Computers ...

[MistressValerie1]

Last night I had the fun of a full Windows reinstallation, including updating three years of patches. This is as good a time as any to mention a few bits of wisdom about dealing with computers.

Rule No. 1: Computers are unreliable
Rule No. 2: Make backups often, and test them

Rule No. 2 saved my collected 900 MB of photos and 2 GB of video clips, not to mention speeding up my reinstallation time, because I had backed up ALL of those three years of Microsoft patches plus my application files on writeable CDs.

If you haven't backed up the files that you care about, do it today! Update your backups at least monthly, and test them to make sure they work. Someday you'll be glad you did!

Love to all,

 

[Iluv2Btickled]

ok. How do I save the hundreds of bond pics that I have and all of my tickle clips? Those are the only things I want to save. all of my folders....that's what I want to save.

 

[Tanlor1]

</lurk>

Computers are fairly reliable (as reliable as any other piece of machinery). Windows is unreliable. Thus, I use Debian.

<lurk>

 

[MistressValerie1]

ok. How do I save the hundreds of bond pics that I have and all of my tickle clips? Those are the only things I want to save. all of my folders....that's what I want to save.

The fastest way is to use the built-in CD burning wizard in Windows XP. All you need to do is put a blank CD-R or CD-RW in the drive, then select the folders you want to back up. Make sure that the total size is less than the amount of room on the CD (blank CD's usually allow 680 MB for files). Under "file and folder tasks" on the left side, click "copy this folder" and then browse to the letter of your CD drive (usually D: ), then follow the automated wizard and in a few minutes, you should have a backup CD 🙂

I agree, Tanlor, that Windows is quite the piece of junk, lol, but unfortunately I can't find an alternative OS on a consumer laptop. Even Apple isn't available locally, though I'd consider one if they were less expensive.

 

[Celtic_Emperor]

Very good advice Val. Many people are not computer savvy or simply do not know what their computer can do and have options they aren't aware of to recover and/or prevent unfortunate circumstances and perminent damage or losses.

If people are going to use their computers to store important data/etc. they should take precautionary methods such as this. They'll be glad they did.

 

[nessonite1]

I may be a bit overly cautious but when I backup things, especially digital photos, I make double copies of the cds. You never know when a CD will break, scratch, or just not burn right. CDs are cheap and my data is not.

 

[Faramir]

I wish I woulda bought a Mac lappy....but then, look at the price of one of those as opposed to a Windows unit. THEN....look at the prices of software for Macs. the choice for me was obvious, albeit not what I really wanted. Windows is better than nada...!!!

 

[quesecotil1]

Personally I'd recommend an external hard drive for those of you who just want to back up a lot of data with minimal fuss. You can pick them up for fairly decent prices now and all it takes is one USB slot. I've personally got something I can't remember the name of, let's call it a 'magic box', which allows me to place any internal device mountable on the case (hard drive, CD/DVD-Rom/RW, Zip drive, etc) inside of it and makes it external. I currently have an 80 GB hard drive in mine which has made formatting no problem at all.

I believe the biggest problem with windows is the fact that most of the testing is done by the users of the product. They get it working and then release it. Not long down the line bugs pop up and Microsoft fix them with a patch, shortly after more bugs pop up, usually to do with the last patch, and the whole thing becomes a bit like whack-a-mole.

 

[tickle_brat]

Another possibility is to buy storage space at a reliable online site. I learned this the hard way when a burglar broke into my home a few years ago and took my computer, all CD's and DVD's and every peripheal in sight.

 

[MistressValerie1]

I wish I woulda bought a Mac lappy....but then, look at the price of one of those as opposed to a Windows unit. THEN....look at the prices of software for Macs. the choice for me was obvious, albeit not what I really wanted. Windows is better than nada...!!!

That's exactly how it was for me too ... a Mac with the same features would have cost me $400 more and would have had to be shipped, not to mention the lack of inexpensive software. Macs are far more reliable as a rule, but Windows is better than nothing 🙂

 

[MistressValerie1]

Another possibility is to buy storage space at a reliable online site. I learned this the hard way when a burglar broke into my home a few years ago and took my computer, all CD's and DVD's and every peripheal in sight.

