Computer help please

“Just wanted to let you know, I discussed all of your advice with my 24-year-old son when he got home from work last night. Since he is more hardware-savvy than I am he offered to work on this for me today, his day off (it's too hot in Omaha to do anything more than sit in front of the TV anyway, so he wasn't really sacrificing much). He took the hard drive out of the old computer & had very little trouble putting it in the new one, and copied all of my old files for me. This will save me hours of work scanning & editing, on my menus, signs, checklists & a lot of other junk I use out at my store. Thanks to all of you for your suggestions! You are the best!”

“New question for all you helpful geeks.

I have been using MSN as my ISP. Just today I got SBC DSL hooked up and working. YAY!!! There were some issues so a tech had to come to my house. He got everything working and connected, but he said he couldn't find Internet Explorer on my computer. I want to cancel my msn subscription and just rely on sbc yahoo now (save $16/month).

Right now I am using msn to access the sbc yahoo page, which is just silly. How can I get Internet Explorer?







I apologize in advance if this is a terribly stupid stupid question as I know it probably is.”

“Unless you physically removed it (not easy to do) I suspect it's still there. Look in "Programs" and see if you can find it Make a shortcut on your desktop for it.

You also may want to go into "Windows Update" to be sure it's up to snuff.”

“If it is in fact gone you could get it here.

But I would take advantage of the fact that you can't find it and get Firefox. JMO
last edited: 7/23/05 1:48:11 PM”

“Ok, my new computer is awesome, but I've never had any experience with wireless internet before. I want to increase the reception power of my integrated wireless reciever. I've heard about antennas, homemade and purchased etc. I have a wireless router in the office where I work, but I'd like to pick up the signal from farther away - right now I have to be sitting nearly right next to it.

So, is it possible to increase the reception to this thing, the wireless in integrated. I have an HP dv5020us (dv5000) Thank you for your help”

“It doesn't have to do with the reception so much as the power of the transmitter in the wireless access point. The transmitter signal can be modified in some, but not with others. Linksys, for example, will not allow you to vary the the transmitting signal without changing the open source firmware. Once you change that, Linksys will no longer support the device.”

“so uhh... I understood like half of those words. There's a wireless router in an office, I work in a building about 300 feet away from that office and would like to recieve the signal but cannot at the moment, is that possible? Also, there is another building maybe 150 feet away that I believe has a wireless signal coming from it, but it must be much weaker as I haven't been able to pick it up.”

“http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html

Maybe you need a better antenna, simer?
I love playing with projects like this.”

“I was looking at that... thought maybe it could answer my problems, how do I hook that thing up to my computer? maybe I just need to research it more.”

“You will need a 'pigtail', simer.
One end of the cable has a connector to fit the antenna and a connector to fit your computer card on the other end.”

“I don't have a computer card... not that I know of, that's my problem. I dont' get it”

“Your wireless is integrated. There is no easy fix like something you could plug into a connector on your computer. The easiest thing would be to convince your IT shop to locate a wireless access point closer to you or to increase the signal strength on the ones currently in place.”

“So, all of a sudden I can no longer access a handful of websites. Namely, ebay, thedisturbedones.com and the firefox homepage. Any Ideas why that would happen out of the blue, yesterday morning I had no trouble and yesterday afternoon all kinds of trouble. I am on a public connection offered by my employer at a YMCA camp. And just today 93x.com is no longer available when it was last night no problem.
last edited: 5/31/06 8:28:34 PM”

“I can also access the website, such as 93x.com, through the ip address”

“Sounds like a local DNS issue to me. open a command prompt (start->run and type "cmd.exe") then:

nslookup www.ebay.com

See what it gives you for an IP address or if it fails. Then, if you have the ip address do:

nslookup (ip address)

and see if it gives you a name (note it might not be THE name you think it is but that's ok).

Also try

ping -a (ip address)

...and see if it resolves the name.

If it's a DNS issue there is little you can do. Try running (from cmd.exe)

nbtstat -R

...then try again. Otherwise wait and see if it goes away tomorrow.

Look closely at the error message returned by the web browser also.

If it's not a DNS issue (these things all work OK) then it could be that these sites have been added to the block list in the browser. Tools -> Internet Options -> Security (tab) -> Restricted Sites (button) will tell you if this is the case.

Also, check the proxy server settings.

Bah! Enough! Good luck!
last edited: 5/31/06 9:54:30 PM”

“I have a problem here and need help!!!

I was recently infected with a virus that shuts my computer down randomly. I cant stay on the internet long enough to download software that will remove it before it shuts down again. What can i do?”

“Really, if it's that bad, the only option is to delete windows, which of course will erease all of your drives and everything on your computer. If you can stay on long enough, you can backup all of your necisary files onto a disk so you can put em all back on once you've reinstalled windows.

It's a big #&%!$, trust me I know, I had to do it myself, but sometimes it's all you can do. If you want I could probably walk you through the process if you don't know how to go about it.

Good luck.”

“I'm probably not the person to ask about these things - hopefully somebody knowledgeable can chime in sometime. But, if you have access to the internet on another computer (work, friend) and you know what you need to download, download it and save it to a floppy/cd and bring it to your computer. That's about all the advice I have.”

“not even long enough to run [remove the virus] the antivirus from a disk? maybe someone can send the file to you?”

