T
Technology
Is Now the Time to Upgrade Your
Operating System and Personal Computer?
by Richard M. Weber, MBA, CLU, AEP (Distinguished)
Brian D. Horn, MSIS
Abstract: Microsoft recently announced
that it would no longer provide sup-
port—nor security updates—for
Microsoft XP, one of the most popular
PC operating systems ever. It may be
time for the next “thing” to meet your
technology needs.
Microsoft recently announced that
it would no longer provide support—
nor security updates—for Microsoft
XP, one of the most popular PC oper-
ating systems ever. In fact, after 13
years of running all our Windows soft-
ware, it is Microsoft’s longest-lived
operating system. Even though Apple
has made significant inroads from its
paltry base of 3 percent of the market
10 years ago, Microsoft’s operating sys-
tems (boosted by the wildly popular
Microsoft Word and Excel office pro-
ductivity software) still account for an
estimated 92 percent of worldwide
usage within personal computing.1
Most readers have probably
upgraded to the newer MS Windows 7
or 8 for their business desktops and lap-
tops—or been dragged there kicking
and screaming by the dreaded “IT guy.”
But it’s just as likely that the PC in the
kitchen, family room, or home office is
still using “old reliable” XP with its pas-
toral desktop background of a lovely
spring day in an otherwise uninhabited
universe. Assuming that the scene does-
This issue of the Journal went to press
in June 2014. Copyright © 2014,
Society of Financial Service Professionals.
All rights reserved.
JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL SERVICE PROFESSIONALS / JULY 2014
n’t reflect your version of “where no one
has gone before” or represent the criti-
cal focal point of your daily medita-
tion—it’s time to assess: what next?
What does it mean that as of early
spring 2014, XP is no longer sup-
ported? If in the past you’ve been
assisted by corporate or institutional IT,
starting now, you’ll likely get the cold
shoulder. You’re on your own when it
comes to figuring out how to use “con-
fig.sys.” But the primary issue is that
there will be no further security updates
guarding against new vulnerabilities
exploited by those who would create
mayhem with your computer and its
files—not to mention your identity and
your bank/brokerage accounts!
Do we have your attention?!
If It’s Old/Let’s Be Bold
If your home-based PC is as old
as the XP operating system (really, if
it was purchased before 2010), it’s
time to replace the computer. Didn’t
you wonder why it took 10 minutes
to re-sort that small database? Were
you led to believe that streaming
movies were intentionally displayed
one frame at a time?
The good news is that today’s
computers are not only faster, sleeker,
and cheaper—with the option for
incredibly colorful high-resolution
displays—but you also have some
great choices.
Laptop Options
New laptop sales overtook desk-
top sales in the U.S. sometime in
29
2013. We’ve come a long way since
the original Compaq Computer “lug-
gable.” A reasonable definition of a
laptop was that it was a portable, all-
in-one-box combination of display,
keyboard, disk drive, and the rest of
the electronics that made it work. That
distinction is somewhat blurred as PC
manufacturers and Apple Inc. have
incorporated everything but the key-
board into an almost portable device.
But no one is going to argue that an
iMac is a laptop, regardless of its gor-
geous unified design.
Leading manufacturers such as
HP, Dell, Lenovo, Sony, and Toshiba
sell popular laptops of the PC variety,
running primarily Microsoft operat-
ing systems and software. Apple Inc.
exclusively designs and sells its
unique brand of MacBookPro and
MacBook Air, both of which in turn
run on the current Mavericks
OSX10.9 operating system. By the
time of this publication, OSX11.0
may well have been announced.
Somewhat expanding the laptop
space, we have “netbooks” (Asus,
Sony, Acer, and Lenovo, among oth-
ers) that are small and light—the use
of which is probably optimized at
Starbucks or Panera for e-mail and
Facebook rather than for serious com-
puting, gaming, or streaming.
We also have a specific callout for
Google’s low-cost Chromebook. At
$279 (Wi-Fi only) or $299 (Verizon
LTE connectivity to the Internet)
Chromebook enjoys a larger display
than the typical netbook and is very

