequency defines the frequency (note) that we hear, such as a middle C.
• Even numbered harmonics (2, 4, 6 times the original frequency) are generally considered pleasing. 
• Odd numbered harmonics (3, 5, 7 times the original frequency) are generally considered to be harsh

In terms that musicians will understand, take a look at the harmonic frequencies created based on a fundamental, in this case a C2. 

Harmonics Based on a C2 Fundamental
Even Harmonics		Odd Harmonics
Harmonic	Equivalent Note	Harmonic	Equivalent Note
2nd	C3	3rd	G3
4th	C4	5th	Between Eb4, E4
6th	G4	7th	Between A4, Bb4
8th	C5	9th	D5
10th	Between Eb5, E5	11th	Between F5, Gb5

So if you play a C2 on an instrument with a strong 3rd harmonic, a substantial portion of what you hear is the same frequency as a G3.  If you are playing something in a major key (C2 in this example) and the most common chord is the I (C) chord, this might not be too bad because one of the notes of that chord is probably a G2.  The harmonic actually creates some degree of harmony with the chord being played.  In the case of the I chord, even the 5th harmonic isn’t too awful, as it falls near an E, also a note in that chord.  But when you move to another chord like ii, iii, IV, V, or vi, these odd numbered harmonics start to clash with the chord being played.  The IV chord, for example, is made up of F, A, and C.  Adding the 3rd harmonic of the C (a G) clashes pretty badly with the F and A.

Even numbered harmonics, on the other hand, tend to fall at octave intervals.  In fact, the 2X and 4X harmonics fall directly at the next higher two octave intervals.  So they tend to sound pleasing.  An instrument with strong even harmonics will be pleasing and easy to listen to.

In terms of electronics, though, harmonics are difficult to avoid, particularly when it comes to digital devices.  Most inexpensive digital devices have trouble reproducing recorded sounds without adding harmonics, especially the undesirable odd harmonics, just as part of their very nature.  This is one of the reasons that digital doesn’t sound as warm and friendly as old analog recordings, like tapes and records.  Digital devices “like” to produce the ugly odd harmonics, and it can be difficult to bring them under control.  It can be done, but it is expensive to design and build electronics that avoid this problem.

With that said, each device manufacturer has to make a compromise between affordability and high quality sound output.  Different devices fall at different places on this scale, and this is what this post is about.  With that, it’s time to introduce the test results.

What I did here was to create a file that plays all frequencies from 20 Hz to 20 kHz at equal level.  I then played that file on each of the devices I tested, using the best possible audio file the device would support.  The diagonal yellow line for each device indicates fidelity compared to the original signal, and anything else in the image (purple) is additional, unwanted sound added by a device.

The first block is the original, unaltered file, to show what the output of an absolutely perfect device would look like.  A perfect device would output the original recording exactly as it had been created.  No such device really exists, but this block shows what it would look like if it did.

The second block is the Control.  This shows the response of the sound device I used in testing, which is an $800 sound card device I use for recording in my studio.  It adds just a hair of background noise (hiss), in the form of the general purple background.  It also adds a bit of 3rd order harmonic, seen as a faint line sloping upward above the yellow line.  You can also see reflections of that harmonic as lines that alternate downward and upward starting below the “ro” in the word Control.  These are artifacts introduced by the audio capture hardware, and generally would not actually be heard when listening to the output.  As long as the reflections remain faint lines, they can be ignored as they do not represent the output of any given device.

The next block is the output of the brand-new Zune HD released this week.  It adds a little bit more 3rd order harmonic than my sound card, but it is generally very faint as well.  A 5th order harmonic is also faintly visible.  Beyond that no detectable harmonics are being added.  I was actually pleasantly surprised how well the device did, considering the relatively low cost of the Zune hardware, especially when compared to the Control device.

