Computer problems

[Big_Blue_Dave]

cool... windows 7 is such a vast improvement...

little advance tip, grab yourself a cheap external drive.. you can pick up a 500gb for about £50 tops.. the backup built into windows 7 is a vast improvement.. does a disk image and full backup of all files in a few hours, mine runs weekly at like 1am monday morning.. well worth doing..

Got one of those too, i'd be running mine at a more respectable hour though.

 

[Anonymous]

oh i just leave it on while im asleep and let it do its thing.. i dont want it interrupting me while im harvesting my crops on farmville..

 

[titan_90]

Ok.. anti virus.. DO NOT TOUCH AVG WITH A BARGEPOLE.. it really is a pile of cack, one of the worst detection rates of any antivirus.. absolutely spiffingly awful...

Anti Virus/Firewall We have used for the last three years comodo internet security, FREE, as it has the advantage of a having both AV and FW built in one and a very low memory footprint.. most of the time around 15,000k http://www.comodo.com, free lifetime licence..
review http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Comodo-Internet-Security-32bit/1224699488/1

The only other AV i particularly recommened is Avast, but then you do need to find a suitable free firewall, Kerio used to be great but is a bit of a memory hog now...

Spyware As previously mentioned, spybot search and destroy, install, update, immunize and then scan regularly....http://www.safer-networking.org/index2.html

General cleaning.. CClean - again free, probably the best general cache cleaner out there, the registry cleaner is also very effective and safe just backup the registry as promted before cleaning.. http://www.ccleaner.com/download

Defrag - the fastest, most effective and user freindly defragger ive found in years is Auslogics, again FREE.. http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag

so i agree on spybot, and ccleaner, but strong hate avg and zone alarm (zone alarm since v7 has even more issues than avg)

also stands to reason, dont use internet exporer, for higher security use firefox, for even better security use opera.. but dont use IE

also, check the make and model of the new one, if it came with vista, you may be able to upgrade to windows 7 for free.. check this link and follow through the prompts under manufacturer.. http://www.microsoft.com/uk/windows/buy/offers/upgrade.aspx

I have used Comodo and Avast and found both to be huge memory hogs. But this was about a year a half ago so maybe they have improved and this was on XP Pro since I wont touch Vista with a 10 foot pole.

I agree with you don't use IE, FireFox is much better or Opera(I just started to use it and so far I like it but I'm not ready to give up FF).

I also had to look up "cack", damn British slang

 

[Anonymous]

I have used Comodo and Avast and found both to be huge memory hogs. But this was about a year a half ago so maybe they have improved and this was on XP Pro since I wont touch Vista with a 10 foot pole.

I agree with you don't use IE, FireFox is much better or Opera(I just started to use it and so far I like it but I'm not ready to give up FF).

I also had to look up "cack", damn British slang

cack
(slang) faeces (feces); nonsense or rubbish: "what a load of cack" could equally be used to describe someone talking nonsense or as a criticism of something of poor quality. Also spelt "kak". Derived from an ancient Indo-European word, kakkos, cognate with German word Kacke, and Welsh word "cach".

not to be confused with cack-handed which is someone left handed, or clumsy..

ive been using opera since the year dot.. the security is top but im so used now to integrated email, mouse gestures, built in notepad etc i couldnt live without them..

 

[DonTickles]

Ok.. anti virus.. DO NOT TOUCH AVG WITH A BARGEPOLE.. it really is a pile of cack, one of the worst detection rates of any antivirus.. absolutely spiffingly awful...

Citation please?

As for safe browsing, use Firefox with adblock Plus and noscript and you're pretty much set.

Ensure you're performing regular updates. MS releases updates the second Tuesday of every month. Additionally if you are not updating Java, Flash, and Acrobat (among other things, those are just some common ones) regularly you're setting yourself up for failure. Note that old versions of Java and Flash need to be uninstalled manually as they are not automatically uninstalled when new versions are installed and the old versions remain vulnerable to exploit.

 

[Anonymous]

Citation please?

lastest test results ive seen
http://www.virusbtn.com/news/2008/09_02
although to be fair, avg has improved since last year (and the four of five years before) but still at 95%/87% which puts it below,
avira
avast
avk
bitdefender
esscan
fsecure
ikarus
kaspersky
mcafee
microsoft
nod32
norman
and the list goes on and on..

but the detection rates have improved.. i used it for about 3 years and got virus's.. not had one in the last two..

some other figures here for guidance over selecting an av
http://security.nl/artikel/22931/1/...Data,_Avira,_F-Secure_en_Norton_bovenaan.html

As for safe browsing, use Firefox with adblock Plus and noscript and you're pretty much set. .

I would still recommend using spybot on full immunize mode with protection on, adblock does a certain amount, but firefox however secure it is compared with IE, is still not fully secure.. bit like comparing a teapot where the spout dribbles slightly with one where the spout if completely broken and it has no lid..

Ensure you're performing regular updates. MS releases updates the second Tuesday of every month. Additionally if you are not updating Java, Flash, and Acrobat (among other things, those are just some common ones) regularly you're setting yourself up for failure. Note that old versions of Java and Flash need to be uninstalled manually as they are not automatically uninstalled when new versions are installed and the old versions remain vulnerable to exploit.

Personally i have always had my ms updates set to download but do not install, and i always wait till 3 or 4 days after the patch or update is released.. far too many experiences, and they are not so bad now, where they released rushed patches or updates that did more damage than good and had to be undone three days later.. or sometimes the next week.. i also of course with my copy of xp had to check that it wasnt putting the damn windows genuine advantage back.. i also like to check the updates manually to see just what the idiots at m$ are up to.. but yes, always install the updates, we just disagree on when to do it..

