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Tech/Computer advice from me

in the end..there is the obvious: the priority remains time to market. until writing and designing better code becomes the priority (i.e., baking security in).....security will continue to remain a dream. there are stil ltoo many stupid coding mistakes made...all the time...to think otherwise. also....there's a HUGE reservoir of library code out there that hangs around for a long time that no one can comprehensively assess......given the nature of dynamic run-time environments......it's just gonna happen. be careful where you host the crown jewells. I keep the really important stuff on an isolated machine that does not have external connections. you still have a problem with soe key processes like on-ine banking....but at least you can physically reduce the problem space to theft of the machine.
 
yes. AV products are for the 1% of the situations. they're not a front-line defense anymore.

patching, keeping your regular user account and your administrative rights account separate, and knowing what you're giving admin rights to (installing software for example) are the keys.
 
So you want to buy a computer? AWESOME!
Last update 8/2/2012

So you’re going to get a new computer, eh? Awesome! Buying new stuff is a lot of fun. The idea behind this post is to hopefully give you a good idea of what you should get, what certain terms mean, and when to know you’re getting snowed by a salesman.
If you’ve ever gone into a store looking for a computer and had a salesman go 'But it’s got 8 GIG! This is the one you need’ and not had any idea what he is talking about – then this thread is for you.

Patience is a Virtue
The biggest mistake I see people make on a regular basis is deciding today that they need a (new) computer, then going out this weekend and buying one. As a consumer the most valuable tool you can have is time and patience – this applies to pretty much any product you are buying: cars, houses, computers, blenders, whatever you want. Being able to say 'eh, I’ll wait for a better deal’ is the ultimate upper hand when working with a salesman or vendor.

To give you a good idea, I really needed a good laptop for my wife. I waited 6 months before I found what I wanted. I found it at 12:30 AM randomly when my boss sent me a link when he was up all night doing some maintenance and was wasting time waiting on something. It was a $1500 laptop on sale for just about $700. I added a case for 30$, so for $730 I got a $1500 laptop with a case. That’s about the best deal I’ve ever gotten on a new product (read: not refurbished/used). It also took me 6 months to find it. Those deals exist; it’s a matter of waiting.

Most of my friends/relatives don’t listen to me and don’t get a good deal. How good of a deal you get is going depend on how long you’re willing to wait and how often/much you’re willing to search and price compare.

What do you need it to do?
This is a part where a lot of people stumble. They’re quick to ask me what computer they should get, and when I ask this question they look at me puzzled as if to ask, “You mean there isn’t just one computer that is the ultimate computer to buy at any given time?”

No, there is not just one. The best computer for you to buy is the one that does what you need it to do without being overpriced. That’s my mentality towards most products. You not need a $2500 mac book pro loaded up with video editing software if you’re a 60 year old grandma who just wants to check email and search for coupons, therefore that’s not the best computer for you to get.

Think about what you want it to do, and then use some logic to determine what you’ll need. Are you going to be doing a lot of video work, or scientific work that would benefit from using a GPU to crunch numbers? Then you probably want a nVIDIA quadro card on the computer. If you’re going to be playing video games then you probably want a nVIDIA GeForce. If all of that sounds crazy intense to you then you probably don’t need to pay for any graphics card :)

We’ll get into the specifics later in the post, but keep that going in the back of your mind while we continue on.


Apple vs Microsoft vs Linux distros
Let’s knock the easy one out of the way first – linux distros. If you’re looking at buying a computer with a linux distro on it then the only part of this thread that might even be helpful is the hardware vendors and specs section; although I suspect you know as much as I do in both areas.

Apple vs Microsoft – oh yes, the ultimate computer debate. I’m going to try my hardest to give you the most objective advice here.

First off – anyone who says one is better than the other is someone you’re best off not paying attention to. There are vicious zealots on both sides of the aisle. Be wary of them, their stupid is bound to rub off on you if you get into a conversation with them about their favorite product. I’m serious. I’ve watched people completely contradict themselves 6 months down the road because they’re just blind zealots who changed sides.

Let’s talk about apple first since they’re probably the more interesting one to discuss.

Apple
Apple is many things – one thing they are not is a company that makes crappy stuff. Sure, they miss the mark sometimes, but by and large they make quality products. There used to be an issue with things not working on apple – hence it being a hard platform to justify purchasing; this is no longer the case. You can get pretty much everything on apple that you’ll need. It is always a good idea to double check with any specific software you need to use to see if it works on apple before making the switch.

