Author Topic: I have computer related questions. Can you help? (Read 149075 times)

NWR_insanolord · « **Reply #450 on:** February 27, 2014, 12:20:03 PM »

I've spent the better part of the last 15 hours on this and it feels like I haven't accomplished anything. Every time I think I've figured something out it seems like three new problems pop up. I've gotta say, this really is reinforcing my love of OS X.

ShyGuy · « **Reply #451 on:** February 27, 2014, 10:49:43 PM »

Ubuntu's interface is a little obtuse at times. Why not try Mint? or Kubuntu?

NWR_insanolord · « **Reply #452 on:** February 28, 2014, 06:13:44 AM »

I'm not sure there are versions of those that work on Chromebooks. Anyway, I'm beginning to get the hang of it. Right now I'm trying to set it up to connect to a Wii remote and it keeps telling me I need uinput, but apart from that things are going pretty decently. I've got Wine up and running a bunch of games from my childhood: SimTower, SimCity 2000 and Escape Velocity Nova.

BranDonk Kong · « **Reply #453 on:** February 28, 2014, 08:00:08 AM »

Which Chromebook are you using?

NWR_insanolord · « **Reply #454 on:** February 28, 2014, 08:15:59 AM »

The Acer C720.

pokepal148 · « **Reply #455 on:** March 15, 2014, 07:55:14 PM »

I have a 10 year old desktop (dell dimension e521) that has somehow managed to avoid the scrapyard until now and my mom plans to get rid of it so I'm wondering how to salvage the hard drive without damaging it and if there Is anything else worth saving.

BlackNMild2k1 · « **Reply #456 on:** March 15, 2014, 10:29:03 PM »

First locate anything on there worth saving.
copy it to a DVD/CD or external storage of some sort.

Format the HDD, then use it as a backup drive into whatever other computer or backup for HDD for your Wii or something (if it's compatible).

I imagine it's not a very large HDD, maybe 100GB?

pokepal148 · « **Reply #457 on:** March 16, 2014, 01:58:52 AM »

Quote from: BlackNMild2k1 on March 15, 2014, 10:29:03 PM

First locate anything on there worth saving.
copy it to a DVD/CD or external storage of some sort.

Format the HDD, then use it as a backup drive into whatever other computer or backup for HDD for your Wii or something (if it's compatible).

I imagine it's not a very large HDD, maybe 100GB?

250 but there's a 10gb partition.

BranDonk Kong · « **Reply #458 on:** March 16, 2014, 10:05:53 AM »

Most likely a recovery partition. If you put the HDD in another Windows PC (as a secondary drive) you can get rid of that partition with Diskpart...just make sure you're choosing the correct drive.

bustin98 · « **Reply #459 on:** March 17, 2014, 10:55:36 PM »

So, I haven't been on these boards much mainly because I'm busy with work. I have a shop in a town that doesn't have a competitor, so I see a lot of systems. And I have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't work in regards to virus and malware, ransomware, encrpyted files, whatever. If you can think of it, some kid is going to find it and get owned like a bitch.

Anyway, here's some observations:

Windows 8 gets viruses. And it's a pain in the ass thanks to the limited boot options.

I recommend Norton or Kaspersky. Enable Boot Time Protection. I have seen every other av solution out there get infected, the worse offenders are the free ones. Theoretically every av is vulnerable though.

If you have Java installed, keep it updated. The majority of infections come through an old version of Java. And uninstall those old versions, too. Or just get rid of it completely.

Stop browsing the web as the administrator. The Limited Account User can find porn and warez just as easily.

Bleepingcomputer.com is a great resource for programs. Tweaking.com also makes an awesome program for getting things back in order after an infection.

Ceric · « **Reply #460 on:** March 18, 2014, 11:31:10 AM »

I just can't ever think of going back to Norton. Its most of the time has been worse than the virus its suppose to be protecting from in my experience. Such a resource hog. I haven't tried Kaspersky.

bustin98 · « **Reply #461 on:** March 18, 2014, 09:47:54 PM »

Norton 360 is the resource hog. The plain anti virus and the Internet Security packages are lightweight.

ShyGuy · « **Reply #462 on:** March 19, 2014, 10:27:29 PM »

Quote from: bustin98 on March 17, 2014, 10:55:36 PM

So, I haven't been on these boards much mainly because I'm busy with work. I have a shop in a town that doesn't have a competitor, so I see a lot of systems. And I have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't work in regards to virus and malware, ransomware, encrpyted files, whatever. If you can think of it, some kid is going to find it and get owned like a bitch.

Anyway, here's some observations:

Windows 8 gets viruses. And it's a pain in the ass thanks to the limited boot options.

I recommend Norton or Kaspersky. Enable Boot Time Protection. I have seen every other av solution out there get infected, the worse offenders are the free ones. Theoretically every av is vulnerable though.

If you have Java installed, keep it updated. The majority of infections come through an old version of Java. And uninstall those old versions, too. Or just get rid of it completely.

Stop browsing the web as the administrator. The Limited Account User can find porn and warez just as easily.

Bleepingcomputer.com is a great resource for programs. Tweaking.com also makes an awesome program for getting things back in order after an infection.

This fascinates me as it used to be a primary part of my job when I worked for a repair shop, but now I cover schools in a school district.

Back in the day I used to make a disc called a "Must Have Cd" that had a collection of utilities and anti virus. The world of anti virus changes so often that the I eventually moved to a thumb drive, which I had to maintain so it wouldn't get infections.

