JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Computers are a pain in the butt-my public service announcement!

I have been fighting with my old computer for days. Got a new DSL modem because whatever took my computer down did a number on my DSL modem. Put the modem on and the computer was communicating with sites but only in MS Dos prompt. Long story short, I got fed up and ditched the old one and bought a new one. Moral: So if you are having the same problem, it's probably a sneaky old mean virus.

My laptop just crashed in the last week or so..... OK I have a spare laptop that I use as backup and all my files on external so I did not lose anything data wise....but it is a big pain reinstalling a new O/S and then putting in all the programs and settings....gonna take days....but I have to do it as I use a laptop performing and need two just in case one goes down.

I know, Jim. I lost everything. I couldn't risk taking virus laden stuff off one to put on a new computer. I have tons of photos, but luckily I have developed all the ones I wanted to keep. The lyrics I can pull from off here if I need them. I'm still updating, reloading camera equipment on here. Also, deciding what to keep on the preloaded stuff. I'll have to buy another Office program which is frustrating. My brother may have a copy of one I can use. I need to call him. He installed the last copy of Office on my old computer. You can use it on 3 computers. I do know that.

You know what I've noticed, Jim? I can only open ONE browser at a time. I used to be able to open multiple ones. I need to see if there's a way to keep 2 or more open. I have Microsoft 7, I think as OS.

Well,
Ole Mercury is running backwards for the moment, goes direct on the Friday the 26Th. So short range communications may be muffed up from time to time.

Tricia it is unlikely a virus would have infected the Pictures or Word documents you have on the old drive.
If you can still access the old drive on the old computer you should be able to copy them to a flash drive
Then download Malwarebytes and use it to scan the flash drive prior to moving the pictures and documents to the new computer. Also scan them with your antivirus program before moving them.

And yes Computers are a pain in the butt.
Get an external hard drive and back everything up on it. Better yet get a Ghost program and do a complete copy of the system.
That's the best bet.
good luck

Tricia a good antivirus program will scan your PC it will only allow virus free files into your system so do not just blow away all your precious files and data. Scan them and then use the ones that are virus free. I do not know a lot about viruses but from what you say it looks as if it could be something else that is causing the prob. It could be corrupt registry or a hardware issue or operating system malfunction. Sometimes when the hard drive is on the way out it produces some weird things that can be interpreted as a virus. I would suggest trying to rescue the contents of your hard drive before it packs in completely onto an external and seeing what can be salvaged.

Tricia, download The Puppy Linux ISO and burn the ISO image. Then insert the cd into your cd drive on the old computer (set it as first boot device) and boot the computer. It will boot into Puppy without needing to install onto the hard drive. Once it's up and running you'll have full access to your files to either copy to a thumb drive or you'll be able to get the internet connection going and upload to the net if you'd rather do that. You should be able to find your address book and more than likely also the emails, book marks & etc.

I'll get a thumb drive and have my brother extract the photos and Word docs. They are so cheap now. I started to buy one the other day. Wish I had now. Thanks for the info, all!

I hear tell Best Buy has 16 gig units on sale for about seventeen bucks.

Thumb drives or flash drives are a great idea if you need something you can carry around in your pocket or just want a quick way to transfer files from one computer to another.
But you'll pay about $1.00 per gig. If you want to safely back up all your files and do a "Ghost" of your hard drive an external hard drive is the best bet. You can get 1 TERAbyte for about $60.00.
I think one terabyte is 1000 gigabytes. so the external hard drive is much more economical. Most are a simple usb connection and can be moved from one PC to another without software.

Ray, I never took you to be into astrology!

Kevin,
While I know I am just spinning my wheels I try to improve my education every which way I can. So I read lots and lots of things. You never know when you will need something. Since about 1956 I have been reading and learning about Astrology from magazines mostly. And I am no expert. For instance, when Mercury is Retrograde, it isn't a good time to start new projects, or buy a computer, or buy a car.

For instance the first part of the day of the 2000 Presidental election between Bush and Gore was under a Mercury Retrograde. As you will remember the final result wasn't decided until 36 days later.

All the turmoil in the Stock Market and the riots in London happened with a Mars Uranus Square. Violent, sudden Action.

Mars represents action, Uranus, sudden unpredictability. Other factors of course were in the mix. It seems we were also approaching a full moon. ruling emotions. Aw well. What's a little fun, right? They burned down the Sony Distrubition Center in London. Stupid, right?

Tricia,

We have/had the same "Office" problem, so Linda my wife switched to the entirely free "Open Office" and it works 100% as well and opens all our Office Files. You might check it out before forking over the cash. We've always been honest and bought and rebought over and over but when Free is as good or even better than Office's ridiculous and unfair limitation on how you can use and install a program you paid a fortune for is just not acceptable any more. Cut them off and go with Open Office. If you don't like it, you're not out a dime.