If I had a high-speed connection, I would definitely do that. For those who back up on removable media, it's a good idea to keep at least one recent full backup CD set stored away from the computer, preferably in a safe-deposit box -- I'm glad you reminded me about that 🙂

 

[girls_tickle_me1]

For a more economical, safer and versatile storage solution for backing up data, I would say invest in an internal DVD burner for a tower computer and burn your files to DVD+R's. There is a big demand in DVD burners nowadays so that translates into being able to go to places like Best Buy, Circuit City or CompUSA and buying an internal IDE doubleside multiformat DVD burner for around $60. Burn data to a +R disc with a closed (no multisession) session to ensure max readability in other people's DVD ROM drives. Burn dvd video to a -R disc with a closed session to ensure max playability with many standard dvd players. DVD and CD discs generally have a "forever good" shelf life over a hard drive any day provided the disc itself does not get damaged. Hard drives, no matter how expensive or good brand name, will eventually go bad someday from all the writing and erasing back and forth on the physical disk (platter) not to mention be susceptible to infection from virus, spyware and other nasties. Once stuff is burned to an optical disc (CD or DVD) with a closed session, it can not be infected by something or erased by user error or a virus instruction. Just scan the data files first to make sure they are not infected when burned in the first place!

 

[durandalai1]

indeed

Mac Powerbook here, yes this is a dream machine. I've used Macs forever and going on the PC i built a few years back is just humorous now because i can't go 10 seconds without realizing how crappy windows is. As far as the cost of Apple iBooks/Powerbooks, the price is always gonna be higher (but its worth it trust me) With the new smaller macs now you can pick up a decent desktop unit for between $500-900 and still get a decent end mac with a G4 processor and some burn capability. G4s are still rivalling Athlon and Pentium processors, G5 blows them out of the water. My laptop is a 1.5ghz G4 with 2gb SDDR2700 RAM and its like lightning for most stuff.


<D-AI>

 

[Duke Diablo]

I, for one thing, do not fear data loss. Each and every file on my comp(except for the tickling related ones) is backed up twice, and at least one of my friends has a copy.

As for windows... I shall only say that the best OS I have ever worked in is MS-DOS. I still miss those days. I have worked in DOS, and it had amazing speed compared to windows at one time. And all because it had a more powerfull base. I mean, if (only) DOS was remade, and made to work with more powerfull comps, I think that everything would go much faster.

 

[Kougaiji-sama]

sadly enough i have found an alternate way to back up my tickle media... i just bought an iPod and i just copy them into that. it has 40GB so it has plenty of extra space for the files i want. i cant really do much else since is is a family computer... too bad, but my way works fairly well i think

 

[joham1]

As a question to the people who weighed up a Mac vs a PC - I'll agree that the Mac hardware is generally a bit more expensive (although to be fair to Apple, you get a lot of bang for your buck. There's no comparing it to a POS Dell with the cheapest possible parts and integrated graphics etc) but generally, the hardware stacks up like for like.

The software thing has me puzzled though. What software is more expensive on the Mac? Is it just because you already have Windows versions of things?

Mac OS X comes with the machine, and includes a mail app, a browser, a movie editing program, DVD maker, CD burning software, iTunes, photo software (including a pretty passable editing app called Graphic Converter that works as a sort of "photoshop lite"). It also has word processing, spreadsheet ability and so on.

The Adobe apps cost the same for Mac or PC, and Adobe will trade you a Mac copy for a Windows copy if you send them the CD back.

I'll admit the cost of Office might be a bit much for some, and as far as I know, Microsoft doesn't do a trade in program for Windows versions swapped for the Mac version. The apple software that comes free with the computer can read and write most Word files though (it struggles with complex ones, but then so do different versions of MS Office itself).

As for the backup thing: I use DVD-Rs for incremental backups of my data from my Powerbook (15" 1.5GHz) and every so often I will do a full image to an external drive. This external drive is then backed up onto AIT tape.

