Me whining about computer

[mdmc]

Doggon it, for the last 2 months my computer has been limping along, most annoying was not being able to upload phtos to e-mail, and very weird happennings when i got on the net. Any way i tried every thing i could think of to no avail. 2 20 hour long sessions of thourough scandisc and many hours of fiddlin with this and that... So finally I reformatted hard drive and it seems fixed. Now there is much work to do reloading all software.
Oh well I'm just relieved things seem to be right again.
It took me 5 attemts to upload a pic here yesterday. the puter would freeze and i had to shutdown with the power button. What a pain!
Whaaaaa!!!!
Mark.

[another view]

I like the reformat/re-install approach - you know you got the problem out... Remember when people were telling us how much more productive computers would make us?

[Michael Fanelli]

Doggon it, for the last 2 months my computer has been limping along, most annoying was not being able to upload phtos to e-mail, and very weird happennings when i got on the net. Any way i tried every thing i could think of to no avail. 2 20 hour long sessions of thourough scandisc and many hours of fiddlin with this and that... So finally I reformatted hard drive and it seems fixed. Now there is much work to do reloading all software.
Oh well I'm just relieved things seem to be right again.
It took me 5 attemts to upload a pic here yesterday. the puter would freeze and i had to shutdown with the power button. What a pain!
Whaaaaa!!!!
Mark.

The most common reasons for problems such as you describe is adware and spyware. I use three adware/spyware tools and run them overnight every other day. At the school where I work, one computer was barely working: turns out it had 76 malware programs running at the same time! I cleaned them up and, voila! Everything worked fine again. Windows XP seldom, if ever, has to be reinstalled.

[dmm96452]

Also, after you have finished reloading and configuring all of your software you might consider a program such as Norton Ghost or similar software to create an image of your hard drive.

Being able to completely restore all of the software on the pc in less than an hour makes it much easier to make the decision to wipe the drive.

[mdmc]

Also, after you have finished reloading and configuring all of your software you might consider a program such as Norton Ghost or similar software to create an image of your hard drive.

Being able to completely restore all of the software on the pc in less than an hour makes it much easier to make the decision to wipe the drive.

Thanks for posting, I'll look into this ghost stuff.

[mdmc]

The most common reasons for problems such as you describe is adware and spyware. I use three adware/spyware tools and run them overnight every other day. At the school where I work, one computer was barely working: turns out it had 76 malware programs running at the same time! I cleaned them up and, voila! Everything worked fine again. Windows XP seldom, if ever, has to be reinstalled.

I'm sure you were right about the adware spyware causing the problems.
So now I have 1 good prgram to help me, but what are the 3 that you use and what do you reccommend?
Mark.

[Michael Fanelli]

I'm sure you were right about the adware spyware causing the problems.
So now I have 1 good prgram to help me, but what are the 3 that you use and what do you reccommend?
Mark.

For spyware, I use Ad-Aware, Search and Destroy, and Microsoft AntiVirus. All are free. Actually, I'm just paranoid, they all see the same things. I've never been hit with a virus or spyware in all the years I've used Windows.

I am also smart enough not to do stupid things (most of the time!), such as giving out personal info to any web site that asks, believing that hundreds of people "love" me via email, using Zone Alarm (a free firewall), or frequenting porn sites, a major source of infections, etc..

Although it may cause a few flames, I don't use IE anymore either, choosing Firefox or Opera. Neither is safer than the latest IE but, again, the market share is too small to matter to hackers.

Windows is the most widely used OS in the world. That's why so many people try to attack it. If someone attacks Macs, who really cares? It's such a small market, smaller than Linux these days. Notice that Linux attacks are going up as more people try it out.

[mdmc]

[QUOTE=Michael Fanelli]For spyware, I use Ad-Aware, Search and Destroy, and Microsoft AntiVirus. All are free. Actually, I'm just paranoid, they all see the same things. I've never been hit with a virus or spyware in all the years I've used Windows.

I am also smart enough not to do stupid things (most of the time!), such as giving out personal info to any web site that asks, believing that hundreds of people "love" me via email, using Zone Alarm (a free firewall), or frequenting porn sites, a major source of infections, etc..


Thanks for your help Michael. I have recently downloaded Zone Alarm and it seems to be working well. I have never used a firewall before. Just asking for trouble it seems.
Earlier I said that Search & Destroy is worthless, But thats not true. I ran it for the first time in sevral days right after running the software I paid for (Noadware) and it found nine additional cookies.
Thanks again,
Mark.

[Lionheart]

99.9% chance that you're PC was swamped with spyware/adware/nuisanceware. All my PC's at home and at the office run with Spysweeper (as well as McAffee ASAP or BitDefender). If you're not running a spyware program on your PC now that you've painstakingly re-installed everything, it won't be long before you're PC slows to a crawl.
Defrag your drives once a month too-really helps depending on how full your drives are.
Just my two bits of course.