Some things to note about Apple:
First off, their products are overpriced. That doesn’t mean they’re bad, it means you’re paying a premium to own hardware that apple put together for you. You can buy the exact same hardware for cheaper from any other vendor – but you wont be able to get Apple’s OSX operating system on there (if you’re capable of that then PM a guide all the ones I’ve tried failed miserably :\ ) Just don’t kid yourself – you’re going to pay more for the same hardware, and you’re going to pay for service pack updates (although there are rumors that Microsoft is moving to a similar model… we’ll see).

Second off, Apple products have a workflow. Meaning to accomplish a task, you need to do it the way Apple designed it to be done. This is the opposite of pretty much every other Operating System out there – Apple’s way is the only way. There are good things about this – it has less chance to break since it’s designed to be done one way, also you’re likely to find good help on it since there isn’t any other way to do it. There are also bad things about this – if Apple picked a back-ass-wards way of doing it then guess what, you’re going to have to do it the back-ass-wards way :( . As a Computer Science major who works in as a Sys Admin, I find most of the ways Apple picked to do things back-ass-wards :( But you may not.

This is the part that I hate about Apple – they lock you into their workflow. This is where people start going 'oh but it’s so intuitive’ but you really have to ask yourself – Do you think it is intuitive because they found an intuitive way, or do you think it is intuitive because they told you it was intuitive and gave you no other way?
Think about that for a few minutes…

Third, their products work together really well. You’re likely to have an easier time with a mac book pro, iphone 4s, apple airport router, apple tv, I’m sure they make a printer too, ipad, and whatever else and hooking them all up together. This shouldn’t surprise you – they’re designed by the same company, they should work together… But you’re going to pay a premium on every single item You can easily wind up doubling or tripling the cost of your setup because you went with the most expensive item at every step by buying Apple.

Fourth – Apple build their accessories to be proprietary. You cannot just go to the store and buy an adapter – you’ll have to buy an Apple adapter. And yes, it’s going to cost you much more than a regular adapter, but the regular ones wont fit :/.

Fifth, and finally – there’s a reason their zealot users thump their chests with slogans like 'It Just Works’. Apple has a reputation (which, in my opinion, is not deserved) of 'working better’ or 'more often’ or 'without errors’ than their PC counterparts. But there’s a little secrete as to why this is, and it actually paints Apple kind of crappy if you really understand it. Apple has a lock on the hardware setups for all of their devices – your choices are very limited (as in almost non-existent) when purchasing their products. Don’t want an Intel i series processor in your new computer? Then Apple is out of the question because they don’t make a computer without that processor. I can go on and on with the hardware… The bottom line is this – Apple designs their operating system to work with a very, very small subset of hardware pieces compared to what is out there. Therefore they have fewer problems – they’re designed specifically to run on these hardware combinations.
Microsoft, conversely, runs on (pretty much) infinitely many combinations of hardware pieces – the number of potential conflicts and problems is compounded by this. This is why Microsoft OS’s have a bit of a more difficult time than Apple (more on this later), but at the end of the day Apple devices have problems too… Don’t be sold by the idea that Apple products are perfect. They’re not. And every time you start ranting about them like a zealot (on either side) there’s a good chance someone in the room, who knows more than you about computers, is laughing at you. Whether that matters to you or not is up to you…


Microsoft
Microsoft is actually getting ready to release windows 8. It is windows 7 with a bunch of tablet features added to it. If you aren’t buying a tablet there’s not much of a reason to wait – and there’s not much a reason to upgrade. I will because I get it for free due to my job, but I wouldn’t pay to upgrade – at least not yet. That said if your compute comes with Windows 8 there’s no reason to panic or downgrade. Just get used to the differences, you’ll be happy you did (I think the new start menu is kind of neat). Windows 8 will also allow you to run apps (like your phone) and if you have a windows phone you can sync those apps which is neat.

Microsoft has done a lot to improve its user interface thanks to Apple and its success in the consumer market. I don’t really have much to say about Microsoft, I imagine most of you are familiar with it. Windows 7 is pretty solid, so don’t be afraid of it.