light compared to a laptop, boots up
in less than 10 seconds, and comes
with 100GB of Google Drive cloud
storage that is free for the first 2 years.
If you choose Chromebook for all
those features and deploy Google Docs
for creating documents, you’ll want to
closely read the extensive licensing
agreement. Use of cloud-based Google
Docs allows Google to explore the
content of any of those “docs” and use
that information as the basis for mar-
keting products and services.
Hint: when selecting a laptop, opt
for the slightly more expensive SSD
storage device—that’s Solid State
Disk—versus the no longer so ubiqui-
tous HD hard drive. File access times,
boot times, and overall performance
are demonstrably better, and an SSD is
much more likely to survive a minor
drop to the floor. Mileage will vary.
Tablet Options
We probably wouldn’t have
included tablets in consideration of
replacing a home or home office com-
puter except for the fact that tablets
were expected to outsell laptops by this
year—even more quickly than when
laptops won the race over desktop
computers (computerworld.com).2
Microsoft is probably the most
advanced in its attempts to merge seri-
ous computing on its flagship operat-
ing system (Windows 8.1) via its Sur-
face tablet that doubles as the display
for a compatible laptop.
Apple’s well-regarded iPad (the
newest incarnation is the iPad Air),
still holds the record for total tablets
sold by any one company,3 but
Android competitors are closing in.
iPad and iPad Mini are still the tablets
of choice for the sheer number of
JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL SERVICE PROFESSIONALS / JULY 2014
TECHNOLOGY
“apps” (we used to call it software)—
over a million separate games, utili-
ties, business applications, entertain-
ment and social media portals, and
more “reminder” apps than you could
ever use in a lifetime. The Retina dis-
play is so crisp that a page of words
and numbers appears as sharp as in a
printed magazine, and streaming
movies retain their original resolution.
It appears that younger generations
have especially taken to the iPad and
iPad Mini as their devices of choice—
sometimes to the complete exclusion
of any other computing device (except,
of course, their smartphones).
The competition has taken
notice. Android operating systems
installed on Samsung and HTC
tablets offer attractive features and
benefits, although the total number
of available apps is still lagging.
Additional tablet considerations
could include Amazon’s Kindle Fire.
Its screen is a bit bigger than that of
the typical tablet—and matches or
exceeds iPad’s processor speed and data
storage capacity.
Tablets inherently use the same data
storage as the SSD referred to earlier.
Desktop Options
Well, if you must. Certainly if it’s
desirable to have a centrally located
computer in the family room or kitchen
for a number of different casual users, a
PC or iMac will deliver a spectacular
experience in speed, screen resolution,
and data storage.
Go for the largest and highest defi-
nition display that’s within your budget,
and consider a large capacity SSD
instead of the familiar whirling disk.
Warning: None of Apple Inc.’s
Mac desktop computers have a
30
CD/DVD drive, nor do most of their
laptops. While PC manufacturers con-
tinue to provide them as part of a typ-
ical basic configuration, it probably
won’t be more than several years before
they’re dropped from all but hobbyist
machines. With the spread of broad-
band and cloud computing, along with
streaming movies (Netflix, Amazon
Prime, and Hulu+, among others) and
streaming music (Pandora, iTunes
Radio, and Amazon), everything seems
to be moving to the cloud. Let’s hope
for clear skies and smooth sailing.
Cross-Over Options
While there are those who might
be drawn to the style, ease of use, and
the many included programs/apps/soft-
ware found on a modern iMac, Mac
Mini, or MacBookPro, some PC users
have not made “the move” for a con-
cern about not being able to run Win-
dows programs, including Quicken
and other software that is either exclu-
sive to PCs or simply better written for
the much larger PC user base. But that
really hasn’t been a problem for a num-
ber of years, going back to 2006 with
Apple’s deployment of Intel micro-
processors. Whether rebooting and
using Apple’s proprietary Boot Camp
for Mac as an exclusive “environment,”
or the newer and extremely easy to use
Parallels or VMWare installed on any
Mac computer, it’s easy to create a “vir-
tual” operating environment in which
to install any of Microsoft’s underly-
ing operating systems—and the soft-
ware that you know and love will be
fully operational and compatible. For
example, the Society of FSP’s Historic
Volatility Calculator (HVC) will only
run in a Windows operating system,
but once VMWare or Parallels is