Brian

Brian is correct I have Open and it works great......sometimes the freebie progs are just as good as the expensive bug ridden alternatives.....and sometimes they do not want to take over your PC or refuse to work with certain file types or extensions like the other paid for progs have a habit of doing. Here is a link to an interesting article on the subject....it also gives details of freebie alternatives.
http://freebies.about.com/cs/freesoftware/a/office.htm
It is also worth noting that some of the freebie audio and video file converters and freebie media players work better than their paid for counterparts.

I have used Open Office for over a year --- it is great........


Tom

I haven't paid much attention to newer devices for computers but I see in the flyers today that you can buy Flash Drives/Thumbmail devices that have 8 Gigs of Memory for $8.99. You just put in a USB Port and you can put files in the device. Do you know a computer we bought in 2000 only had 8 Gigs of hard drive!

I have the option to get Open Office but am not sure I would use it as I mostly use Micro Soft Works or Word Pad or Note Pad.

Ray
As I stated earlier if you don't need to carry the Flash (Thumb) drive around in your pocket it is much better to buy an external Hard drive.
You can get one that plugs in USB just like a Flash drive but it is much more economical. Easy to use too.
Most Computers today come with Several hundred GIGABYTES hard drive storage. If you want a safe external backup you need a much bigger drive than a flash drive.
A 16 GIGABYTE flash drive can be bought for about twenty bucks.
A 1000 GIGABYTE external hard drive can be bought for about 60 - 70 bucks.
You can set them to back up the entire hard drive on a regular basis so ALL you data is safely backed up.
There is also online services that will do the same. That gives you off site backup. You don't have to worry about losing valuable data if you have a fire, flood, tornado, whatever.
You just can't back up the operating system.
The nice thing about an External hard drive is you can back up everything, including the operating system. That way if you get a bad virus and have to format your hard drive you will have a duplicate. But you do need separate cloning SOFTWARE to make an exact copy of the hard drive.

Humm,
Hi Bill. I really don't have that much to back up. All my songs are on CD's that I copied using a Stand Alone Unit. I have tons of Photos but have copied them to Data Discs or DVD's. Some are on Camera Cards or 35mm Slides, or Prints/Negatives. All my song lyrics are on a floppy disc but could easily be transfered to a Thumb Drive if I purchased one or so. I know some keep all their files on their computer. I copy most everything to an externtal device, of which can be re-installed to the computer.

I can copy slides or negatives or prints from a scanner to the computer. From there I can put them all on a disc.

Good idea ray. Actually it sounds like a lot of data. All done manually. all on disposable media. Most new PC's don't even have a floppy.
My point was a simple external drive backup is cheap and is done automatically. It copies everything.
You can even copy the operating system if you use clone software.

All hard drives fail eventually. The last time I did a reinstall of an operating system it took me two days to completely restore everything. A cloned system can be done in about 30 minutes.

Brian, I did try Open Office for a long time. I liked everything about it EXCEPT when you send a word type file it changes it to an odt file which can only be deciphered if you have that program. That was my only complaint about it.

There is no easy way when you own a computer. I think I've figured out why I got a virus (and, it's something I am planning to sit down tonight and write a letter to McAfee about).

McAfee is a great program. However, they always try to get you to update 2 months too early. I got a notification well over a month ago. Technically, I still have 20 days left on my old subscribtion. My computer is always set to update itself, scan itself, etc. I guarantee you it didn't operate properly because it let a virus in. 5 Trojans to be exact. No antivirus program is fool proof. Technically, I paid to be protected and was not. I feel like it's their fault. I intend to tell them about it, too.

Unless you have had a crash you do not realise the FULL EXTENT OF the problem...that is why people like Bill and I have to explain to others what can happen and how to avoid it or at least be prepared for it. The days of backing onto hard copies or Cds or DVDs like Ray suggests are long gone...OK there are still some cavmen like Ray who do not use computers to the full and perhaps distrust or cannot keep up with the technology BUT most others should understand how to avoid the headache of losing data and having to reinstall an O/S and its programs. I had a 0/S crash a couple of weeks or so ago...OK it was a pain but thanks to a backup... no biggy.......sadly without a backup it would have been devastating. I now have not one but two terabyte external drives that I use solely as backups......just in case the backup fails. Once bitten etc.

I hear you, Jim. You're so funny and eloquent.

Thanks Tricia...you should give Open Office a go it is free and it will open some files that the expensive Microsoft programs will not. I spent ages decrypting or converting files so the Word program would open them properly...Office just opened them in their own format....no hassle.

Dang,
That's the last time I draw things in Caves! NOBODY appreciates it! And those huge figures on Easter Island. I ain't gonna do no more. Stonehenge, forget it!

Tricia, there's an easy way to set up Open Office to automatically save in MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint formats. If you're interested I'd be happy to walk you through it.

ODT, open document template and ODF, open document format will become used more often in applications and the cloud.