[Peter_AUS]

And don't forget we actually have official Computer forums as well that you might like to visit sometime.

[JSPhoto]

Get Spybot S&D - it's Free and VERY good.... stay away from anything NORTON! Norton is the worst waste of money I have ever seen.... use McAfee for virus protection. After working on computers since 1983 I have found that Noron is nothing but a scam, yeah, they work for some things, but McAfee is way ahead, and keeps up with new threats much better than Nortons. I fixed a computer last month that had Norton on it and it failed to deal with a two year old virus, yet it was "up to date"... Nortons site even claims to clean this particular bug yet, it didn't. I sometimes think the protection companies are the ones actually starting these things, just so they can stay in business, and keep you buying more garbage.... nature of the beast though.

JS

[Asylum Steve]

stay away from anything NORTON! Noron is nothing but a scam, yeah, they work for some things...but McAfee is way ahead, and keeps up with new threats much better than Nortons.

Funny, my computer guy, whom I would trust my life with (my computer's life, anyway, heh heh) is exactly the opposite. Swears by Norton, will not let me touch anything McAfee, and says NORTON's software is consistantly a year or so ahead of them. And he's been doing this for a very very long time, too...

My guess is this is one of those Ford-Chevy arguments that can't be won...

In any event, I would never trust Norton by itself. I too, use several overlapping programs, including Spy-Bot, which I agree is very good...

[Photo-John]

I've been using Trend Micro's antivirus software on my laptop for over a year now. I've used both Norton and McAfee in the past. I am liking Trend Micro better. I couldn't say that it's actually better. But I feel better about it.

By the way, I just spent 4-5 hours trying to get my DSL reconnected. During my Interbike tradeshow trip my phone and DSL got disconnected (whoops!). I finally had a chance to spend some time on it today. After a bluescreen, tons of Safe Mode restarts, and some careful registry and driver editing, I'm back online at home. However, my belief that computers are out to get me has grown stronger.

[masdog]

This is a Ford-Chevy argument, but the best part about it is that all the basic Anti-Spyware tools are free. Spybot, Ad-Aware, and if you're using a legal version of Windows, MS Anti-Spyware, are all freely available to the public.

There is also a free anti-virus that is good. I use AVG Anti-virus, which comes in a free edition. It works very well, and so far, no one who I know that uses it has had any problems.

[almo]

Doggon it, for the last 2 months my computer has been limping along, most annoying was not being able to upload phtos to e-mail, and very weird happennings when i got on the net. Any way i tried every thing i could think of to no avail. 2 20 hour long sessions of thourough scandisc and many hours of fiddlin with this and that... So finally I reformatted hard drive and it seems fixed. Now there is much work to do reloading all software.
Oh well I'm just relieved things seem to be right again.
It took me 5 attemts to upload a pic here yesterday. the puter would freeze and i had to shutdown with the power button. What a pain!
Whaaaaa!!!!
Mark.

LOL...Windows problems are so funny!


At least now they are... ;)

[mdmc]

LOL...Windows problems are so funny!


At least now they are... ;)

ToytAppleHondApple?

[almo]

ToytAppleHondApple?

Ummm... well... no. it's more like a fine Italian sports car.

[mdmc]

Ummm... well... no. it's more like a fine Italian sports car.

I might jist havta go git me ona those, a red one with black trim.

[almo]

I might jist havta go git me ona those, a red one with black trim.

For me my PC's were, and are as I still have 4 of them, just a buncha' parts I threw together. I've never owned one that I didn't put together myself from spare and third party parts, aside from my 2 laptops. But my Mac.... That was an investment. What I got was more than well worth it for what I payed, and the next one will be even better.

They say that, "New York Life is the company you keep", well Apple-Mac is the computer you keep. With a little upkeep they work great for years, and years, and years and they retain their value well past the packing container they are shipped in. With the typical Windows machine it's worth about as much as a paperwieght as soon as your warranty is gone. Not so with Apples. It is a hobby of mine to dirve the nearby neighborhoods on trash day to do "computer shopping". I have found countless perfectly functioning Windows computers over the years. I have found exactly 1 Apple. They are collectors items when they have out lived their usefullness. An IBM machine is scrap.

You do the math.

[Michael Fanelli]

It is a hobby of mine to dirve the nearby neighborhoods on trash day to do "computer shopping". I have found countless perfectly functioning Windows computers over the years. I have found exactly 1 Apple. They are collectors items when they have out lived their usefullness. An IBM machine is scrap.

You do the math.

