Using Your Computer Responsibly

Computers are incredibly useful devices. They are capable of increasing human productivity and potential immensely: we can use them to store and organize vast quantities of data, to carry out complicated calculations, to model all sorts of real-world situations, and to automate all kinds of boring, repetitive tasks. There are certainly aspects of computing we do not like, but it is hard to argue that they haven't improved our lives considerably.

Ironically, many people find that their productivity decreases when they start using computers. This is because computers are excellent ways to waste time. Thanks to computers, we can play video games, we can spend hours reading e-mails and websites each day, we can chat in real-time with people on the other side of the world, we can polish presentations and documents to a degree that would have been inconceivable a few decades ago, we can learn and explore and play and invent and program. In moderation, any of these capabilities can enrich our lives. In excess, they can ruin our lives. We spend so much time on our computers that we ignore our loved ones, our jobs, and our health. We sit in front of our computers all day, growing fat and sedentary and developing all sorts of repetitive stress injuries. We blow our budgets -- on new hardware, on service fees, on shopping online. These are not nice things to say, but they are realities. I jeopardized my schooling because I preferred playing NetHack to completing assignments and studying for tests. Even today, I have to carefully monitor my Internet usage, and I dare not subscribe to Internet access at home. Other people lose jobs and/or get divorced because they cannot control their computer use. You do not want to be one of those people.

I suspect many people who first start using computers go through an obsessive phase, where they spend more time than they should with their new toys. Some people grow out of this phase quickly, and avoid letting their computers take over their lives. The rest of us have to be vigilant and take precautions to prevent our digital toys from ruining our productivity and our lives. Learning to use our computers responsibly is one of the most important skills we can develop. It is at least as important as learning how to use programs and applications proficiently.

In this section, I will outline a few of the traps people fall into, and describe some techniques you can practice to keep your computer usage under control.

Scheduling Your Computer Time

If you find your computer time cutting into your other activities, you will want to schedule your computer activities and time so that they do not interfere with the rest of your life. This is much easier said than done, but there are some strategies that can help:

  • Be aware of your computer usage. Keep a log of the time you spend on the computer, and what activities you use the computer for. Categorize the time you spend on the computer in terms of work and entertainment. This exercise will give you a clear idea of where your time is going, and possibly motivate you to improve your habits. [PROVIDE TABLE]
  • Make conscious decisions about how much time you are comfortable spending at the computer. Then compare your computer usage against those limits, and plan adjustments to your computer usage accordingly. If you find that you would otherwise be spending your computer time on less productive and enriching entertainment, then you may be happy with your computer usage. On the other hand, if your computer usage interferes with your work, your family, your volunteer work, your exercise, or other worthwhile causes and activities, then you will want to modify your habits.
  • Schedule the computer activities that suck up your time just before appointments and other activities that get you away from the computer. Provided that you have a lot of incentive to keep those appointments, you will have to end your computer sessions to get on with your next scheduled activity.

    Be aware that this strategy can backfire disastrously. If you are not careful you can miss important appointments, and it is easy to be late for appointments because you are tempted to spend "just a few more minutes" at the computer. To get around this, I keep a clock (with an alarm!) that goes off when I need to get off the computer. I know that I will be late if I ignore the alarm, so I reluctantly shut down the computer and leave.

    If you find that you cannot control your computer use just before appointments, you may need to employ the opposite strategy: never schedule time-sucking activities just before important appointments.

  • Be especially careful of computer activities that occur in real-time: chat rooms, online multiplayer games, online auctions, and so on. Such activities create a sense of urgency that is difficult to resist. I personally avoid all forms of real-time computer activity, because I do not have the self-control to resist the urgency.
  • A common problem people face is that they check their e-mail too many times a day. You can get around this problem by scheduling one or two e-mail checking sessions per day, at specific times. I get around this problem by avoiding Internet access at home; if I want to check my e-mail, I have to walk for twenty minutes to do so. Even though e-mail is my primary means of communicating with others, I find that checking my e-mail once a day is usually sufficient for me to keep in touch.
  • Keep track of the activities you need to accomplish each day. Make sure that you get those activities done before starting your computer.

