STUPID COMPUTER

Me

[GYPSY286]

My stupid computer is acting up again. Does not shut down properly. Then, when I turn it back on again, I get the standard message that because the computer was not shut down properly, the machine will scan for errors, yada, yada, yada. Also, I have my homepage set for FR. When I click on the internet (dsl), I get PAGE CANNOT BE FOUND. I go into internet options and instead of www.freerepublic.com as my homepage, it lists a bunch of numbers. I type in www.freerepublic.com, click apply, and it works. I shut the machine off, next time I use it, I get the same numbers and page not found. Any help would be appreciated.

[EggsAckley]

My old IBM was doing that very thing. I hated the shut down/start up stuff.

In order to transfer data to my new Vaio, my geek had to go through the old hard drive and found seven viruses in it. I think you may have a virus.

[contessa machiaveli]

the same thing is happening to my PC. there was an article in newsday (yesterday)that addressed this problem. in addition to the numbers which are separated by % signs there are certain sites that are impossible to navigate....the PC slows down and it's impossible to scroll. one of the prior posts suggested getting one of these blockers. i've tried deleting unnecessary files...hasn't helped.
it's maddening.

[martin_fierro]

my geek had to go through the old hard drive and found seven viruses

Eggsie!! You compute NASTY! <|:)~

[metalboy]

Any chance you got Windoze XP with it hooked up to the internet constantly, as in cable modem? If so, welcome to hell. Expect your comp to be turned inside out upside down backwards forwards sideways because your comp no longer belongs to you. It`s now a Microsoft slave and Microsoft will eat the guts of your comp alive and upload so much stuff into it that it will explode like a mini nuke. I got XP a few months ago and one month was enough. It was like buying a car and Chevrolet turning your car into Christine.."Wow, look at that! I want to drive to the ballgame, but Christine is taking me to France! Wow! Hey stop..stop stop stop stop stop!"

[Calvin Locke]

OBJ:

A blonde goes looking to do odd jobs.

Knocks on a door, and the guy says, "Well, I was getting ready to paint the porch, how much are you charging?" She tell him twenty bucks.
He gives her two cans of paint, etc. He goes back in, and the wife berates him for the $20, "Did she see how far the porch
wraps around the house?" "Don't worry about it", he replies.

The blonde knocks on the door, saying she finished and she put two coats on. The guy looks at the unpainted porch and
looks at the blonde and goes to speak, but the blonde interrupts, saying "By the way mister, its not a Porsche, its a BMW."

[kitkat]

***I get the standard message that because the computer was not shut down properly, the machine will scan for errors, yada, yada, yada.***

Thanks for the reminder of the dreaded must scan bit. One more reason to love my Mac.

[Calvin Locke]

Sounds like the gub'mint. Bill Gates learned well.

[Incorrigible]

There is nothing factual about your post.

[Socratic]

This may not fix anything, but you may want to check it out. Go to "My Computer" then to "Dial-up Networking." Check to see that there is only one dial-up connection there. If there is a dial-up connection which you didn't have in the past, delete it. I ran into this in the past and assume that some spyware had altered my settings.

[Interesting Times]

This may not fix anything, but you may want to check it out. Go to "My Computer" then to "Dial-up Networking." Check to see that there is only one dial-up connection there. If there is a dial-up connection which you didn't have in the past, delete it. I ran into this in the past and assume that some spyware had altered my settings.

There is a second dial-up connection, called d00dZrOOl, but I'm pretty sure that one was always there.

[Socratic]

"called d00dZrOOl"

LOL. I'm sure you know I had meant to post to Gypsy, but if I may be so bold, are you SURE that d00dZrOOl was your original dial-up connection?

[concerned about politics]

Do you have a virus scanner?
This one is a free download.
Schedual a nightly scan. That way, your computer is scanned every night for you.
A while back, when Napster was big, we downloaded music. Just reciently, the scanner found a virus dropped into our music down load program. We hadn't used it for a long time! It was a new drop in an old unused program.
Pretty sneaky!

[metalboy]

Well, you should take a look at my registry. There ain`t enough paper in this world to print it out. I`m on a friends XP right now with cable modem and he might as well be on a dial up. Every 20 minutes he gets the eggtimer icon even though no programs are booting. Why? Because stuff is being uploaded whether or not you want it uploaded. 26.7 Gigs of hard drive but only 6 gigs of free space. He`s got dreamweaver, photoshop and a Star wars game on it. That`s it. Whats taking up the rest?

[Interesting Times]

LOL. I'm sure you know I had meant to post to Gypsy, but if I may be so bold, are you SURE that d00dZrOOl was your original dial-up connection?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure.

Wow, how are you making my screen blink and flash like that?

[Socratic]

"Wow, how are you making my screen blink and flash like that?"

All I can say is, "Read my tag line." After that, you're on your own!

[Incorrigible]

Dreamweaver can take up to 800MB of disk space not including end user files which can be huge.

Photoshop also need about 150MB of disk space before user files, which again, can be huge.

You did not state how much RAM the computer in question has.  Photoshop has a known issue in that if there is 128MB or less of RAM, it will allocate disk space ("scratch space") when creating a new image in anticipation for that new image.  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to deallocate that space.  There are ways to fix this.  Look here for more info: http://www.aztectraining.com/hints_tips/pshop_hints_mem.htm

Also, I'm sure the Star Wars game loads lots of image data onto the disk as well.  Thus, I'm not surprised the 26GB disk is running out of space.

As to the hour glass, it's probably due to Windows looking for free space to allocate it's own virtual memory.  You can learn a lot about what's on your disk using Windows XP's disk management facilities.  Take a look here:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/proddocs/snap_defrag.asp

From here you can delete unneeded files and defragment your drive.

Lastly, Microsoft doesn't send executable files to your computer for sinister purposes.  If you have the Windows Alert system running (which I highly recommend you do), you can configure it to make you aware of patches and download them manually, download the patches while your machine is not being used and then install the patch manually, or download and install the patch automatically.  It's not a big deal on an end user machine.

Good luck, and please keep in mind that there is more likely a simple reason for computer problems and conjecture on corporate shenanigans is counter productive.

[Incorrigible]

Let me also add that if the computer is connected to the Internet directly, you are asking to be probed.

I recommend inexpensive, home user oriented, hardware based firewalls from Linksys, D-Link or others to but inbetween your computer and the internet.  Usually these include other ports or even wireless access points so you can link several computers to the internet through one connection.

Short of that, download Zone Alarm, the free software based firewall from Zone Labs (http://www.ZoneLabs.com) and that will give you a very good indication of how often your computer is under attack.

[metalboy]

Thanks!! I didn`t know about all that. Yeah, the memory is small only 256k which I heard is pretty basic for today. Thanks for the links, I`m checking it out now. I flipped when I saw all these files on my comp under these unknown folders but now that I think about it, it was probably all cache stuff. On the other hand, it still could have been the evil Microsoft empire. Remember, when Clinton was Prez Janet Reno went after Microsoft because obviously she saw the pure evil. I mean why would they pretty much ignore terrorism and go after the evil microsoft if the threat wasn`t greater? (ha ha)

[GYPSY286]

Wow - this is the first time I've been able to get back on the computer and I am amazed at how quickly all of you responded. Thanks to all. I am not a computer guru so I'll see what I can do. Thanks again.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Your computer must too old. I think a GYPSY486 or GYPSYPENTIUM might work better. :)