LOL! OK, lets do the math. Macs own less than 3% of the US market, less than 2% of the worldwide market. That means, with equal depreciation, there should be 97 windows machines for, at most, every 3 Macs. Did you really expect to find lots of used Macs at yard sales and trash heaps?

[almo]

LOL! OK, lets do the math. Macs own less than 3% of the US market, less than 2% of the worldwide market. That means, with equal depreciation, there should be 97 windows machines for, at most, every 3 Macs. Did you really expect to find lots of used Macs at yard sales and trash heaps?

Well no I never did expect to find lots of Macs, as I have always known the market was smaller. But lets be realistic. There are still a whole bunch of them out there. Old and new. And lets even go by your numbers. I have recoved over 300 windows machines, yet I have recovered just 1 Mac. Face it, Macs are not throw away computers. Windows machines are. Don't get me wrong though. I can see the genius behind that. I'm not blind, nor do I ignore the truth. I know why Bill Gates is the richest man in the galaxy, but in the end if you want to be an honest person then you have to admit that Mac OS X and Apple/Mac hardware is superior. So what if it isn't the most popular? Damn that just makes it better! I run my Mac with a simple firewall, and I do so with confidence. I have to spend much more time working on my Windows machines, and still I have to worry about them when I am done.

God I hope Apple never catches on like Windows... ;)

[Michael Fanelli]

Well no I never did expect to find lots of Macs, as I have always known the market was smaller. But lets be realistic. There are still a whole bunch of them out there. Old and new. And lets even go by your numbers. I have recoved over 300 windows machines, yet I have recovered just 1 Mac.

We recover much more than that. There are many more Macs in the hands of corporations than in users who run yard sales.

Face it, Macs are not throw away computers. Windows machines are.

Nonsese. The vast majority of people use intel machines. There are vastly larger numbers who have a need for change just for the sake of change. Just look at the silly turn-around of digital cameras. Bill Gates sells software, not hardware. My desktop has now gone past its 5 year birthday, my 3 year laptop was replaced recently because I physically dropped it one too many times (Bill Gate's fault?). Everything still works very well, just as it did when I first bought it. Bill Gates doesn't have anything to do with it.

I know why Bill Gates is the richest man in the galaxy

He saw a need and filled it. That's called capitalism. Good capitalists are always hated. "I'm smarter than Bill Gates, why don't I have all the money" is the cry of many.

...but in the end if you want to be an honest person then you have to admit that Mac OS X and Apple/Mac hardware is superior.

LOL! If the hardware is so much better, why is Apple moving to Intel hardware to catch up?

Macophiles can't fool me, I spent a year and a half working at a Mac shop. I never used Macs before and was initially excited by all the hype. What a major disappointment! Constant hardware problems, laptops that LITERALLY caught on fire, the constant limits on what couldn't be done, hard reboots more times a day than I could count. The Graphic Arts department actually believed that all computers needed constant rebooting!. This major Apple customer eventually switched to Windows with almost no complaints. In fact, some users were fighting to be switched first. There is nothing superior about the hardware or the software since the 1980s.

So what if it isn't the most popular? Damn that just makes it better! I run my Mac with a simple firewall, and I do so with confidence. I have to spend much more time working on my Windows machines, and still I have to worry about them when I am done.

I'm happy that you are satisfied with your Macs. In the ideal world, everyone would use a computer they truly like. However, I run my Windows machines the same way. My simple firewall, free Zone Alarm, does an excellent job. The free AVG anitivirus works silently in the background never actually finding anything. Spyware hasn't been a problem for well over a year, even then, it was questionable. I run it because I can be paranoid sometimes. See, the publicity gets to me too!

Because there are so many Windows users and so many more attacks, everything bad that happens with Windows gets blown out of proportion. Its very fashionable to see Bill Gates as the Evil Mastermind and Destroyer of the Universe. But, if you read the constant complaints on other photo web sites, you would believe that every Canon camera is falling apart at users feet! Number one is always a target, right or wrong.

God I hope Apple never catches on like Windows... ;)

Good thing to hope for. If Macs ever did become popular, the Mac universe would start falling apart under the weight of all the attacks. They aren't used to being number one and dealing with probems of magnitude.

[Seb]

OS X is a fundamantally better designed, more stable and more secure OS. There is one security issue known about it and it's a minor one. Windows have a whole lot of them, some being major.

Now, its quite obvious that Windows is more attacked than OS X. It's a much more interesting target than OS X since it's much more wide spread. Not so many hackers are familiar with OS X (or care about it) but it is also a more difficult OS to hack.

About, Apple switching to Intel, IBM once offered a superior architecture with the PowerPC but they can't keep the pace with the competition nowaday (well they kind of do with the recent introduction of dual core G5's in the PowerMacs but G5's will always run too hot to be used in laptop...). The Apple experience has always been much more than the sum of its parts, in that sense, a switch of processors isn't "such" an issue. They took a business desicion to stay competitive and keep an edge.