There was a big debacle, called Windows Vista. The problem had two causes. The first being that Microsoft released an OS that wasn’t quite ready – get used to it, it seems to be the model for software development these days :(. Second, the hardware vendors bullied Microsoft (irony++) into lowering the hardware requirements 'certifying’ machines to be 'vista capable’ even though they shouldn’t have been. The two combined to a failed operating system. Windows 7 is nothing like Windows Vista because both issues were addressed. I’m hoping Microsoft has learned their lesson and neither ever happens again.

Conclusion:
Get the OS that does what you want it to do without breaking the bank. I can build a windows laptop that will run circles around the top of the line mac book pro, for significantly less cost. I’ll repeat: buy what makes the most sense for you without breaking the bank. Stay away from the zealots; they are idiots, and you don’t want to associate with idiots, right?

Go to the Apple store and play with a mac. They want you to, thats how they sell them! Don't be afraid to spend an hour or two there. Check it out before you decide you do/don't want one. Make sure it will do what you want. Make sure the price makes sense for you.

The rest of this is PC/Microsoft oriented because… well… you don’t really have many options if you go with Apple.

PC Vendors
So you have a choice – go with a premade computer or build one yourself. When it comes to laptops the later isn’t really an option… but for desktops it is. It used to be true that you’ll get much more for less by buying the pieces and building it yourself – this is no longer the case. Save yourself the time and a possible headache and get one that’s already built, and customize the options you want. You’ll also avoid issues of mismatching hardware and creating problems.

There is an exception to the above paragraph – if you’re trying to build a ridiculously decked out desktop for some hard core stuff then you’re going to be much better off building it yourself. They put a premium on those products, much like Apple products, and you can avoid that premium if you build it yourself. Just make sure all the hardware you buy is compatible; not just plug wise, but spec wise. If you buy the best processor and a motherboard with an 800 MHz FSB you’re going to be sorely disappointed (and stupid). (if you don’t know what 800 MHz FSB means then have someone else who does spec out your computer :) )

There are tiers in the vendors. The tiers are broken apart based on quality, reliability, and customer support. Before we get into the specifics let’s be clear on one thing – most people talk about one being better than the other. Outside of the tiers, they’re all equal. People are basing this stuff on their experiences. I’m an HP person – I despise Dell and have had nothing but problems with them (from consumer to business to server grade, all the way down the line), but I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with HP. And for every person like me you can find one that can say the opposite – they love dell and despise HP. It’s all about experiences.

Each Vendor then has tiers of products – consumer and business line. The business line is typically more expensive (not by much, but a little) and (shocker) typically more reliable. The other part is most of them separate their Business Line vs Consumer Line support teams…. The business line is always better than the consumer line. That extra 100/200/300 dollars means a bit better quality hardware and a bit more intelligent person on the other end of the phone when you call with a problem – whether it’s worth it to you is your decision. I don’t buy consumer end products though; take it for what it’s worth.

So, let’s get to my subjective listing of vendors.
Tier 1: Dell, HP, Sony, and Lenovo.
Dell and HP are interchangeable, but if you want my opinion HP is better (see above, lol). Sony makes nice stuff, but they come with a premium that is hard to justify. Sony makes an awesome 13 and 14 inch laptop which is perfect for air plane travel, you may want to check those out if that is a concern for you. They used to be the only ones who made those.
Lenovo is only in this category because their PC line is the one they bought from IBM – The thinkpad line – and that line is absolutely amazingly built. Their prices are (for the most part) on the Tier2 level, which is kind of nice.

Tier 2: Acer, Asus, Toshiba, Gateway, MSI, and pretty much everyone else.

That’s not to suggest you cannot get a good Tier2 product – you can! You just need to be aware of what you’re getting – a product line that hasn’t been around very long, at least not long enough to earn a reputation that’s deserving of being in the tier 1 and commanding the tier 1 prices. Just breaking it down for you, it works the same way with cars :)

Hardware Vendors
There used to be a very competitive market in the hardware field. It was Intel vs AMD for processors, and ATI vs nVIDIA for graphics cards.

