If you have more than one computer and you don’t at least log on regularly, you can, like me, spend upwards of an hour or more adjusting and updating your machine after a week of inactivity.

Computers can be like friends in that regard. However, if you’re good friends, it doesn’t take long to update and catch up.

Generally speaking, it’s good to use your devices regularly. Otherwise, you end up not quite as able to enjoy them with all the waiting around that’s necessary once you log on after not using them for a while.

I love NFL football, and Covid is getting in the way.

The Players Union does not currently permit abandoning Covid protocols altogether. But, with the latest surge, and unless Omicron proves to deliver something other than largely mildly symptomatic cases to the players, I can see the day coming when the NFL does indeed seriously consider their league a free of Covid oversight zone.

If you don’t believe me, follow the money.

NFL stadiums are packed to capacity so far for games this season.

Even though the players suit up for games in outdoors and indoor venues, I can’t help but wonder why there hasn’t been some kind of spreader event with all those fans in close quarters. Maybe there has been one, but I just have not heard of it. Or perhaps we’ve just been lucky.

Regardless, I don’t think that at this stage of the pandemic (it’s not the beginning anymore), the NFL owners will ever again go back to even part of a season with cardboard cutouts in the stands substituting as fans.

Been there, done that.

Fannies in the seats mean revenue.

Team owners had lucrative television contract deals that helped them suffer through empty stadiums the first year of the pandemic.

The sentiment currently seems to be that we should let the players play.

Indefinitely locking down and quarantining after positive tests or coming in contact with someone who has tested positive does not seem to be the answer in the short- or long term.

What ultimately will be the answer?

I don’t think anyone knows at this point, so we’ll have to stay tuned.

In brief, Linux has never been better than it is now

I can’t say enough how easy Linux is for the end-user now.

You can still use the command line, of course, if you’re a geek.

Or, if you’re like me, you can use it half the time and the graphical user interface (GUI), the other 50 percent of the time.

After a week of inactivity, my Zorin 16 mini PC has picked up where I left off (after 15 minutes of updating software and a couple of restarts).

I failed to install updates a week ago, and I would have been no more than minutes from starting this piece if I had.

One of my Windows boxes was inactive for a couple of weeks, and I’m dreading the time it will take to update it.

I spent two nights updating an iMac recently (installed the last update for Big Sur before upgrading to macOS Monterey the next evening after retiring).

What am I getting at?

At the least, Linux is as quick to maintain regarding time for software updates as either Apple or Microsoft operating systems.

That’s my idea of competitive ease of use.