installed with an underlying XP or
Windows 7 or 8.1 operating system,
HVC can be added as a desktop icon
and selected and run as quickly and
easily as any native Mac program.
Which brings up another hint: if
you choose to switch to a Mac but
would still like to continue to use XP
on your 2009 or newer PC and really
don’t need more than a few exclusively
PC programs such as HVC and per-
haps Quicken or a specific game, turn
off the virtual operating system’s access
to the Internet. For those things for
which you need Internet, use the Mac’s
operating system “side,” even with
respect to downloading an update to
HVC. Both Parallels and VMWare
allow you to designate a common
folder each operating environment can
share—even though the underlying
operating systems exist in parallel
(hence the name) universes!
When in Doubt/
Throw It Out
We’re reluctant to start an anti-
environmental movement, but the fact
is that computer software and even
hardware are being updated at such a
fast pace, deciding not to update or
renew software can both create an
operational problem and leave your
computing environment vulnerable to
viruses or worse. Both Microsoft and
Apple encourage keeping operating sys-
tems up-to-date (and at least Apple has
no economic ax to grind—its last
major overhaul was provided to Mac
users at no cost). While many operat-
ing systems updates provide functional
improvements and features, most
updates in both major operating sys-
tems are driven by the constant game
of catch-up as promulgators of mal-
JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL SERVICE PROFESSIONALS / JULY 2014
TECHNOLOGY
ware discover new “holes” through
which to drive their malicious efforts—
only to be caught and fixed by soft-
ware vendors including Apple and
Microsoft—until the next round of
digital pothole discoveries and digital
asphalt patches.
Computer hardware (printers,
keyboards, mice, thumb drives, exter-
nal disk drives, monitors, and all man-
ner of third-party gadgets with USB
connectors) also seems to have a rela-
tively short useful life if only because of
the constant improvement in storage
technology and the inevitable collision
with Murphy’s Law (data expands to
exceed the increased capacity to store
it). That’s different from Moore’s Law,
proclaimed by Intel cofounder Gor-
don Moore almost 50 years ago, pre-
sciently predicting that processing
capacity would double approximately
every 2 years—with a later corollary
observation that the cost of manufac-
turing drops roughly 50 percent in the
same time period.
Hint: personal computing is rap-
idly moving to USB 3.0 and Thunder-
bolt 2 protocols for high-speed data
transfers between external devices such
as additional storage drives and the PC
or Mac computing device. And since
virtually all USB 3.0 devices are back-
ward compatible for USB 2.0 devices,
opt for the faster peripherals when
there is a choice.
Bottom Line
Consumer technology has been
on an accelerated, virtually geometric
growth curve since the time simple
transistors were first incorporated in
the small portable radios we took to
baseball games and the beach in the
1950s and 1960s. Moore’s Law has
31
delivered on its promise not only as
to ever-increasing processing speeds,
but the rate of introducing entirely
new devices we never knew we
needed—until they were invented—
and for which we now can’t imagine a
time we didn’t have them. Those of us
in the baby boom generation gener-
ally have the good fortune to have
grandchildren who serve as our tech-
nology experts. You can rightly be
suspicious when they urge us to buy
the newest iPhone—they want the
hand-me-down. All in all, that’s not a
bad arrangement! ■
Richard M. Weber, MBA, CLU, AEP, is well
known by insurance agents for his activ-
ities on their behalf in the area of life
insurance “Due Care.” He received the
Kenneth Black, Jr., Leadership Award in
2008 in recognition of his “exemplary
leadership qualities and significant contri-
butions to the fulfillment of the Society’s
core values of ethics, education, and rela-
tionships.” He is president of The Ethical
Edge, Inc., Pleasant Hill, CA, consulting to
insurance companies and agents on
issues of product expertise and the
appropriate use of technology. Now
immediate past president of the Society
of Financial Service Professionals, Mr.
Weber has written hundreds of articles
and delivered presentations throughout
the industry on “... increasing earnings
while maintaining high levels of integrity
and ethics.” He can be reached at
Dick@EthicalEdgeConsulting.com.
Brian D. Horn, MSIS, is chief operations and
technology officer at the Society of FSP. He is
a graduate of the Philadelphia College of
Textiles and Science with a degree in Infor-
mation Systems and Penn State University
with a Masters in Information Science. Brian
joined the Society in June 1997 and is
responsible for many key functions of the
Society, including marketing, membership,
and chapter development as well as finance
and administration, in addition to retaining
 TECHNOLOGY

responsibility for the association’s develop-

ment and implementation of technology. He
may be reached at bhorn@financialpro.org.

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_
of_operating_systems indicates that total
Microsoft operating system usage as of April
2014 was 90.69% (4 different MS platforms).
(2) Aron Hiaso, “Terapeak Trends Measuring
Momentum in Laptop and Tablet Sales,”
accessed at http://www.terapeak.com/blog/2014/
04/27/terapeak-trends-measuring-momentum-
in-laptop-and-tablet-sales/#.U4e0dhahufE, indi-
cating that tablet sales have outpaced sales of
laptops since the fall of 2013.
(3) See http://apple.answers.com/tablets/ipad-
sales-to-date-145-million-plus. The iPad sales to
date have breached the 145 million mark. Based
on the quarterly financial reports from the mon-
umentally successful Apple Inc. beginning in the
third quarter of 2010 when the tablets were first
introduced to the latest second quarter report of
2013, there has been a total of 145.34 million
units sold. Its unique touch screen, virtual key-
board, built-in Wi-Fi, and selective cellular con-
nectivity have certainly captured the imagination
of millions of users all over the world. Its domi-
nance of the computer tablet market is boosted by
state-of-the-art versatility of its functions: GPS
navigation, social media, games, reference, and a
plethora of other apps. Also see Chuck Jones,
“Tablet Ownership Hitting an Inflection Point:
What It Means for Apple and Android Users,”
accessed at http://www.forbes.com/sites/chuck
jones/2013/06/19/tablet-ownership-hitting-an-
inflection-point-what-it-means-for-apple-and-
android-vendors/.

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