To be clear – I’ve gone back and forth over the last decade and a half, as have the companies. They used to be so competitive that the 'best’ one to buy switched ever 6-10 months. Unfortunately that has changed :(
AMD bought ATI and that seems to have been the start of AMD’s downward slide. AMD processors are now garbage, and their bulldozer architecture that was supposed to put them back out in front of Intel for the first time in like 5 years was a complete and utter failure - http://arstechnica.com/business/201...benchmarks-are-here-and-theyre-a-catastrophe/
They’ve since announced they’re backing off the desktop/server processor line and focusing on mobile/ARM processors. So… be wary of any laptop/desktop with an AMD processor.
ATI has followed a similar path since being acquired by AMD (shocker, eh?). Their drivers are getting worse and worse, and the quality of their cards are following suite. Be wary of computers with AMD graphics cards.

Intel processors (the I series) are the best bet. I3’s are hard to recommend – they’re good on battery life for laptops, but they’re pretty crappy. If battery life is a concern get an i5 – I have an elite book with an i5 and get 3 hours with a standard battery. If battery life isn’t a problem, and raw horsepower is, go with the i7.
I definitely recommend nVidia cards for anyone who needs a graphics card – GeForce for video games and other consumer-oriented stuff, and quadro’s for workstations (3D artists, video editors, game designers, and scientists who need the GPU computation).

When it comes to any other piece of hardware it starts getting convoluted. There are a lot of manufacturers all down the line. Look up individual reviews where you can. Crucial is the memory manufacturer I recommend the most if you’re looking for memory.

Specs to pay attention to
The Gigs! It has to have lots of gigs!

The specs you should currently look at:
Processor – this is the most important. See above about intel – get an i5 or i7 or you’re going to be disappointed. This is where computations are done – it is important. The GHz rating is how many operations per second the processor can do. Hertz, in general, means 'per second. So 1 GHz is 1 billion operations per sec (this isn't exact, but it's close enough for most.) So the higher the GHz the more 'powerful' it can be. Most come between 2.2-2.8. At this point I doubt the typical consumer is going to notice much of a difference.

Memory – Also called RAM (random access memory). This is where the computer temporarily loads programs/data so that it can manipulate it. The hard drive is for permanent, long term storage – memory/RAM is for manipulation and use. The more memory you have the more programs/data you can load into it. Memory is quick and important. But… memory is cheap and easy to upgrade. Don’t be sold on paying much more just because it has 8 Gigabytes instead of 6. 4 is the minimum, but for 40-80$ you can double it. Find out how much memory the computer will physically hold, and what the max is, and find out how much to upgrade it.
If you need quality memory then you need to look at the 'timings' of the ram. Most people aren't going to be concerned with this, but those who want to learn - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_timings

Hard drive – the size of hard drives today are ridiculous. A 750 gigabyte hard drive is not much more useful than a 500 gigabyte one – few people ever use that much space. What’s more important is how fast the drive spins – given in RPM (revolutions per minute). The faster it spins the quicker your computer can retrieve data from it or write data to it. 5400 is the standard for a laptop hard drive, 7200 is pretty nice. Solid state is the best you can get (NO MOVING PARTS!) , but they’re much more expensive and they can’t hold nearly as much data. What makes the most sense depends on what you use – if you’re going to store 10 years of videoing your child every day you’ll probably want a bigger hard drive.

Side note – hard drives fail all the time for one simple reason. They’re the only remaining computer part that has mechanical (read: moving) parts. If anything happens, they become toast. A piece of dust can destroy a hard drive if it gets in there. Back your data up – you never know when something is going to break inside the drive.

Video cards are mentioned above.

FSB – Front Side Bus. It’s the pathway between parts on your computer. The faster the front side bus, the more data that can move at any given time between parts. If you buy a bad ass processor, lots of memory, and a top notch graphics card, but skimp out on the motherboard and get one with a low front side bus, then all that data your awesome processor is crunching will take forever to reach the memory to be stored :( In short, this is the spec most people have no idea about and get burned on.
You cannot upgrade this after the fact. You must pay attention to this when you purchase your computer.
Read more here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_side_bus

Cache – Hardware cache, not software cache. On the specs sheet it’ll be listed as like L2 (level 2) cache. This is the ultra-fast memory location where the computer stores data from memory so that it can be accessed quicker. The bigger this is, the faster your computer will be. This is another area where people get burned. You want the cache system on the motherboard to be as large as they possibly can.
You cannot upgrade this after the fact, you must pay attention to this when you purchase your computer.
Read more here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L2_Cache

There are more – but if you master knowing what you’re looking for in these areas then you’ll buy a computer that you’ll be happy with for a long time.