What are the hot tools nowadays? Back in 2011 before the business closed, it was: Malware Bytes, (which I still use) SpyBot Search and Destroy, Hitman Pro, Microsoft Security Essentials, (which got crappy over time as they all seem to do) and Combofix.

bustin98 · « **Reply #463 on:** March 19, 2014, 11:29:46 PM »

I use RKill, TDSS Killer, Adwcleaner, JRT, Revo uninstaller, Malware Bytes, and Tweaking. Norton is used for external scans. I also do some good ole fashion detective work of digging through the registry for crap, loading the hive to another system. I haven't had a need for Spybot in quite a while. Hitman Pro is also redundant. ComboFix is still something but I only use it if it seems nothing else is working, probably used it once in the past 4 months. Security Essentials is in the same boat as AVG and Avast, far too easy for the viruses to get past.

I have my thumb drive tool box, but only use it after a drive is scanned by my scanning pc.

Covering schools can be quite a challenge. I know maintaining the wireless network is quite a task depending on the budget you're given. I'm sure there are some kids that do their darndest to **** things up too.

ShyGuy · « **Reply #464 on:** March 20, 2014, 01:06:15 AM »

Ah yeah, I've used RKill and TDSS Killer. Revo uninstaller is still very handy. I've always maintained that having redudant backups and being able to lose the rebuild your system at any time is the best protection against not only viruses but hard drive failures and other trouble.

Actually, covering the schools is cake compared to working on the front lines in a computer shop for 16 years. We got some crazies, let me tell ya. On the other hand, the wireless has been half-down district wide all week. Thanks 3rd party service providers!

shingi_70 · « **Reply #465 on:** March 20, 2014, 01:39:41 PM »

So i'm going to school for computer science but my major computer classes won't start until after i transfer out of CC next year. I'll be taking a intro to Java class over the summer but wanted to know where would be a good website to start Java or coding now.

BranDonk Kong · « **Reply #466 on:** March 21, 2014, 12:06:36 AM »

This is my teacher's website for the Java 1 class I took when I started.

http://cs.fit.edu/~pbernhar/teaching/cse1001/

It's not exactly what I would call a tutorial, but if you are by any chance using Robert Sedgewick's book in your class ("Introduction to Programming in Java, An Interdisciplinary Approach," Robert Sedgewick and Kevin Wayne, ISBN 978-0-321-49805-2. ) then they should go kind of hand in hand.

There's also a guy on YouTube named Derek Banas that has a **** ton of really good Java (and Android) tutorials.

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwRXb5dUK4cvsHbx-rGzSgw

Stack Overflow can help you out a lot, and if you have any questions I'd be happy to help, I'm almost done getting my CS degree (though I'm not exactly an expert).

BlackNMild2k1 · « **Reply #467 on:** March 29, 2014, 05:02:12 AM »

Quote from: Brandogg on February 11, 2014, 10:20:47 PM

It's not the cache either. Open up IE and go to settings > Internet Options > Connections > LAN Settings and uncheck "Automatically Detect Settings" - I'm pretty sure that's how you fix it.

This worked for a while but the problem is back again. I checked these areas again and it's still unchecked, so I'm not sure why it's happening again. Any suggestions?

This "waiting for cache" thing literally cripples my computer for about a minute or more randomly without warning.

I'm testing out the clearing the google cache thing again and see how long that works (if it works) as it didn't last time.

bustin98 · « **Reply #468 on:** March 29, 2014, 10:14:06 AM »

Delete your profile? Maybe an extension is causing the issue?

BlackNMild2k1 · « **Reply #469 on:** March 29, 2014, 11:17:26 AM »

My log-on profile for Win 8?

Well, I have been meaning to setup an Admin profile and not use the admin profile for a while now...
If it starts up again, that is exactly what I'll do.

bustin98 · « **Reply #470 on:** March 30, 2014, 01:31:18 AM »

I'm sorry, the profile in chrome.

Mop it up · « **Reply #471 on:** April 06, 2014, 03:24:22 PM »

So, update support for Windows XP ended yesterday. It also said that support for Security Essentials will end, which I'm not sure means I can't use it anymore or just that it won't be updated either.

Without updates, can anyone suggest what I can do to help protect my computer from potential problems?

BranDonk Kong · « **Reply #472 on:** April 06, 2014, 04:13:49 PM »

Windows Defender is still supported...it's built in to Windows 8. Just upgrade your OS, XP died years ago, even if support just ended.

Mop it up · « **Reply #473 on:** April 07, 2014, 05:41:10 PM »

Even if the computer had the specs to upgrade (it doesn't), I don't want to spend any money on it. This is my desktop, I already have a Win7 laptop, but I prefer to use the desktop at home.

If I never use an Internet browser, is it still risky to use non-browser programs that use the Internet for something?

This will hopefully just be temporary until I can get another desktop from someone, I'll be asking around and seeing if anyone bought a new computer recently. I've never paid for a computer in my life since people tend to view even a couple years old computer as worthless, and I'm not about to start now.

BlackNMild2k1 · « **Reply #474 on:** April 07, 2014, 07:27:11 PM »

there are free anti-virus programs out there. I'm sure the majority of them are better than nothing.
and there are always other ways on the internet of getting things that don't require a monetary transaction...

Comcast gives you Norton for free if you're a subscriber.

News:

Author Topic: I have computer related questions. Can you help? (Read 149075 times)