    I find long "to-do" lists overwhelming, so I write short lists of tasks (of four or five items) that need to be done before I can play on the computer.

  • If you start your computer to do productive work only to find that you are wasting time, it can help to write down a list of items you had meant to accomplish on the computer. Write this list before you power on the computer, and keep this list where you can easily see it while you are on the computer. This list will serve as a reminder of the work you need to get done.
  • If you live with roommates or family members, keep the computer in a public place, as opposed to a private bedroom. The presence of other people can help you stay on task (unless they tempt you into playing video games with them!).
  • You may have to refrain from certain activities you cannot control. I cannot be trusted not to play NetHack instead of doing useful work, so I refuse to install the program on my computer. I cannot be trusted not to waste my time on the Internet, so I refuse to subscribe to Internet services. I cannot be trusted to control my time when visiting certain web communities, so I refuse to visit them. It is never fun and often difficult to keep these promises, but in my life it is necessary. You may find that there are certain activities you must avoid in your life as well.
  • Enlist the help of a friend or a loved one to help you keep your computer use under control. Choose a friend or loved one with a thick skin; when that person reminds you of your commitments you will surely be cranky and resistant.
  • Get into a regular weekly schedule of computer use you are comfortable with. Finding healthy routines goes a long way towards keeping your productivity up.

Controlling Your Computer Expenses

Even though computer prices have dropped astoundingly over the years, computers remain an effective way to separate you from your money. If you do not have much disposable income, this can be a big issue. In this section we will describe some of the expenses associated with computing, and a few tips to keep those expenses managable.

The most useful tip applies to all of the computer expenses below (and, for that matter, to any expense): be conscious. Be aware of how much money you can be afford to spend, and be aware of how much money you are spending, and always be sure that you never spend more money than you have.

A closely-related tip is to never spend money you do not have. Computers can be expensive, but they are not good investments; the value of hardware depreciates too rapidly. If you are faced with a decision between going in debt to finance your computer habit and doing without, you are often better off doing the latter.

With these basic guidelines in mind, here are some specific expenses to watch out for.

Hardware

If you are reading this guide you are likely using an older computer. You have already resisted the temptation to buy the latest, greatest hardware. Keep up the good work! If this is your first computer, you may be tempted to purchase a newer computer sometime in the future. If you choose to do so, there are some things you should know about the computer market.

The reality of the computer industry is that products grow obsolete very quickly. As a result there is a lot of marketing pressure for consumers to keep up with the newest (and most expensive) hardware. An interesting sign of this marketing phenomenon is the "word processor" sell-story. Computers that were marketed as high-end workstations three years ago are now marketed as machines suitable for "word processing and web surfing", and little else. The computers did not change. Their capabilities did not change. Only people's expectations changed.

If you understand what you need your computer for, you can save a lot of money by buying computer peripherals suited to your needs. Finding those needs requires research, however: you don't want to buy an underpowered computer that is not suitable for the work you need to get done. There is always some tradeoff between functionality and price. An excellent way to research your needs is to ask others how they use their computers. Another way is to find out about what software products are available, and then to buy a computer capable to run that hardware. A third way is to intentionally buy an underpowered computer cheaply, and then find out what functionality you are missing.

An important aspect to keep in mind is quality. The cheapest computers on the market may have impressive specifications, but they are made with cheap components. As with so many other consumer items, you can often get better value by purchasing higher-quality hardware that is less powerful. The used market can be a good place to find such items.

On average, it takes three years for computers to fall through the market. In other words, the latest, newest machines sold today will be sold as "bottom of the line" computers three years down the road, and four years down the road you will only be able to find them used. This used to matter a lot, but it is far less important now, as much software available today will run on computers five years old or older.

Games Machines

Video games are notorious for being demanding on hardware, so they deserve special mention. The latest, greatest commercial games will always demand the latest, greatest hardware for best performance, and often these games will not run at all on older computers. If you (or your kids!) have your heart set on playing the newest games, be prepared to spend a lot of money.

Having said that, Linux is less prone to the games phenomenon, because not as many commercial games are available for Linux. Your computer also comes with a number of non-violent games preinstalled. These games do not have the fanciest graphics or most elaborate soundtracks, but many people will enjoy them. For the most part, the computers we sell at computer recycling are not capable of playing video games that you will find at the store. [EXCEPTIONS?]

