Computer FAQs

Anti-Virus and Firewalls

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AntiVirus and Firewall issues
My virus checker protects me from everything, right?

No! Even the best antivirus program can miss some viruses.  "False Positives" (finding problems where none exist) are more common.

If your AV subscription is out of date, your AV program cannot protect you against newer issues- and the bad guys are always using the latest virus and trojan attacks. Cheaper AV programs offer only minimal protection, and/or waste computer resources- making your computer run slower.

You need both a firewall and an AV program, they protect in different ways. "Malware" is software that might or would cause harm to your computer. Malware includes Virus, Trojan, or other malicious program contents.
  • Firewalls attempt to keep malware from being able to enter your computer, and attempt to notify you about executing untrustworthy programs..
  • Anti-virus programs look through files already on your computer and programs about to be executed, to see if they contain malware.

Anyone not using a current update of an AntiVirus program is at high risk of becoming infected by a virus, and may unintentionally spread the virus.

  • Most commercial AntiVirus programs check frequently during the day to verify their virus detection database is up to date.
  • If your AntiVirus program subscription has expired, you're at risk and you're putting others at risk.
  • Programs I consider trustworthy include NOD32, AVG, and TrendMicro (see below).
Virus Program Home Pages
Virus program tests and references
Spam (Email) issues
  • Everybody gets spam, loosely defined as unwanted email.
  • Spam filters may be available from your ISP, your email provider, as part of your AntiVirus package, or you may choose one of the commercial anti-spam programs.
Untrustworthy Sites

Some sites are known to be "traps", luring the innocent with promises of freebies, or official-looking statements about your computer needing immediate help, "click here for free, immediate help".

  • The upgrade versions of many AntiVirus programs have optional "Don't go there!" or "Get me out of here!" options to protect the unwary or the casual internet browser from "malware" and list-building sites.

 

Labels: Computer_Issues

Backup to CDs or DVDs

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Backing up your creations to CDs or DVDs is commendable. Backing up can ensure that your important files are available even if the kids install a virus, and can help clear some rubble from your hard disk.

There's nothing worse than not being able to read your backups.

Backup directly to CD vs backup to disk then copy disk to CD.

Please ensure that whatever you back up will be readable on any new computer you may buy. I strongly suggest using "Mastering Software" like either Nero or Roxio to create "ISO standard" CDs, so you won't have problems reading your CDs on new computers. It's likely that the CD file format used in Windows XP will be recognizable in future versions of Windows, but ISO Standard software is a better guarantee, in my opinion.

  • CD-ROMs & DVDs have their own file systems.
  • Be sure to write your CDs using a widely-accepted format, so you'll be able to read your CDs.
  • If you use one of the proprietary formats, you may discover that you cannot read your CDs until you've installed the proprietary software. And the proprietary software may not be compatible with your new version of Windows.
  • Fortunately, Macs, PCs, and Unix computers have all standardized on some ISO formats. Software that enables saving in ISO compatible format includes Nero and Roxio.

One disadvantage of using CDs and DVDs for backup is that Windows marks the files recovered from them as "Read-only" files. If your CD/DVD package doesn't change this for you, you won't be able to edit or change any of the recovered files, unless you first change the file's "Read-only" attribute using Windows Explorer.

Labels: Files, Backups

Computer Backup

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All computer hard drives will eventually fail. If you're lucky, your drive will last until you replace your drive or computer with a higher capability unit. Otherwise, you'll be needing your backup. The chances of losing your files to a virus or a computer crash are fairly high.

While some web sites provide a feature to re-download your purchases and many digitizers will replace designs that you have not backed up, it can be a real pain to figure out which designs you had in the first place. And it really is your responsibility to maintain a back up of your data files, plus the files you need to get your computer running again in case of a

If you purchased a sweater from Penney's and lost it somewhere, you probably would not even consider going back to Penney's with your story, expecting to get a free replacement. It seems ridiculous to even consider it. But somehow we seem to expect something different with electronic files. Look at the number of people posting on Embird groups that they've lost the information that was sent to them. If a digitizer or a web site provides that service, keep in mind that it is privilege and not something they are required to do.

The people at Embird should be enhancing their product, not baby-sitting people who don't take the time to backup their passwords, etc.

