Comments on: A new toy (from hell)

By: petite

petite — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 13:16:01 +0000

I. Would. Love. To.

But I voided the warranty on my new one by putting extra memory in as soon as I bought it. So it can’t go back to the shop.

I’ve just had the IT guy at work clean off the nasty stuff (which even his super spyware software was unable to remove) by reinstalling everything back to how it was when it left the factory and patching XP, intalling antivirus etc from behind the saftey of the work firewall.

He’s telling me to get a little hardware firewall thingy. And he told me to stop downloading music on peer to peer. Goddamit. What are computers for if not for that?

By: Chaz

Chaz — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 12:07:04 +0000

Re Doug’s comment and that above it. Mac mini at €499, including free delivery so no spotty chavs either. Just plug into your old monitor and keyboard, making it green as well. Just a bit bigger than a small stack of CDs. Oh yes and still no viruses.

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 17:16:00 +0000

What, only one person has implored petite to get a Mac?

Let me be number two. Bought in Germany, spoke fluent English in the OS from day one with just one change to a control panel. In fact, the only software that insists on still speaking German is Microsoft Office. (And I suspect that’s because I haven’t upgraded Office since ’98, when it was already too full of features I never used.) Of course the machine speaks fluent iPod, too.

And when the box suddenly quit speaking to the screen? Fixed for free even though it was well out of warranty.

No really, how many hours of fighting malware do you have to spend before you’ve made up the price difference?

By: Neepster

Neepster — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 23:28:59 +0000

Some advice on this sorta stuff which probably everone here knows anyway, but…

When you get a new PC:
A) Try to download and install ZoneAlarm prior to connecting it to the net (in other words, download ZA on another PC and install it on your new one)
B) If this is not possible, turn on the WinXP firewall BEFORE you connect to the net (it is off by default on the base install and SP1).
C) Do not use IE. Ever. Use Firefox or Opera or something else. Just do not ever use IE.
D) Once you have a firewall, install the WinXP service packs ASAP.

I put together a list of useful free software (mostly GPL and no spyware that I know of) to install on your PC on my blog.

By: Chameleon

Chameleon — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 19:51:26 +0000

Another message from the Hungarian:
Petite,
First of all I have to point out that at the present juncture (desktop) computers are without exception terribly loud. This includes Dell computers. If you would like a really quiet computer I recommend that you do the following:
1. You need to find a computer specialist who knows what he is doing and is able to put together a machine from components according to specification.
2. You need to get him to put together a computer with the following parts:
A. A good quality motherboard (ASUS, Gigabyte, Abit, MSI [Slot A]).
B. A cheap AMD Sempron processor (2200+ 2300+ or if you prefer 2400+ all of which are more than enough).
C. A good quality processor cooler (Zalman, or Spire-FalconRock IV)
D. A 512 MB DDR RAM
E. A 160GB (IBM-Hitachi) hard drive with 8MB Cache
F. A DVD player and a DVD recorder.
G. A Radeon graphics card 9200-9250 without a fan.
H. An Antec case, an antec or a zalman low noise power supply.
Keyboard, mouse and any other accessories you might need. An English-language version of M$ Windows XP SP2 which needs to be installed.
Excluding the monitor, but including putting it together and the installation it ought to set you back no more than 1000 Euros, and might well cost a bit less. It will be so quiet that you will need to remove one side of the box to be able to hear that it’s switched on and working. :smile:

By: petite

petite — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 18:03:22 +0000

lawrence – I agree. My last ‘puter was a dell and it has been lovely. And very quiet.

The hair I have torn out in chunks is worth more than a saving of a couple of hundred euros….

By: Nplugd

Nplugd — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 17:35:58 +0000

you don’t have to launch IE to get spyware attacks and popups from the anti-spyware progs.

Fair point, but OTHO, one has yet to struggle with any kind of browser hijacker on Firefox…

By: Lawrence

Lawrence — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 16:24:35 +0000

Parkin – my approach is to treat buying a computer the same exact way as I would when it comes to buying a major household appliance (since they’re essentially equivalent in terms of price and the amount of use they get.)

If you shift your focus from price to brand reliabilty, strength of their warranty, and ease of repair, what you’ll gain in peace of mind will almost always outweigh anything you would have saved in price.

By: Parkin Pig

Parkin Pig — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 15:30:39 +0000

Frightening-This post together with the last comment from Lawrence (I know he’s only trying to help but he’s succeeded in mystifying me at least) have knocked on the head any idea I had of being tech-smart and saving lots of cash by buying that same Aspire thingy I’d been lusting after at Surcouf, sob, sob.

By: Lawrence

Lawrence — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 15:03:52 +0000

It’s interesting that nearly everyone I know personally that lives in France equates getting computer help there with getting a root canal.

I’m really starting to get convinced that anyone who could provide reliable, English-language computer help (and who has a grasp on American expectations of customer service) could make a business of it in Paris.

*puts on computer consultant hat*

Hopefully, this will help you to avoid any unnecessary rebuilding of your machine:

Click on:

Start => All Programs => Accessories => System Tools

In System Tools, you ought to see an icon called System Restore – click it.

On the right-hand side you’ll see two radio buttons – one to restore your computer from an earlier time and the other to create a restore point. Make sure the restore choice is selected and then click on Next.

At this point you’ll see a calendar and some of the days will be in bold. (The bolded days indicate that your computer had created at least one restore point that day.)

Select the newest day that has a restore point, and in the both on the right-hand side you’ll see a listing of the restore point(s) that were created that day. Choose the newest one, the click Next.

The next screen asks you to confirm the selection by clicking Next, and then the machine will reboot on its own and do its thing.

If the hijacker comes back following the restore, then follow the same procedure as above but choose the restore point previous to the one that was just restore. Rinse and repeat until you find the one that was created prior to the hijacker’s installation.

As a bit of background, System Restore is something new in Windows XP and is a really useful tool to help avoid having to rebuild a machine unnecessarily. Whenever a piece of software is installed either on purpose, or covertly in the case of a hijacker, the machine will create a System Restore point that will allow you to quickly back out the change without too much of a headache.

I hope this helps.