The 4th block is a little bit troubling to me.  It represents the output if the iPod Touch (2nd generation).  Not only does it output quite a bit of noise (hiss), represented by the bright purple background, its 3rd and 5th harmonics are very prevalent as well.  In real world terms this means that the player sounds not only noisy (again, bright purple background), but harsh (bright purple lines).  Output of the iPod Touch was disappointing, and definitely subpar for a modern music player.  It was also hard to test, as it was difficult to find a proper balance between optimal volume with the least background noise, and the least distortion manifested in the form of those evil odd harmonics.  The more I turned it up the more prevalent the brighter the harmonic lines became, but when I turned it down the background noise level increased relative to the test signal.  What you see here is the best balance I could get out of the device, with the volume level at about the 67% point.  (All other devices could be tested at maximum volume.)

The next two blocks represent my other Zunes, the 80GB hard-drive and 8GB flash memory-based players, respectively.  These two devices supposedly use the same audio hardware, and leaked information about the Zune HD indicated that it used the same audio yet again, and the test results seem to confirm that.  Performance on these two Zunes was quite good, differing only in the frequency response from the HD model.

The last block is the output of the iPod Classic.  It is generally pretty good as well.  Compared to the Zunes, it adds a measurable amount of 2nd order and 4th order harmonics, with similar amounts of 3rd order harmonics.  In an absolutely ideal world, a device shouldn’t add any harmonics at all, but if it has to, it is going to sound better if they are even rather than odd.  The odd harmonics on the Classic are stronger than the even harmonics, but neither are out of control.  The measurable amount of even harmonics may make the device sound “warmer” than other players, though technically speaking this isn’t “accurate” or faithful to the original recording.

Overall most devices did pretty well on this test.  The notable exception is the iPod Touch, which was generally quite noisy and added what I consider to be unacceptable amounts of distortion in the form of the unpleasing odd harmonics.  In the real world this means that the iPod Touch sounds more harsh and grating than the other players.  The distortion and noise levels were high enough that they would be audible in A/B testing with any of the other devices.

While the consistency of performance across Zune devices was predictable, the inconsistency between the two iPods was not expected.  There has been a rumor that over the years Apple has made more and more compromises on the audio hardware in their iPods with each passing generation, and the results of this test seem to confirm that this may be true, as the older Classic had considerably better performance than the newer iPod Touch. 

Many sites on the Internet have praised the Zune for its generally high audio quality, and shunned the iPod line for its poor audio quality with respect to other devices on the market.  While these reputations may be at least partially true, the actual difference between the two isn’t that significant, with the notable exception of the Touch, whose performance was actually disappointing.  But for the most part the performance on the iPod Classic was fine, nearly equaling that of the Zunes, at least in the areas of background noise and harmonic distortion.

Distortion Under Load

The above test was taken with essentially no load on the players.  Which means that they weren’t having to work in order to push the little speakers in a pair of earphones or headphones.  So the numbers really represent an ideal situation, where the connected headphone doesn’t introduce a “load” on the player.  But I thought that to be totally idealistic, so I decided to test under the most brutal of all conditions, with the players turned up to the maximum volume with acceptable amounts of distortion with an inefficient pair of headphones attached.  While the previous test represents the best test case scenario, this test represents the worst.

This start to get a little more interesting here.  The performance of the devices starts to diverge a little bit.

The Zunes introduced a great deal more distortion at maximum volume than they did with no load attached.  (The distortion level on the iPods didn’t change a whole lot.)  What is even more interesting to me, though, is the amount of distortion found in the Zunes in even harmonics.  That generally isn’t seen in electronics quite like this.  It is entirely possible that it was actually the headphones creating these distortion lines, as they, as mechanical devices, would be more likely to produce even harmonics.  But I don’t have any way to measure that, so it will have to be left at conjecture rather than observed phenomenon.

Generally speaking, though, I did notice some trends.  It looks like Microsoft allows the Zunes to be driven more into volume levels where distortion would be introduced than Apple did with the iPods.  Apple was a little more conservative in the design of the player.  Apple essentially designed more headroom into the iPods.