A note. Open Office is/was owned by Oracle and they started charging fees for certain capabilities so a large number of the programmers left because of that and differences in the direction OO was going to be taken. Oracle has recently donated the source code to Apache Sofware Foundation and that may well bode well for Open Office again.
Libre Office is the outcome of that group of programmers leaving.
Though things may change now that Apache is involved but Libre Office was updated and improved more often than Open Office for the last couple of years or so but either is a great choice.

You could always do the cave drawings as virtual cave drawings by using a computer and projecting the image onto a cave wall.....I believe there are lots of art progs that are fairly simple to use.

I keep a flash drive in my pocket. I find it easy to keep files on it as a backup.

Tom

Open Office is getting pretty popular. I have never had it crash or create a problem.

Tom

Oh yeah ! I'll second and third and forth that.....

I'm still recovering settings and resetting stuff after a crash a few months ago.

((((BACK UP YOUR COMPUTER))))

I don't think I can shout that any louder. LOL

cheers, niteshift

Hi, All!

Dak, I needed to do an invitation quickly today, so I just bought Office. It was pretty inexpensive because I bought the computer. $119. I just know my way around the program better than I knew OO. I so appreciate the offer, though. Very kind of you.

By the way, my son is moving to Vegas tomorrow. But, my brother just moved to LA/Pasadena area to get his masters. Don't know what it is about my family and California but you guys are just going to have to tolerate us out there awhile longer! LOL!

Oh, Nite. I know you were sick about your crash. My new computer is 1 terabyte. Am I saying that right? Terabyte. Tetrabyte. Troglodyte. I'm so confused.

OK Trish yours is bigger than mine......but it is the performance that counts......LOL
whats a few gigs between friends....

JFI Open Office works exactly the same as your program...you would not find it any different to use...all the controls and functions etc work the same way and are are laid out exactly the same.

A tip I would give is that the more stuff you have on your internal disc the longer it take for your PC to boot and respond....and the more likelihood of crashes. One way round this is to use an external hard drive to store all the files you you do not use on a regular basis. Just keep your C drive for your O/S, programs and the stuff you are using on a day to day basis.
I would also invest in a BACKUP program that ghosts images of your PC rather than the standard backup which most manufacturers supply now which just backs up files. In the event of a crash all your pc programs and settings plus all your files will be saved. The real pain is reinstalling all your programs and settings plus getting info like passwords and email addys. All these would be saved with a ghost type program. Here is a link where the top progs are reviewed
http://data-backup-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

Thanks for the info, Jim. Will check into the external hard drive. Did not know that about the amount of space used on hard drive. Makes sense, though.

Dak, may check into the Libre Office program. Especially since it's free. It may have attributes I like better. 2010 office looks different than the older version. This newer version uses other people's suggestions/ideas for formatting and they don't guarantee the files are virus free. Apparently, they store those files on their servers so if you pull something into your computer, it could be virus laden since it came from another source. 2006 version of Office used only THEIR formatting-at least the parts of it that I used.

First off, let me add to the support for Open Office. It is NOT 100% compatible with Office, but then it does not matter if you use it for your own purposes. Still, you can "fix things" where you have to.

It used to be Star Office. Sun (swallowedup by Oracle) then bought it to use internally, so they would not have to pay royalties to Microsoft. With 10s of thousands of employees, this made sense.

Once they owned it, Sun turned it over to the open source community, and it has improved since.

IBM also has a free office suite. They call it Symphony after Lotus's first foray into a suite after they launched their famous Lotus spreadsheet program. As IBM owns Lotus, they "packaged" some of the products as freeware.

The "open source" community is awesome. So much good stuff available for free or for a donation.

Having said that, I do own licensed version of Office, for example, because I have to be able to "play" with client files and as I said, Open Office is not entirely compatible with Excel or Powerpoint, for example.

Check out this web site I operate for Canadian business owners for a "top ten" list of freeware and links to a bunch more.

http://www.teamstart.ca/Links/TSlinksindex.htm


Also, external hard drives and flash drives are dirt cheap. I use 2 Terrabyte Seagate hard drives, and USB drives and make sure I back up diligently.

And Trish, always look at the "save as" dialogue box, because that's where you have the option to save in different formats

I'll post images of how to change the default save to Microsoft. It's found under "Tools", "Options", "Load/Save", "General".





You'll find presentations there as well as other particulars you may want to save under a different format.

You guys are awesome. Next time I have a question about a program, I'll ask you before I haul off and do something hasty. I had NO idea about all the options.

Always there to help.......I just bought a couple of teras.... they cost under £100 for the two. You cannot put a price on losing your valuable songs, lyrics, poems, photos and your pesonal music libaray that has taken a lifteime to gather together.
One other point is that folk throw out perfectly good serviceable computers after a crash....then spend a fortune buying a new one where perhaps fitting just an internal HD and maybe a memory upgrade would bring it back up to the current standard.