Note to Michael: I can't argue with your horrors stories with Macs, they happened to you, which is sad. That being said, working constantly with both PC's and Mac's (actually, I spend more time on PC's due to my day job), and having personally owned machines on both platforms I can only say that my Mac's always were exceptionally stable and efficient machines.
Mac can have problems, I have heard various stories from various sources (although I never personally experienced any issue) but that doesn't change the fact that generally speaking, they deliver the goods big time, in a fairly more enjoyable way than PC's as far as I am concerned.

One very last thing, Apple is quite a big company. Obviously, they own a small marketshare but they are the only one in their field. Apple is a bigger company than a good number of PC's maker. They can (and do) face problems when they happens. They couldn't possibly survive (and grow in importance as they did) otherwise.

Seb

[Michael Fanelli]

One very last thing, Apple is quite a big company. Obviously, they own a small marketshare but they are the only one in their field. Apple is a bigger company than a good number of PC's maker. They can (and do) face problems when they happens. They couldn't possibly survive (and grow in importance as they did) otherwise.

Apple is actually a relatively small company. They are dwarfed by Dell, HP, Gateway, Fujitsu, IBM, Lenovo, NEC, and even Acer in hardware. Software has an even bigger gap. Much of their income these days comes from iPods while their market share in computers has dropped to a low of 2.88% of market share as of January 28, 2005.

Another problem is that Apple is both a hardware and software company. They rigorously control the hardware that gets used with their OS. Neither Windows nor Linux has that remarkable advantage. Those two are expected to run with everything from Dell preinstalled to a bits-and-pieces scrap marvel built by a teenager in his basement. Yet Apple still gets it wrong, a lot more than once. And Apple doesn't have the entire world trying to find bugs and errors.

I have no investment in either Microsoft nor Apple so there is no axe to grind. As with most Windows users, I see my computer as a tool to get work done, not a loving member of the family! What percentage of Windows owners give cute names to their hardware? :-) A rare few!

You are right, Apple and Macs are more than the sum of its parts. Its a lifestyle that is so mixed up with people's personalities. I drive a Subaru because it is reliable transportation, my friend treats his corvette like a pampered child. It's a difference in personality that has nothing to do with the reality of the merchandise. It is also the mindset that kept Apple afloat during the decade of darkness with the truly horrid pre-OSX MacOS.

People should be free to choose what they like best, what works for them best. This all started with an (unintentional?) smarta** remark towards a careless guy who allowed his computer to be taken over by malware. Some people helped, others used the opportunity to spread silly Mac-isms that had to be quashed. OK... not "had to be" but certainly too tempting for me to ignore!

[Seb]

Apple is both a hardware and software company. They rigorously control the hardware that gets used with their OS. Neither Windows nor Linux has that remarkable advantage. Those two are expected to run with everything from Dell preinstalled to a bits-and-pieces scrap marvel built by a teenager in his basement. Yet Apple still gets it wrong, a lot more than once. And Apple doesn't have the entire world trying to find bugs and errors.

Microsoft collaborate directly with PC's makers. Windows pretty much comes preinstalled on any new machine outhere and a PC is a PC. Granted, there is a wider range of parts that can potentially be used in a PC but I can't justify how a prebuilt PC delivered with Windows should be disadvantaged over a Mac. (Teenagers who built their own machine with spare parts obviously are a totally different issue tough).

You are right, Apple and Macs are more than the sum of its parts. Its a lifestyle that is so mixed up with people's personalities. I drive a Subaru because it is reliable transportation, my friend treats his corvette like a pampered child. It's a difference in personality that has nothing to do with the reality of the merchandise.

Well, what can I say, my Mac is a tool to get the job done as efficiently as it can be. It consistantly delivered superior results for me over the years (and I am not implying that PC's don't get the job done, things are just more straighforward on Mac's). I know quite a couple of guys who built their PC's (partly or totally) by themselves and who go nuts over their equipments just for the sake of it. At that point, these are more amusing behaviors related to people personas than lifestyles related to a brand.

It is also the mindset that kept Apple afloat during the decade of darkness with the truly horrid pre-OSX MacOS.

What was so wrong about the OS in the 90's?? Or more specifically how can we compare the Mac OS of the 90's to Windows 95, 98 or Millenium for instance???
OS X is a huge evolution over the previous Apple OS just like Windows XP is a dramatic move from the older generation of Windows. Then again, I worked (and know people who worked) on Macs in the 90's without any problem.

I have no investment in either Microsoft nor Apple so there is no axe to grind. As with most Windows users, I see my computer as a tool to get work done, not a loving member of the family!

Same here! So lets get back to our respective machines and be happy!!

regards

Seb