Where to buy
I recommend looking for deals at:
http://gizmodo.com/dealzmodo/
They update it daily. This is where I got my wife’s laptop from. Sometimes the deals suck, but if you watch it for a few weeks you’re bound to find something that meets your needs for a solid price.

Newegg.com
I’ve been using this site for the last 12 years or so… They used to be awesome, but as of lately I’ve been having problems with them. I’m not ready to not recommend them or not use them, but I’m being pushed away… I’ll update if I decide they suck.

Those two sites aside, you’re best off just searching through bing or google shopping:
http://www.google.com/shopping
bing.com

You’ll need to know what you’re looking for. Use newegg, or the vendors site (HP, Dell, Sony, etc), to get a model number. Then throw it in google/bing shopping and find the best deal. Seems to be the best way to do it these days. Be careful of who you’re buying from, but you should be ok.
 
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table of contents updated.

sorry i know thats like 8 pages worth of crap right there :)
 
- without going into the math...AV/IDS are a simple speed bump for the pros. but if you are going to use AV...use several. no one product is going to look at/catch the pretenders comprehensively.

I can't disagree more strongly with this, Al. The only way I use more than one app like this is if I am using one AV solution and one FireWall solution. I never use two of the same type. At least not as parallel, real time solutions.

Now, if you are talking about clean up, that is another matter. I will use more than one for clean up purposes but as a real time solution they just get in each others way and typically bog down performance on the local machine.
 
Okay, since you asked :)

My desktop PC has had a very strange symptom, I have never heard of or experienced before. I don't know if it's a virus, or a setting on the PC or what. But here's what happens :

I pop in a few CD's one after the other, and rip them to my hard drive, one at a time.
These are not "store bought" CD's. But rather CD's of music that I custom-burned myself from another PC.
They each go into their individual folders titled "unknown artist" inside the My Music folder. Each song is labeled Track 1, Track 2, etc by default. So far, nothing unusual.
I proceed to rename each file based on the actual song title.
Then, within the next few days is when the odd things start happening.....I go back to the songs, and the file names have reverted back to Track 1, Track 2, etc. Yes, the file names changed by themselves, back to their original file name.
That's not all. The song files begin to randomly become displaced into other folders, by themselves. New folders are created (again, by themselves) and those songs (with the changed names and all) have been randomly re-dispersed among the new folders that the PC has seemingly created by itself.
In other words - say, I ripped 3 CD's. It starts out with 3 folders for each CD. I go back to the My Music folder a couple days after ripping them, and now instead of 3 sub-folders for each CD, there's 6 or 7. And like I said, the songs are randomly mixed and re-dispersed in each of these folders.
Please tell me what's goin on !! It's freakin me out !!
 
Okay, since you asked :)

My desktop PC has had a very strange symptom, I have never heard of or experienced before. I don't know if it's a virus, or a setting on the PC or what. But here's what happens :

I pop in a few CD's one after the other, and rip them to my hard drive, one at a time.
These are not "store bought" CD's. But rather CD's of music that I custom-burned myself from another PC.
They each go into their individual folders titled "unknown artist" inside the My Music folder. Each song is labeled Track 1, Track 2, etc by default. So far, nothing unusual.
I proceed to rename each file based on the actual song title.
Then, within the next few days is when the odd things start happening.....I go back to the songs, and the file names have reverted back to Track 1, Track 2, etc. Yes, the file names changed by themselves, back to their original file name.
That's not all. The song files begin to randomly become displaced into other folders, by themselves. New folders are created (again, by themselves) and those songs (with the changed names and all) have been randomly re-dispersed among the new folders that the PC has seemingly created by itself.
In other words - say, I ripped 3 CD's. It starts out with 3 folders for each CD. I go back to the My Music folder a couple days after ripping them, and now instead of 3 sub-folders for each CD, there's 6 or 7. And like I said, the songs are randomly mixed and re-dispersed in each of these folders.
Please tell me what's goin on !! It's freakin me out !!

:)

Music files are a special kind of file, in that they contain ID3 tags - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ID3

So basically the file is keeping track of what the song title, artist, albumn, track number, year produced, etc etc etc. It's suppose to help take music from a random source and be able to identify it.

