Just incase don't get computer going again......

Thankyouagain everyone for your sound advice.

My son un-installed Limewire himself tonight tweaky! Will show hime the wiki bit, and mention P2P to him (I don't know what that is!!!) I don't visit strange websites (apart form n odd gardening one! ) and will make sure he know not to either in the future. Is there any reputable sites he can visit to listen to/download music, without risking virus attack?

The computer administrator at work (I work in a secondary school) has offered to take the tower and sort it for me tomorrow (though it may not be ready tomorrow). He has done this twice for me before, and re-installed the entire thing once before (the blue screen of death struck). I am 'getting better' and learning more each time, but still no confident when it comes to this sort of thing! (so many kudos jjordie!)

I have F-secure security, but no 'firewall'. What is that, I know it is soething I should have? I am now going to be totally paranoid about security!

JWK, I have printed off the really important things I've saved, and the pics I'd be sad to lose are on photobucket, and as I have thousands, I'm not going to save them all to CD (the printing thing took me a good couple of hours due to comp. so-slow, ther wee only about 5 things to print!).

How do you back up as you go along? Is that saving things to CD as you go along?

Anyway, if i'm not on for a bit, I hope it is because my tower is a work in progress, but I will let you know as I can, even if it's from work!

Thanks all again!

 

Hi Lass.

I shall ask my son, these youngsters seem to know loads don't they, makes you sick, heh,heh.

I have a little programme that I could let you have, but it only records things that you can listen to through your speakers. Or I can post the URL. I have a couple of music sites that I visit I can post if your son wishes.

Backing-up. Yup, you can copy to CD's or DVD's if you have the software, like Nero etc. Other than that you can purchase an external hard drive which will work from a USB socket and transfer the entire contents of your computers hard drive too. You can set it up so it does an automatic back-up every week at a certain time, or just when you want it to.

Have a google for Maxtor One Touch. I purchased a 250 gb from them, for £40. It really is reassuring that if your puter crashes then you have everything on a separate Hard Drive. However there are other makes. Google SVP or Novatec and see what they are offering.:thumb:

 

Yea, got a couple of those myself JW, just use them though for taking to my bros etc. As you say, very easy to copy too.

Only prob is of course their memory capacity..v..cost.

 

That's great Tweaky, and JWK, thankyou!

Just to keep you in the know, the admin. at work has removed the virus, and done some cleansng stuff, but has given me tower back over weekend to 'back-up' pics I want to keep etc, as he will completely restore it to the beginning on Monday.

The virus must still be lingering, as I have had to close a few pop up adverts in the last hour or so of being online. (edit:and I am missing letters regularly in typing)

My son has un-installed limewire, and the admin. has given me his recommendation for downoading music safely - utorroent.com and mininova. We will see how we get on with these after Monday. I would still be interesed in your son's prefered site though tweaky too, please.

The automatic device for backing up sounds interesting, though I am seriously goin to have to be more selective with the stuff I save! The pictures I really like are uploaded into photobucket, though there are still some that I wouldn't like to lose, which I will backup. I feel I have an awful lot of trawling to do to find them though, as I download all my photos from my camera, and I do ake a lot! I can take 4 or 5 pictures of each flower/child/guineapig etc jut to get one that is acceptable (and often then I won't like it enough to photobucket)!

So, really I am delayng this tedious process I think, by GCing!!!

I batched up my photos last time the comp needed coplete restoring JWK, and it has made a huge difference! I have done it kind of chronologically - and have a 2007 folder,which includes a 'gardening' folder, 'guinea pigs', 'people', 'holidays' etc. Not been quite so organised of lae though, and have lots of things needing sorted.

I have a memory stick, and find t easy to use (brilliant!) Maybe I'll see how many of my pics I can save onto that first (not sure what to do with all the CDs I will inevitably collect!)

Many thanks again - if anything else crops up I'll know where to come to ask!
At least it's raining though today - maybe I should bite the bullet, and get on with it...

(ahhh - luckily could copy and paste, as comp. had logged me out, so couldn't post reply! Hope this works (have logged in again)

 

Hi JB.

Glad it's being sorted for you. A Windows PC, is rubbish compared with the Mac Operating System, but there ya go. (or OS as they say)

I'm still on it, but next time I get a new puter it will be an Apple Mac most definitely. Will try and grab the lad today and find out what he uses for his music.:thumb:

 

Got him....utorroent that's what he uses. It's still p2p but a lot safer and he can download full albums from the right sites....it's still not entirely legal, but there ya go. That's his recommendation.:thumb:

 

Thanks tweaky! Is ANYTHING safe?!?

Couldn't even save one lot of photos from one camping trip on the memory stick (only a 512mb), so am going through 'my documents', saving appropriate things.

I have my f-secure details and other important documents, but can't think how on earth I get my broadband back! Any ideas? (Am with 'onetel'). Don't think I have a cd. hmmm

 

Heh,heh.

No nothing is absolutely safe when you on the Internet. You just share as few details about yourself that you happy with. Its also a good way of making acquaintances...and sometimes friendships eventually.

I have made some great friends on the internet and we have eventually met up...but it takes a long time, as you never know who you are talking to at first, do you.

I feel these forums that do dating etc, could be quite dangerous...mind you, that's already been proved hasn't it. Old men pretending to be young men on these chat forums etc. Nasty business.

I even made friends with a South Korean Student and he came over to England to learn English. That was really difficult at first pen friend by email....he could hardly speak English and my Korean was non existent. But we eventually met up..was terrific..so good things can come out of it.

Regarding your internet connection...you shouldn't loose it, if he know what he is doing. All he has to do, is take your router/connection details and then reinstall them when he re configs.:thumb:

 

Tweaky

My memory sticks are 2GB - £5.99 each from 7dayshop.com
not a bad price? and they are so easy to use.

Over time I have bought 10 and I suppose if I had thought about it I
could have bought an external hard drive for that money :rolleyes:

 

Well to be honest, over time, external hard drives have become much cheaper than they were, and much smaller and portable. Should you look around, you can even get external HD's that will copy the entire contents of your PC included the OS at the flick of a switch, for around £70. If you look at the price you can get 4GB stick's these days, cheap as chips as somebody said:thumb:

I can see a time when CD's and DVD's become obsolete...I don't think its that far in the future either.

 

Definitely think I might look out for some large storage memory sticke, this bcking up to cd malarky's taking me forever!

 

Glad you are back on course JarBax, you had some good help didn't you? It's made me think about getting an external harddrive too. I'm like you, hit buttons etc but don't really understand what it does

This site is a good one isn't it? Thanks to all the people that help us.

cheers

 

I know that people can spend a lot of money on computers, but do very little about backing up the data on them. It's a bit like driving a car around without a spare tyre and no roadside assistance insurance.

Hard Drives can develop faults over night and if you do not know of anyone who can extract your data from one that has gone funny on you (and not all of it may be recoverable), it can cost a lot....you don't just loose your pictures, music, but also all your favourites or bookmarks, all your site passwords, Word documents, spread sheets email contacts and whatever.

I feel they are well worth investing in. Ok you can back up more stuff if you have a DVD drive, but then it takes a lot of time and you could miss things.

Usually, external hard drives are larger the the HD in your puter. So it's well worth investing in one. Believe me, they are very easy to set up...you just follow the instructions and use a usb socket on your puter.:thumb:

If you have any problems in choosing one, then pass it by me, I would be only to pleased to give assistance and information.

 

....still at it (and can't get to save my edited mistakes, so did it here instead!)

Absolutely borrowers! I'd have seriously lost the will to live if I hadn't had tweaky and others for moral (and practical) support!

Thankyou all!