Upgrades and Peripherals

Instead of purchasing brand new computers, many people attempt to prolong the lives of their existing computers by upgrading them -- installing newer components in the computer to make it faster and more capable. This can be a smart strategy, but as always you need to keep your budget in mind. You should also balance the cost of your upgrade components against the cost of purchasing a newer computer. Finally, you should consider the value of the upgrade. If an upgrade is not going to improve the quality of your computing experience much, you may be better off saving your money for something more worthwhile.

In addition to upgrading the computer's existing components, people purchase peripherals for the computer to expand its functionality. Some common peripherals include printers, scanners, and webcams.

We describe some of the technical considerations in buying computer components and peripherals in [WHERE?].

Consumables

Some devices on your computer may require consumable goods in order to function properly. For examples, printers are fairly useless without ink or toner and paper. If you wish to burn CDs or DVDs with a CD-RW or DVD-RW drive, you need to purchase blank CDs or DVDs. The cost of these consumables can really add up over time. In this section we will discuss some common consumables and some ways to reduce their cost.

Blank CDs/DVDs

If you get a CD-RW or DVD-RW drive installed on your computer, you will want to buy some blank CDs/DVDs (which I will refer to as blank media) so that you can record information. Individually-packaged blank media are the most expensive. Blank media are also available in spindles, which reduces the cost per CD/DVD, but requires a bigger expense upfront. You also do not get individual envelopes or cases for your media when you purchase a spindle.

A good alternative to purchasing many blank write-once media is to buy rewritable media. This will cost you more money per CD/DVD, but this option makes a lot of sense if you do not need to keep your data around in the long term. For example, I use rewritable media for storing programs and Linux distributions because software goes out of date quickly -- by the time I would reuse the CD, a new version is available. I also use rewritable media for making backups.

The big disadvantage of rewritable CDs is that the writing speeds are slow. Instead of being able to record data at 12x or higher, the blank rewritable CDs I have found have all been limited to 4x speeds. This means it takes 15 minutes or longer to record a CD's worth of information.

Printer Cartridges and Paper

I'm probably not allowed to say this, but printer manufacturers remind me of drug dealers. Most printer manufacturers sell their printers very cheaply to get you hooked on their product. Once they have locked you in to using their printer model, they can charge high prices for ink or toner cartridges. Since the cartridges are not interchangeable between manufacturers, you are stuck buying printer refills for the specific make and model of your printer. For this reason, it makes a lot of sense to find out how much printer refills will cost before deciding on a printer model. Prices vary widely -- some older printers have cartridges that cost $30 or more, while newer printers have cartridges costing six or seven dollars.

Fortunately, the situation has improved over the past few years. Large office suppliers (such as Business Depot and Staples) now sell house-branded printer cartridges for a wide variety of printers. The cost of these printer cartridges is usually cheaper than the versions sold by the manufacturers, but usually the price difference is only a few dollars.

There also exists a thriving market for refilled printer cartridges. Some companies sell refill kits for ink cartridges, and others sell refurbished ink and toner cartridges. These services can be useful, but only up to a point -- the failure rates for these refurbished products is much higher than purchasing new cartridges. A failed cartridge can smear ink all over your pages, or can leave a sticky mess inside your printer. The other problem with refurbished cartridges is that several printer models contain some important printer machinery in the printer cartridge itself. This machinery has a limited lifespan -- it is designed to be replaced every time you install a fresh printer cartridge. For these printer models, cartridges can only be reused a few times before they break. Nonetheless, if you find a printer cartridge refurbishing service that you trust, using refilled cartridges can save you some money.