In this case it's causing you headaches :)

You're right clicking on the files and renaming them according to their file name. The next time you go into the folder (at some arbitrarily later date), the computer goes 'Hey! This is a music folder. You don't care about the file name, you care about song, artist, albumn, track, etc' And it doesn't show you the filename (that you renamed) - it shows you the song name (which it pulls from the ID3 tag, which is currently 'Track 1' or whatever). It's then trying to further 'help' you by sorting them into folders that make sense (which I've never seen it do, maybe you can find a setting to change that?)

So that's the why.

Here's how you can fix it:
First - you have to make a decision. Do you want your computer doing this for you, or do you want to do it manually. Truth be told, if you understand how the computer does it for you and then adjust settings accordingly, you'll probably be a much happier person with more free time on your hands :)

So the first thing you need to do is edit ID3 tags when you rip them from a source that doesn't provide them for you - typically store-bought CD's come with a file format that does not include those things. I've used plenty in the past, though none have stuck out to me. I don't mess with music anymore; Pandora is what I use, I find shuffling through my own library to cause me to listen to the same stuff over and over despite having hundreds of gigs of music (i used to be bad when I was young, hence a huge collection :) )
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ID3+Tag+editor
Take your pick. There are even programs out there that will analyze the actual data, then search their online database, and automatically get those results for you.

Once you've got the ID3 tags set the way you want the computer should start showing you the relevant information. You can change which 'template' (be it videos, music, documents, etc) a folder uses to display information by going into the folder, right-clicking in white space and choosing properties, then going to the customize tab. there is a drop down folder to choose from the list of templates.

I'm not sure how far you can go with customizing that music template. Do some google searching - if you find some useful stuff post it in here.


Your second option is to disable it. Go into the customize tab I was just talking about and tell it to treat everything like 'generic items' and that should fix your problem. You can then rename/organize them as you please without the computer coming back later and deciding you did it wrong :)

At the end of the day I'm pretty sure you're renaming the file name, and the computer is (at a later date) deciding to show you the 'Song Name' which is in the ID3 tag. Let me know if this solves your problem or not.
 
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Thanks, tshile. First of all, I'm so glad it is not a virus.
It will probably take me a few days to know if it's solved, since that's how long it sometimes took, for the system to start with that strange phenomenon after I ripped and re-named the music. Thanks again
 
Yeah, you sound like you come from the old-school line of music management. That is that you name the files according to a method you like (say <Track Number>-<Title>.mp3), you then put them in a folder that contains the album name with maybe the year, which is itself placed into a folder for the artist.

That's the same line I come from - because for the better part of a decade (~1995-~2005) that was the smart way to do it.

Then software/OS manufacturers decided to try to handle it for us... Products like iTunes, WinAmp, Windows Media Player, what-have-you. And they changed the style to be not one of folders and subfolders, but instead one giant folder with everything in it; instead of having file name, date modified, size as what you see when you go into the folder you see artist, track name, track number, etc.

The one folder with everything in it mentality works great. I, however, cannot break from the old school management style.

Try uploading all those to an android/windows/apple phone, then using the built in music manager. It'll drive you nuts :)
 
Wow, that reminds me of how "smart phones" constantly screw up on "auto-correct" or "auto-complete", and we'd be better off typing it ourselves.

So anyway, I went in the folder like you said, and right-clicked, went to Properties, then the Customize Tab, and under "Use this folder type as a template" I went to the drop-down menu, and changed it from "Music Album" to "Documents for any file type". I assume that's what you meant by "generic", because that's the closest thing I could find to that label. Then I am positively hitting "Apply", then "OK". But I go back into the folder a few minutes later, and it's check under "Customize" again, and it's changed it back to "Music Album" type ! What's goin on ?

Another thing it's doing, is as I'm ripping, it's creating multiple folders for the same CD and dispersing the different tracks randomly into those folders, again as I'm ripping - so it's before I get a chance to go in the folder and change the settings......Yea, talk about headaches.
 
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Yes, i think Mike is right. Change it on the 'Music' folder in your user folder.
 
Got a few issues I'd like to consolidate into one post, if you could help.
Got this PC from a friend of mine a couple months ago, so I'm not too familiar with it.


1) My PC often-times refuses to start up. If I turn it off, the longer it sits with the power off the more likely it is, to have trouble starting up. And when it has this trouble, it literally does nothing. I repeatedly hit the power button, and even try holding it down a few seconds, but absolutely nothing happens. Totally dead. Nothing comes up on the screen. No sound whatsoever from the tower. If it's only been off for a couple minutes, what usually happens when I hit the power button is the power light comes on for a second or 2, and it starts to crank for a second or 2, then it goes dead. But will usually start up the next try, as long as it hasn't been sitting there a long time.
My best guess is the power supply is starting to go bad. Is that it ?