With that said, though, the volume levels being used for this particular test would be excessive and even dangerous for anyone’s ears for any sort of listening beyond very short bursts.  The players should never be turned up to this level in the real world, lest hearing damage occur.  At more acceptable levels, the amount of distortion on all players, both Zune and iPod, began to resemble the previous test much more closely.  In the end, while this test for distortion at maximum load was interesting, it ends up not being meaningful.  In truth, the previous no-load test much better represented how devices will actually sound at healthy listening volumes.  So interesting to look at, yes.  Meaningful or significant, no.

What does it all mean?

In short, aside from the iPod Touch, any of the tested devices will be capable of delivering pretty high quality audio.  I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend any of the Zunes, or the iPod Classic to anyone worried about sound quality.  The differences are barely measurable, let alone audible.

The iPod Touch, on the other hand, is another case entirely.  Not only is it excessively noisy, it adds what I would consider unacceptable amounts of unpleasing distortion to the audio signal, at least for a modern device.  Its performance would have been acceptable (or even “good”) just ten years ago, but it doesn’t meet the expectations I would have for a piece of consumer electronics in 2009.  It is too easy and too cheap to produce high quality audio these days for Apple to have let this slip. 

When it boils down to it, I believe that it was probably a financial decision on their part.  While higher quality audio electronics probably would have only cost an additional couple dollars per unit, when you consider how many million of these things Apple has sold, that few dollars adds up to quite a lot of money in the end.  It would have been nice if Apple had put more emphasis on sound quality than the bottom line.  They would have had a better product.

With that out on the table, though, I’m sure that most people aren’t interested enough in sound quality to even care that compromises have been made.  Most people are content enough with the downright awful earphones that Apple ships with iPods (to the detriment of their ears), so why would they care about the sound quality of the device?  For those that do care, though, the Touch is probably better avoided, while the other players would probably be just fine.

Get a UPS

No, not one of the guys (or gals) in brown.  I’m talking about Uninterruptible Power Supplies.

UPSes are battery backup systems for electronics.  In this case, computers specifically.  I know you’re thinking, “Why would I want a battery backup for my computer?”  The reasons might not be obvious, but there are many. 

Having a UPS keeps the computer from shutting off abruptly

One of the worst enemies of your computer and its data is an abrupt loss of power to your computer.  If you’re working on a document or composing an email, for example, and the power goes out, you’ll probably lose your work.

In addition to that, in order to make computers perform as well as they do, modern operating systems like Windows, OS X, and Linux don’t necessarily save your data to your hard disk drive immediately.  They’ll hold that data in memory (in a cache) until it is convenient to save it to the hard drive.  Just because the computer says it has saved your file doesn’t mean it has actually done it.  It’s going to wait until it’s good and ready.

Having a UPS prevents both of these problems from occurring.  If the power goes out you and your computer will have a few minutes to save your work before the battery is exhausted. 

Having a UPS can prevent damage to your computer

This includes both physical damage due to power surges, brownouts, etc. as well as damage to the data on your computer. 

UPSes usually have surge protectors built in, and they also monitor the AC power in your home for problem conditions as well.  If there is any sort of problem with your power the UPS will kick in and switch the power going to your computer from the wall outlet to its built-in battery, preventing physical damage from occurring.  Many computers and other electronics have been saved from destruction because of the protection provided by a UPS.

Perhaps a more frustrating problem is what can happen when a computer is shut off abruptly rather than being shut down gracefully.  Computers don’t like to be turned off without a proper shutdown procedure; data on your drive, including your operating system and the programs you use regularly, can easily be damaged by an abrupt loss of power.  Files are very often damaged when this occurs, and it can result in a computer that won’t start, generates error messages, or crashes.  It’s an easy thing to avoid by just adding a UPS.