There are also some important things to keep in mind about the type of printer you obtain. Most printers available today fall into one of two broad categories: laser printers and inkjet printers. Laser printers take toner cartridges and produce very high-quality output. Inkjet printers take ink cartridges; their quality tends to be lower than laser printers, but they are more easily capable of producing colour output. [PICTURES OF INK CARTRIDGES AND TONER CARTRIDGES]

Toner cartridges for laser printers tend to be very very expensive -- sometimes in the hundreds of dollars. Inkjet cartridges tend to be cheaper, so many people purchase inkjet printers. This is not always a wise decision: although toner cartridges are far more expensive than inkjet cartridges, often the cost per page for laser printers is lower than for inkjet printers. This is because a typical toner cartridge is good for thousands of pages of printing, while a typical inkjet cartridge will print no more than a couple of hundred of pages before running dry. This means you will have to refill your inkjet printer more often, which drives the cost up. When deciding how much printing will cost you, be sure to factor in both the cost of replacement cartridges and the expected lifespan of each cartridge.

In addition to printer cartridges, printers consume paper. Many printers take standardized fine paper, but some printers require specially-treated paper. As always, you can expect specially-treated paper to be more expensive than standard paper, so it is worth determining the types of paper your printer can handle before making a purchase. [IS THERE MORE TO BE SAID?]

[REF TO HOW TO BUY A PRINTER?]

Purchasing Internet Access

In many ways, your computer is fully usable without the purchase of any additional services. The software already installed on your computer allows you to compose documents, create art of all kinds, listen to music, play games, and more. However, some people choose to subscribe to additional services. The most popular service is home Internet access, but other services exist as well. In this section we will describe some of the options and costs associated with home Internet service.

The first thing to remember about Internet access is that speed costs money. The faster your internet access, the more money you will spend. The second thing to remember is that people are addicted to speed: once you have played with high-speed access for a while, reverting to more-affordable access is painful. For this reason, you may want to be wary of a common trick access providers play: they offer cheap rates for three or four months, and then raise their subscription fees. If you choose to try such offers, you should either have the willpower to revert back to cheap access if the more expensive fees are out of your budget, or you should be budget for the higher fees from the start.

Currently, there are roughly three categories of Internet access you can purchase:

  1. Dial-up access is the oldest, slowest, and often the cheapest access. You connect to the Internet using your phone line, using a modem installed on your computer. This ties up your phone line, so that you cannot use your phone while accessing the Internet.
  2. DSL access refers to a number of related technologies, all of which give you access to the Internet by sending special signals through your phone line. Unlike dial-up access, DSL access allows people to use their phones and Internet access simultaneously.
  3. Cable access gives you Internet access through the same cables used for cable television. For this reason, cable television providers usually offer this service.

There is a fourth type of access known as wireless access, but as of this writing (late 2004) I know of no commercial providers of wireless Internet access, and if they do exist they are not yet widespread.

Each of the three commercially-available Internet alternatives has hidden costs. In addition to being slow, dial-up access requires that you have a modem compatible with Linux in your computer. The fact that dial-up access ties up phone service is a problem for many people; some people go so far as to have a second phone line installed so that they can receive calls while their loved ones surf the Internet. All dial-up solutions require that you purchase basic phone service at home as well.

DSL solutions can be much more expensive than dial-up access, although some companies offer cheaper, slower Internet access via DSL. In addition to purchasing a service you will need a network card and a DSL modem. You may already have a network card installed on your computer (and network cards are cheap in any case). Your DSL service provider usually supplies you with a DSL modem, although there may be set up charges and/or monthly rental fees for the modem. In addition, DSL service provided by phone companies will usually add a surcharge to your monthly service if you do not purchase regular phone service from them as well.

Cable modem services have similar costs to DSL solutions. You will need a network card and a cable modem (which is again provided by your cable provider, perhaps at a cost). Moreover, every cable Internet provider will charge you extra if you do not purchase their television cable service along with your Internet access. Sometimes this charge is small, but it is always buried in the fine print.

Cable and DSL access to the Internet is often referred to as "high-speed" access. In fact, both of these services are sometimes offered at slower speeds, or with additional limits (such as limits on the amount of information you can transmit per month). They will never be slower than conventional dial-up access, however.

One sad aspect of Internet access providers is that they are often biased against people who use Linux at home. Some providers will provide support and installation to people using Linux to connect to the Internet; many will not. Some will go so far as to say that their services will not work under Linux. This is untrue. What may be true is that you have to seek outside help to get your Internet access set up, unless you find a service provider who is reasonably-priced and Linux-friendly.