 

[telemision]

Anyone know anything about RAID?

That is quite handy as if your hdd fails, if set up correctly it will image off of the second hdd.

 

[girls_tickle_me1]

In the endless debate of Windows vs Mac OS and Apple vs PC, I have learned to settle the war with an increasing popular European alternative called Linux. I use Fedora 3 Linux on a Pentium 3 box which is a dedicated Emule download only pc on my home ethernet network. Being Linux, I do not need to worry about the viruses, spyware and other nasties that infect Windows PC's. There are emulators that allow me to install popular Windows applications like Acrobat and Photoshop and process tasks a lot quicker and more reliably than a Windows PC. I have changed to using primarily open source applications on my main Windows XP computer such as OpenOffice, GIMP, Mozilla, Thunderbird and Firefox to name just a few. I have put IE on lockdown to plug a good number of Windows security leaks and tweaked XP to my own preferences. Granted that many of you out there do not have the practical experience and work in the Computer & IT field but I would recommend for you to take the time to learn and consider Linux and Open Source stuff as viable alternatives to MicroSHAFT WinBLOWS.

 

[AphxA1]

whats wrong with windooze?hahah

zip disks are the way to go. A bit pricey, but one disk holds alot of files.

 

[quesecotil1]

I don't know about RAID being a viable solution to your average Joe. I think just the one extra hard drive would do, though it's true that the hard drives do tend to a-splode if used constantly. I invested in a DVD writer drive a little while ago so I can make backups of my animated media and not clutter up my external hard drive which I use for program/important file backups. Plus then I can watch the stuff I burn to DVD on my non-computer DVD player.

As for Linux, it really depends which version you use. Allegedly it's actually less safe than Windows but hardly any hackers bother trying to learn how to get in because of the extreme low percentage of people using it. I may try Linux soon if I get another rig set up.

I really do urge people, especially those whose computers are infected with spyware, to give firefox/mozilla a try. It's really quite spiffy and you can even import all of your IE history, favourites and cache files.

Best stop. Time for work.

 

[nessonite1]

Said it before and I'll say it again. www.opera.com
😛

 

[MistressValerie1]

I've been using Firefox for three months, and I've come to love it. This browser allows active scripting, but with a high degree of safety, unlike Internet Explorer. It's free, customisable, and available in specialised versions including a no-installer variety which I use 🙂 http://www.mozilla.org/

Opera is similar to Firefox, from what I've heard, though it isn't free unless one wants an ad-supported version.

A very specialised browser, Off by One, has no support for active scripting or flash and was specifically designed for viewing untrusted sites. The product is a standalone .exe that requires no installation, free at http://www.offbyone.com/

Happy computing,

P.S., my 'puter crashed while I was posting this, just 3 days after my reformat, so if you don't see me for a while, you'll know why 🙁

 

[Cbarton]

speaking fo Firefox...I have noticed at times when on here that after about 30 minutes or so, when I try to read a posting, I seem to get programming script instead of the screen. It only happens with Firefox, not IE. Has anyone else had this occur?

 

[MistressValerie1]

speaking fo Firefox...I have noticed at times when on here that after about 30 minutes or so, when I try to read a posting, I seem to get programming script instead of the screen. It only happens with Firefox, not IE. Has anyone else had this occur?

I have never had that happen to me here, but I have heard of it happening with Firefox at websites that use non-compliant HTML coding. I suggest you have a look around the Firefox support forums, at http://forums.mozillazine.org/index.php?c=4

 

[Celtic_Emperor]

I just started using FireFox right now, and pages all over the internet load alot faster than they did with IE, and it allows me to keep my configurations, cookies, favorites, etc. Thats what I really liked about it, and not having to clear that information or lose it with the switch. All this and attachments that wouldn't show up before here are. Any and all problems seem to have been solved. With the faster speed of Firefox, the DSL connection I'm switching to next week should make page loading even faster.

But I'll keep an eye out on it hawkeye, and see if that error happens to me too. Its been less than 30 minutes for me so far (that I've had Firefox). Maybe this is too good to be true.