2) PC times out a lot. The processing freezes up. During these episodes, I can move the mouse/cursor around, but can't get it to respond to any clicks, or even move from one browser to another. Goes into "Not responding" mode. Not sure what else to call it. But it lasts a minute or 2, until it finally "finally comes back into consciousness". It is more likely to happen if I have multiple browsers open, but has even been known to happen with just one browser in use. I have done a complete clean-up on my PC, to check for virus, spyware, malware, etc. Besides that, I've cleaned it up using some of the programs suggested in other threads, such as CC Cleaner, Disk Redactor, Windows Washer, and Disc Defragmentor. So, as far as I know, my PC is clean. But still has the problem. Could it be I just need to upgrade the memory ?
Here are the specs :
OS - Windows XP 2002, Service Pack 3
Processor - Intel Celeron CPU 2.80 GHZ
496 MB RAM

3) When I go to microsoft.com for my regular updates, a certain update continues to Fail, over and over, each time I try to install the update. The name of the update is "Security Update MS.Net Framework 1.1 SP1 on Win XP........another thing I've noticed pertaining to Windows updates, is every time I go to the option to Turn Off or Restart computer, the "Turn Off" indicates that there's a Windows update that will run as it's powering off. So I repeatedly let it do that update as it powers down. But everytime I start it back up and go back to that option, it still says there's an update. I do it over and over repeatedly on the same day, and it ALWAYS says there's an update to go into effect as it turns off, so I'm convinced there can't be that many updates that I don't have installed. So, I am assuming that this repeated update indicator is related to the problem I just described with the failed updates when I go to microsoft.com. Is it talking about the same updates ? When I go to power off, does it keep telling me I need an update, because it's failing on the power down, the same way the update fails when I go to miscrosoft.com ?
 
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1) It could be anything. Typically with electronics when it breaks it breaks - you don't get fluky stuff all that often like you're describing. It sounds like a lose cable/connection either inside or possible on the power button itself.
I could list any part and guess what is wrong and have an equal chance of being wrong as any other part, so I'll not get into that. I'd take it to someone who knows what they're doing (family, friend, store if you have to) and have them take a look. It could be as simple as blowing dust out that's screwing up a connection to replacing a part.

2) I'm willing to bet upgrading to 2 GB of memory would fix your problem. you just don't have much processing power on that or memory. I would remove all the antivirus/antispyware/etc programs and find one you like and use it. Using more than one bogs down the system and can make it even more vulnerable as they fight each other.


3) Download the .net removal tool from one of the mirrors listed here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/astebner/archive/2008/08/28/8904493.aspx
When you run it it will have a drop down. Select the version you're having trouble with (1, or 1.1, or maybe 1.something else), and remove it. I've seen this a ton of times, just need to remove the bad version. You should be good to go. Once you reboot you can reinstall that version by googling it and downloading it from microsoft's website.
 
Fear:

To give you a little more to go on with regards to #1...
typically most hardware errors will give you a beep code... if you can't get any power that certainly suggests a power suppl problem, but the problem could very well be with the connectors to the main board - because as long as those works the computer will boot up and beep if it runs into problems.

Some possible issues:
- power supply could be going dead...
- you could be on a circuit in the house that gets tripped by hair driers/curling irons/etc? It's a random long shot but certainly could be the problem
- dust/dirt
- loose connector to the main board

Depending on the power supply there may be a switch on the back of it. Check that and make sure it's in the ON position. Also make sure the actual power cord is snug into it.
 
On #2, see if you fan is running during the 'slowdowns'...I've had similar issues where my fan would get clogged up, machine would overheat, and fan would run excessively which increased power reqts to the point where it would respond sluggishly. Just a thought - but easily resolved with a fan cleanout.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9650 using Tapatalk
 
Thanks, guys......if it's a matter of some random cord being loose, is there any harm that a novice like me could do, by going through the cords, one by one, and unplugging them, and then re-plugging them back firmly, as long as I'm reasonably careful ?
Or is there potential harm to be done to certain internal plugs that may be super-sensitive ?
 
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Make sure you discharge any static electricity.
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