Internet service providers often try to entice you with extra features such as antivirus protection, pop-up protection, firewalls, web space for personal homepages, and e-mail accounts. Some of these add-ons will not apply to you: you will likely not be able to run the antivirus or firewalling software that the service provider provides. Your computer already has a simple firewall, and your web browser can be configured to block pop-ups.

E-mail accounts are often worse than useless: they lock you into using a single provider -- if you ever switch your provider you have to switch your e-mail address, which means you have to contact everybody you correspond with and tell them about the change. One way to get around this practice is to forward your mail from some other permanent e-mail address to the one supplied by your service provider.

When purchasing high-speed Internet access security becomes a big concern. You do not want people breaking into your computer over the Internet. To some degree, the software firewall we provide addresses this problem. Another solution is to purchase a router box. These boxes come with firewalls pre-configured, and they provide several network connection ports so that several computers in your home can share one Internet connection. At one point simple router boxes (those without wireless capabilities) were fairly cheap, but by the time you read this they may no longer be available on the market.

Online Purchases

One grand promise of the "Information Superhighway" was online shopping -- that you would be able to purchase a wide array of goods and services from the comfort of your own home. The information superhighway has arrived, and so has online shopping. You can purchase books, housewares, computer components, and even groceries over the Internet. Many of these services require the use of a credit card, which makes them particularly insidious.

Credit cards (and debit cards in general) are notorious for separating people from their money. As with any other credit card purchase, keep your budget in mind when making online purchases. Purchasing items may be as easy as clicking a mouse, but the money you pay (and the interest rates if you don't pay on time!) are very real.

There are some other factors to consider when making online purchases. The first is quality: often you cannot inspect the goods you buy before making your payment. It helps if your seller has a money-back guarantee on his or her goods. At the very least, you should have some way to report fraudaulent business practices when they occur.

The other expense of online purchasing is shipping. Shipping costs can be astronomical, especially when shipments are made across international borders. One unfortunate fellow living in Canada purchased a dashing (if pricy) red fedora from an American seller, and he ended up paying more in shipping for than he did for the hat! After factoring in shipping costs, many "great deals" on the Internet end up being more expensive than shopping at a local store.

Online auction sites such as E-Bay and Yahoo! Auctions [URL?] deserve special mention. Many people reap much benefit from buying and selling goods through online auctions. In particular, online auction sites are wonderful for purchasing items that are rare and not available locally. At the same time, many many people end up spending far more than they intend making purchases on auction sites. Online auctions are dangerous for the same reason regular in-person auctions are dangerous -- it is easy to get caught up in the spirit of competition, making bids far above what you intended to pay. Furthermore, online auctions run every minute of every day, so you can face temptation around the clock.

There are two key factors to controlling yourself when participating in online auctions: procrastination and stinginess. Like multiplayer video games, online auctions foster a sense of urgency, that feeling that if you do not win the auction for Very Important Item X, then it will disappear forever! Procrastination is your friend here. When you stumble across some item that tempts you, wait a day or two before deciding to put in a bid. Decide whether the item will really benefit your life. Decide how much you are willing to spend on the item and write that number down on a sheet of paper. Determine the shipping and taxes for the item, and subtract that number from the amount you are willing to pay. This will tell you how much you can afford to bid for the item. Write this maximum bid price down. Then (and only) then, put in the bid for your item if you are still interested.

When you are bidding for the item, keep your maximum bid written down in front of you. Do not go over this amount, even if you are "just about" to win the item. Know your limits, and respect them. If you cannot withstand the temptation, then you cannot afford to participate in online auctions.

If you find yourself losing a lot of auctions, then rejoice: you and that auction were not meant to be. If you had been meant to own the item in question, you would have had the money on hand to pay for it. In any case, sooner or later a similar item will come up for auction again. This is the nature of Internet commerce.

The final key to controlling your online expenses is very basic: don't spend money you don't have. Debt may seem enticing at first, but it quickly gets to be a drag, sucking up your cash, constraining your life choices, and adding to your stress levels. Budgets are not fun either, but making a realistic budget and sticking to it far more satisfying than paying 18% interest to pay off some trinket.