Computar Competence: Indicator #1 - the System Tray Icon Count

I was at my new job today (which went swimmingly well, and the traffic in deh commute is reasonable), customizing my new PC. It occured to me that the default installation of a Windows PC is jam-packed with fun little icons in the bottom right corner of the screen, which indicate an application or service that is happily waiting to be called upon. They are called System Tray icons, or just taskbar icons. Let’s take a look at Eric’s current tray:

It also occured to me that it takes at least a general knowledge of Windows to understand how to remove the various icons that can spawn in this little tray. Why would you want to remove these? Because each one has to load when you boot your computer, and some can be more taxing than others. In general, the benefit they provide (generally access to random settings or quick launching of programs) isn’t worth this slower startup time.

This brings us to…

Indicator One - The number of icons in the tray is inversely proportional to a user’s general knowledge of their computer, or… they’re just lazy. There are several exceptions to this rule.

Exception One - Random Chance. Some users get lucky. They don’t end up with many on their computers, they don’t install much, and so they never get over 2 or 3.

Exception Two - They know how to remove them, but consciously see the purpose of them or can’t remove them if they want to. Some of them are actually useful, the most notable being the Battery indicator on a laptop. Let’s look at frequent commenter Brad’s tray:

Let’s do some analysis here. It would seem, with 8 icons in the tray and a handy left arrow potentially hiding more, that Brad is a complete newb. Sadly, this isn’t the case. The first icon is probably his VPN or wireless connection, so it can’t go anywhere. The second one is probably his company’s internal Instant Messenging client, not going anywhere. The third is AOL Instant Messenger, yeah right he’s gonna close that. The fourth is the Safely Remove Hardware icon, which is agitating to remove. The 7th is a Firewall (I think), monitoring incoming and outgoing traffic. And the 8th is the Battery icon, mentioned above.

Exception Three - Laziness. Meh, what can I say. Some people are brilliant with roxxoring computars, and just don’t care enough to dig the slightest bit to remove the icons. Ah well.

FL: Fractal Spin - its like an alternative ThinkGeek site, but almost leeter. Its certainly got different stuff, which earns its place as today’s FL.