“Are you getting the restart at the time you try to connect to the dialup internet, or does the computer reboot right after it starts up? My guess: you've got an incorrect setting in an app or the OS, you have MSBlaster or another virus like it, or maybe your power supply is toasted. When you have your computer repaired 4 things will save you from this happening again:

1. ALWAYS run and update automatically all Windows patches, hotfixes, and security updates. Update for the other OS's too.
2. ALWAYS - REALLY - ALWAYS run and automatically update an antivirus program, one which actively scans incoming files. There are some very good freeware antivirus programs - like clamav, for example. The key about av is active scanning and definition updates.
3. Purchase a router device, one with stateful packet inspection - this means if you don't ask for it you won't get it (well. . . 90% of the time anyway). Place it between your computer(s) and the connection device.
4. Don't go to bad neighborhoods, ones you don't know / trust in the net and pick up ... er....uhh... whatever it is ya might pick up, i.e., don't take home random attachments from people you don't know. I'd say: don't even open attachments from people you DO know, especially if the attachments are carbon copied (CC) to a whole list of friends of YOUR friend. If its business, have your co-workers set up an appropriate protocol for sending and receiving messages with you.

I hope this info helps you in the future, as I can't really do as much for ya now as I'd like to do.

”

“I agree w/ precision, likely your power supply (or a connector on the motherboard) is causing this. How do you know it's a virus?”

“Try booting into safe mode by tapping f8 during start up. most times virus wont run in safe mode. If it stays up load and run spybot S&D in safe mode. If the shut down is giving you an accompanying error message, jot it down and do a search via google (On another computer) and you should find a solution. The last time it happened to me it was necessary to rename a DLl, then install an uncorrupted copy and then reboot.”

“From years of experience, the easiest way to get rid of a virus (assuming that is your problem and its not a hardware issue like others have mentioned), is to reinstall Windows IF you have spent more than a half-hour trying to get rid of whatever you have.

Pop in your installation CD and boot from the CD. At one point it will ask you if you want to install over your current version - that is what you want to do. Do NOT allow it to format your hard drive. Once it is done, you'll still have your data intact, but you'll also have to reinstall applications like Word, etc. But even all the reinstalling is much easier and will insure a working computer when its all done. Plus if its been a while Windows probably will run faster.”

“Thanks guys, I was really stressing this one, as I use my computer for work. Luckily i was able to run some stuff last night and deleted and cleaned the file the virus was in. I updated all my anitvirus software as well, which is probably why i got it in the first place.....

Whew! what a relief!”

“embear, do you know the name of the virus that was on your computer?”

“You people know everything, so please help me. This stupid computer I am on keeps doing this weird thing. I cannot type an apostrophe while online without it opening this groovy "find" pop up at the bottom of my screen. It does it while I am in email and here on TT. I am tired of writing things out long hand. So any ideas as to how to make it go away?”

“By the way, I suspect this may have something to do with the fact I (grrrrr) am using Firefox nowadays. I want my apostrophes back dammit!”

“Firefox don't make no d'ff'rnce in the least. 'Cause I use Firefox too.”

“Have you spilled anything in your keyboard lately?”

“have you tried alt-3-9 where the 3 and the 9 are on the numeric keypad?”

“What does alt-3-9 do?

Nope, no spills. And I can type apostrophes in word and stuff.”

“pixie

You are correct it is from firefox. It is a known issue. The reason it happens is you type apostrophe when you are NOT in a textbox.

The best way to avoid this issue is to make sure you click in the textbox you want to type in before you start typing.

Also, make sure you have the latest version of Firefox.

One last thing, try this (read and copy this on paper before proceeding):

1. click this: "about:config"

2. change "accessibility.typeaheadfind.flashBar user set integer 0 " to "accessibility.typeaheadfind.flashBar default integer 1"
last edited: 12/14/06 5:42:09 PM”

“hmmmm... interesting that firefox is the culprit. I use the windows version and have had no trouble at all. I have tried in any other platform so I don't know if that would contribute.”

“Rev - it's not a bug that everybody sees. It does affect the Windows version. It's supposed to be fixed ... but ... it's a problem.”

“k... thanks for that... I wasn't challenging, just wasn't aware of it”

“Well I'll be (hey! I just typed one! See it doesn't even do it all the time. Grr!) Anyhow, I will be in the type box for instance typing an email and it will do it. I'll check my version next.”

“I didn't have the latest version. Now I do. I'll let you all know if my little problem returns.

Thanks for the help moonglo!”

“Anyone know how to fix a keyboard? It won't type. For all the smart asses - I'm in my wife's office right now. We have a dell notebook/laptop at home so it's not a wire issue. I think? Any help would be greatly appreciated.”

“if this is a desktop machine try unplugging the keyboard and then replugging it”

“Right. Where the #&%!$ is the keyboard plug?

I love being ultra stupid.”

“Is it they keyboard that comes w/ the laptop, or one you attached?”

“came with.”

“1. make sure no other keyboards or devices are attached

2. try rebooting


if that doesn't work, considering your limited computer knowledge, take it to the shop

(you could try opening it and looking for loose connections if you feel up to it if it's out of warranty)
last edited: 12/19/06 9:36:52 AM”

“POS. Anyone wanna give me a laptop.”

“Since its a notebook, have you tried plugging in an external keyboard? That will confirm Windows can accept keyboard input. If it doesn't you may need to reinstall Windows.”

“OK so now that I know its a laptop and not a desktop disregard my last post”

“I want my favorite thread checkmarks back! At some point I lost them. I went into Adblock plus (Firefox) and saw that it was in fact blocking them:

thebackpacker.com/trailtalk/images/icon_fav.gif & /icon_newfav.gif

I created exceptions, they went to "white listed" then to "normal/not blocked status", but I still can't add threads as favorites.

Any ideas? Might there be other addresses related to this function?”

“nobody?”

“Don't use Firefox, sorry.”

“IE is too slow and lets in all the ads. It is annoying as hell. Those two addresses seem to be "whitelisted" with filter exceptions but they taint showing.....”