 

[esryimp]

Hello everyone. Nice to meet you all
Such a very amazing link!

 

[scribe]

Question. Somehow I changed the color of my lower tool bar and now I can't see the time on the lower right. I've looked a few times when I was annoyed and never found out how to switch it back. Help!

Windows....

 

[Anonymous]

ok.. ive got to go from memory cos i now run windows 7...

right click on desktop, properties, appearance, active title bar...change colour, apply...

but that is just from memory... its a few months since i used xp...

 

[scribe]

Thanks! I can see the time again!

I am running Vista so it was a bit different than your prescription. But the right click on the desktop is what I wasn't doing before and I found it sifting around.

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

building a new pc. thought i might share what i'm putting in it.
going with something different, an amd build!

CPU: AMD phenom II 965 *
MB: Gigabyte UD5P *
RAM: 1600 3DDR gskill Ripjaws *
Graphics Card: Gigabyte 5850 ATI
HDD: WD 1TB black *
PSU: Corsair HX 620 *
Optical drive: Pioneer 218
Case: Thermaltake V9

* = already purchased

Should eb getting windows 7 in a couple weeks too, so that'll be nice for my new build.

 

[scribe]

I've got another one. I have a laptop that I use at the studio. It is a sony laptop running Vista. In fact, I have had the same problem with my previous sony laptop. What happens is upon waking the laptop up for the day's session, it doesn't hold a connection to my wireless. I can probably open a web page or two, but the connection will fail shortly after. I will then log in and out of my wireless connection. I have to repeat this anywhere from 3-7 times before it settles on a connection and stays there. I've tried all sorts of configurations with the same results. Including changing the way the puter sleeps, shutting down the connection before it sleeps, etc. Both Sony machines have done this with two different types of wireless routers over the past few years. MADDENING! Worse still, the girlfriend has a toshiba laptop and has never had the same problem with the factory configurations.....

Tell me I am doing something simple wrong!

 

[Susan Westemeyer]

Somebody just hacked my personal e-mail account and sent a spam message in my name to everybody in my address book.

Grrrrr......... this does NOT make me happy!

Susan

 

[BroDeal]

Somebody just hacked my personal e-mail account and sent a spam message in my name to everybody in my address book.

Grrrrr......... this does NOT make me happy!

Easy password??
Keylogger?
Malware?
S****ed login page?
Response to scam email?
Use of Windows??

 

[ak-zaaf]

Somebody just hacked my personal e-mail account and sent a spam message in my name to everybody in my address book.

Grrrrr......... this does NOT make me happy!

Susan

A couple of weeks ago I suddenly couldn't get into my Google Gmail account.
I had that account since it was in beta and used it for everything.

I hope you can get your account back, cause I couldn't since I couldn't give them my security question, let alone the answer to it or THE EXACT FRIGGIN DATE the account was created.
My bad for relying on (free) online services, but I feel your pain. You won't believe at how many places you have a password until you have to change them all.

/edit:
Brodeal:

Easy password??
Keylogger?
Malware?
S****ed login page?
Response to scam email?
Use of Windows??

No
Who knows
Most of the time
I drink a lot
I always mail those nice Nigerians back
Duh

 

[Susan Westemeyer]

Easy password??
Keylogger?
Malware?
S****ed login page?
Response to scam email?
Use of Windows??

possibly
no idea what that is
ditto
ditto
absolutely not
absolutely not -- I have a Mac


I was able to change my password, and hope that will do the trick.

Susan

 

[eric.coe]

Hi.
I have Dell Inspiron 15 Laptop. want to decrease brightness of the screen. Any suggestion ?

 

[issoisso]

possibly
no idea what that is
ditto
ditto
absolutely not
absolutely not -- I have a Mac


I was able to change my password, and hope that will do the trick.

Susan

If it's the case that your e-mail "password recovery question" is extremely easy, it won't matter what your password is

It's amazing the amount of people that set the question to something easy as pie such as "where was I born". "What's the name of my pet"....and so on. Which leads to hacked accounts.

 

[craig1985]

If I ever do that, I make up a city, rather then where I was actually born.

 

[Susan Westemeyer]

Now of course I have to admit I have no idea what my password id question is.....

But next time I have to do one, I will go for something obscure.

Susan

 

[issoisso]

If I ever do that, I make up a city, rather then where I was actually born.

I just answer something nonsensical, since It's kind of impossible for me to forget my password

 

[Susan Westemeyer]

I couldn't ever forget that password -- but obviously somebody else figure it out too.

Susan

 

[Anonymous]

I couldn't ever forget that password -- but obviously somebody else figure it out too.

Susan

its much more likely a phishing site has got your email from you, or a trojan on your machine...

do you use webmail?

bear in mind if its pop mail, an awful lot of pop servers dont require password on outgoing mail, ONLY incoming.. it is very simple to send out email that appears to come from someones email address

 

[Susan Westemeyer]

I have no idea what you are talking about. I am a technical idiot.

It is a yahoo.com address, I access it on the yahoo.com homepage.

I can't think of any mail I sent out that someone may have picked up, but who knows.

And it did come out of my account, I found it in my outbox.

Perhaps it was Kitty?

Susan

 

[issoisso]

its much more likely a phishing site has got your email from you, or a trojan on your machine...

do you use webmail?

bear in mind if its pop mail, an awful lot of pop servers dont require password on outgoing mail, ONLY incoming.. it is very simple to send out email that appears to come from someones email address

Extremely easy. In any programming language, you can send an e-mail and there's actually a field for you to fill with the "sender". You can send anyone an e-mail where the sender shows up as whatever you want.