You can back up your files to a CD, a flash drive, or an external hard drive. The price of external hard drives has decreased dramatically over the last year and they are easy to use. See Removable Media Tips

I use Carbonite.com as a real-time backup. Saved my bacon, because I hadn't backed up for a couple weeks, when my new 1 Terabyte disk failed, shortly after I finished moving my files from disk C: to the larger storage drive. Thank you, Carbonite, for saving the files.

Labels: Backups

Computer Disk File Space

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Computer disk file space

Your computer needs lots of space for temporary files, for many purposes. Many jobs like writing to a CD or DVD, or backing up the computer files, require a lot of space. Usually in excess of 2 Gigabytes. Don't forget that Windows needs space for your own temporary files, system restores, and many other purposes. If you have less than 20% of your disk space available, Windows may not be able to "defrag" the disk.

You may experience memory-related problems with a full drive, because Windows uses the drive to temporarily store memory contents. Here are common uses of your disk space.

  • Burning a CD or DVD: Files are written to the hard drive as you are accumulating your list to write to the media.
  • Downloading from the net: Files are typically written to a temporary directory, then moved to wherever you specified.
  • If you have less than 20% of your drive available as "free space", your defrag program might not work. If your disk is not defragged, or if you have less than 1 Gigabyte of disk space available, your virtual memory and temporary files might not work properly, causing "weird" errors- the ones nobody else seems to experience, but you do. When Windows needs more RAM than is physically installed, it uses the hard disk memory as virtual ram. If you don't have enough free disk space available, Windows may not be able to use virtual memory, and so it will slow down noticeably.
Labels: Files, Computer_Issues

Computer Software

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Changing Font Size

If you have a "wheel" on your mouse, hold the control button down (ctrl) and turn the wheel one way or the other to change your display font size, without having to adjust "properties". Doesn't work for all programs/browsers.

Email Issues

Things to check when you don't receive your email from Embird:

  • If you have problems receiving email from Embird, remember that they are in the Slovak Republic. Some ISPs have internal rules against receiving email from outside the US, including AOL and Verizon. Some ISPs don't even notify the sender or the recipient that their email was blocked.
  • If the mail is from a Yahoo Group, click here to check for Yahoo Email bounces.
  • Verify that your email program is handling others with normal speed and capability.
  • Check that your email return address is correct. (via your Email program).
  • Verify that your Spam and Antivirus programs are set so you receive all mail, even if it's spam. For instance, Yahoo has a spam filter with two choices. I can have Yahoo send "spam" email to a Spam folder, or I can allow Yahoo to just delete whatever emails it thinks are spam. No program is perfect, and my time isn't worth that much, so I scan ALL email, even the spam, just to make sure Yahoo isn't destroying something that might be important to me. I scan the sender and subject of hundreds of Emails each day that Yahoo marks as "spam", looking for valid Email. If you think that's too much trouble, you can't complain if you occasionally miss something important.
    Check your email provider (your host ISP) to see if they block email from the Slovak Republic.
  • Check that your mailbox is not full at the ISP end. Some ISPs simply delete your emails when your email box is full, but most will notify the sender.
  • Some ISPs do not send "probable spam" to your computer's email reader, but they move it to a folder where you can access it for a few days via an HTML-based email reader. These readers usually allow you to examine any spam that the ISP has not sent to your normal email reader. They're fairly simple to operate, but you'll probably need help from your ISP to get it set up.
  • Check with your ISP regarding whether they have changed policies recently. For instance, In 2004 Charter recently decided not to send more than about 150 emails per customer per day. People who receive lots of email from Yahoo lists trigger this limit, so valid email is dumped. Unacceptable, but true! And their techs acknowledged it. That's why I'm no longer a Charter customer.
  • Your ISP may have instituted an antivirus barrier, antispam barrier, barrier against attachments of e-mails or some other barrier.
  • Your ISP may have been blacklisted, if they haven't been vigilent about prohibiting spam. Other ISPs may monitor these blacklists, and refuse email to blacklisted sites. Some of the blacklist sites are aggressive in adding sites, and slow to remove them, causing huge problems for innocent people.
  • You may want to send yourself email. If you don't receive it promptly, call your ISP for help. If that doesn't work, you can still have good email service. Sign up for a free or a premium email provider, and send yourself messages to ensure it works. I use Yahoo! Mail Plus and Gmail.
Labels: Computer_Issues

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