Having a UPS will make your computer more stable

Many of the crashes and lockups that we experience with our computers are due to problems with the power coming into them.  For example, if your air conditioner or refrigerator’s compressor turns on to cool your home or food, that generates some huge spikes and drops in the power on your wiring.  Likewise with washers, dryers, even hair dryers.  Those spikes and drops get passed on to the electronics in your computer, and can easily generate anomalies in the way your data is processed and stored.  You’ve probably seen it in its extreme before… the lights go dim momentarily, and your computer locks up or resets.  But that is an extreme example.  Even the smaller spikes, surges, and drops in power can modify the way your computer behaves.  And it may not show up as a problem on the computer right away.  The data that has been modified might not be accessed until later, at which point the computer may lockup or crash minutes, hours, or days after the problem really occurred, and you’ll never know why. 

In my own experience, many times computers that misbehave without a UPS suddenly start working perfectly after a UPS has been added.  I’ve seen it time and time again.  This is especially true of budget computers, where they have cut corners on the internal power supply in order to keep costs down. 

If your computer seems to randomly misbehave, there’s a chance it is because it is running on bad power.  A UPS will fix that.

Having a UPS will make your computer last longer

Without having to deal with problematic power, the electronic components that make up our computers will last a lot longer.  And I’m not just talking about preventing immediate damage from power surges; the everyday noise that is present on our power lines does damage over a long period of time.  Running your computer on a UPS will increase its life noticeably.

What about laptop owners?

The very nature of laptops makes UPSes less necessary than they are for desktop computers.  Since they have their own battery they’re automatically immune to power outages. 

But that doesn’t mean that laptop owners won’t benefit from a UPS at all.  The other issues mentioned above can still apply, like instability and damage due to dirty power; laptops are affected too.  And it isn’t a bad idea to put your DSL or cable modem and network router on a UPS to prevent damage and improve reliability there either. 

I’m convinced… now what?

It’s important when buying a UPS to get one that is properly sized for the amount of equipment that will be plugged into it.  And you need to decide how long you want the computer to be able to run on battery power for those time when the the power goes out completely.  Don’t expect a lot; 10-15 minutes would be considered generous without spending a fortune.  To save a little cash you can get one that will last you somewhere between 7 and 10 minutes.

Personally I have been using UPSes by APC for about 15 years, and I love them.  They aren’t the only game in town, that’s for sure, but I do trust their products.  And they have a tool on their web site that makes it easy to find the right UPS for your situation. 

Most office supply stores carry UPSes.  If you buy one there, expect to spend $50-150 depending on the size you need.

If you’re just going to run your modem or router on a UPS, buy the cheapest brand-name UPS you can find; even the smallest capacity will run these devices for quite some time on battery backup power.  Laptops are more power efficient than desktops, so they can run on small-capacity UPSes as well.

If you do get a UPS, please make sure you set it up according to the manufacturer’s instructions.  If you don’t install their software, for example, the computer won’t know when the power goes out, and it will be shut off abruptly when the battery dies, exactly like what would happen if you didn’t have a UPS at all.  Connecting the UPS to your computer and installing the proper software will allow your computer to know when the battery is about to die, and give it a chance to shut down properly.

The cost of a UPS is easily offset by the replacement cost of any equipment that they might save over its life.  And that doesn’t include time and frustration saved on your part due to lost files, crashes, or repair of any damage to your operating system and software. 

I, of course, have UPSes on all of my critical computers, and it has saved me a great deal of frustration over the years.  So I highly recommend them for anyone.

Viruses are NOT a technological problem

There is a myth that has been going around for YEARS that if you run Windows on a computer that it is automatically going to become infested with viruses. It is perpetuated by many, particularly in the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads, but also by the companies that create anti-virus software in hopes that you’ll buy their product to protect yourselves from the inevitable technological intrusion into your virtual computer space. And most of us buy into it. The truth is, that it is NOT true that running Windows will guarantee that you’ll become infested with viruses. (I’ll prove it later in this post.) Windows in and of itself is not the problem. The problem isn’t even technological at all. It’s social.

The term used to describe the techniques used by viruses writers to get their software onto your computer is actually called “social engineering.” Basically it means they trick you into installing the viruses on your computer. They’ll do things like disguise their software as something else that you’re likely to want or want to see. They use methods to make you believe that these things are coming from trusted sources, like friends or family. Combined, those are pretty effective methods. (And truthfully, these same methods work on ANY operating system; they aren’t specific to Windows.)

This might be a blow to the ego of some, but if your computer has become infested with a virus, it is because you let it install itself. You opened a file you shouldn’t have. You installed some software you shouldn’t have. You are the one to blame that it is there. Please don’t blame your computer. Don’t blame your operating system. You did something that let the bad stuff in. The wolf knocked at your door, and instead of replying with a “not by the hair of my chinny-chin chin” you said “come on in.”

Personally I don’t run anti-virus software. I never have. I do install it, because that’s what you’re “supposed” to do, but I don’t let it run scanning and watching my computer all of the time. After I install it the very first thing I do is disable it. I don’t like the slowdown that comes with having everything I do be monitored by bloated software that isn’t going to find anything anyway. And despite the fact that I do not run antivirus software, I have NEVER had a single virus on ANY of my computers. Ever! I’ve been running Windows for nearly 15 years and I haven’t had a virus yet. I’ll run anti-virus scans every once a while just to make sure that I’m still clean, but NONE of those scans have EVER found even a single virus.

If susceptibility to viruses was a technological problem with Windows, my computers would be massive infestations of virus muck. They wouldn’t be usable. And they’d be out there trying to find ways to infect others. How have I been able to remain clean? Just by being careful about what I install and keeping my computer up to date with security patches. That’s it. No more. No magical hardware firewall watching my Internet activity. No magic fairy that shows up in the middle of the night to clean off anything that may have arrived that day.

But the situation gets even worse for the theory that Windows inherently becomes infested with viruses when I tell you that I also don’t run any firewalls. Yep, I turn those off too. And here’s another kicker… I break the cardinal rule of data security: three of my computers have public IP addresses (meaning they are totally exposed to, accessible from, and visible to the Internet). Gasp! That’s an absolute security no-no! Nobody should EVER run Windows with a public IP address, right? Well, I wouldn’t recommend it for most people, but the truth is that Windows, despite its many flaws, is not the primary cause of viruses becoming installed on our computers, so I really don’t worry about it. Viruses are installed by people, not their operating system. It’s people tricking other people into installing their ill-intended garbage that gets computers infected.

I’m not the only one that doesn’t run anti-virus software. In a recent episode of the Security Now podcast, noted security expert Steve Gibson also admitted that he doesn’t run it either. If a security expert doesn’t run it, then the computer he’s using isn’t the main cause of the problem, is it!?

So why do Windows PCs so often have viruses? Mostly because they’re so popular. If you’re someone conjuring up evil plans to take over the world by creating virus software, who are you going to target? The 90% of computers running Windows? Or the 7% running a Mac, or 1% running Linux? Which offers a better return on your time investment?

Windows XP also made an easy target because it makes it so easy to install software. No password or validation required to do an installation; installers can just run and do whatever they please whenever someone starts them. (That has changed with Vista; passwords and validation are required there, just like OS X and Linux.) Not requiring a password to install has never been a good idea, but it isn’t the cause of viruses on computers. It just made it easier for the bad guys. Big difference. And viruses are software; they just have a different intent than something like Firefox.

With all of this said, I will not recommend that most people run without anti-virus software or a firewall. Most people should take those steps to protect their machines. But these tools are just extras layer of protection; they should not be the only form of protection used. Neither will ever be able to make up for all of the shortcomings of someone using a computer. Even with both installed, it’s still up to you to avoid the bad stuff. And that, my friends, is a social problem, not a problem with technology.