"Is the Internet safe?"

Occasionally, I don the White Coat of Hope, and go onto the masses, in my ordained role of IT Support Reverend, and perform the sacred rite of FixemUp. On many of these occasions, my brethren will impart unto me their woes, and one of the most frequent woes is spoken thus:

"Is the Internet safe?"

In computing circles, this is almost an ecclesiastical question of the highest magnitude - it's like asking "Is their a God?", or more relevently "If I go swimming, will I be bitten by a shark?" Answers to this question have started heated debates ending in blood, tears, injury and lawsuits. Actually, the "shark" analogy is probably the most accurate - let me explain further...

The Internet is huge - take my word for it, it's like the Ocean. Finding what you're looking for is like swimming in the sea looking for a shipwreck of a pirate vessel loaded with gold dubloons - without maps or directions, you'd be lost, poor and wet. Search engines like Google then, are our friends, because they provide the maps for us to navigate the Internet ocean. Most of the time (as far as we are concerned), the sea is safe, and shark free.

However, as any diver, or watcher of Shark Week or Open Water will tell you, always lurking beneath the waves are the sharks - viruses, trojans, adware, phishing sites, porn - all swimming with you, but out of sight most of the time, but all hungry for blood. It's the foolish diver who starts throwing in bloody fish guts, just before he throws himself into the water... but in computing terms, the average user is doing this same thing every day. Lets look at the evidence...

• Most people that browse use Microsoft Windows (nothing wrong with that) - an operating system that is easy to use, but where the home user (by default) has ADMINSTRATIVE POWER - great news for the shark, as all he has to do is to trick the user into running a program that will let the shark in - tantamount to giving the shark the keys to your shark cage...
• Windows needs to be constantly updated to keep it secure - forget, and the sharks will sense blood. Trouble is, users have a habit of turning things off - like automatic updates. Forget to update, and that shark spear gun you were carrying will shoot you in the foot...
• Most people use Internet Explorer - the most well known, abused, insecure browser that exists - to access the Internet. Never mind giving the sharks the key to the shark cage - the shark is now on the boat, wearing life support, and carrying UZIs...

Add all these together, and you may as well be wearing a blood-soaked wet suit, with bloody, raw steak tied to your weights belt, banging a dinner gong and shouting "YOO-HOO SHARKIES - COME TO PAPA!" - Quinn would be turning in his grave I tell you...

However, you can take precautions, and swim safely - and in the next installment, we'll discuss how. I'm off to buy a bigger boat...

Recovery Disks - DO IT! DO IT NOW!!!

When you're over 40, you develop a sense of maturity. You've raised your children wisely and well (Stephanie is currently working towards her exams, whilst trying to hide the fact that she's six months pregnant: Tristan is doing well with his plastering diploma he's working towards at Borstal, and young Brendan - well, we're not sure but, well, you know...). You've worked solidly towards building a lovely home (despite that wet patch in the ceiling), and life seems good. You know that nothing phases you, because you're a mature, sensible adult.

And then you buy a computer. I don't know if it's genetics, old age, or sheer bloody-mindedness, but everything you've learned in the last 40+ years of your life, dissolves, Spielberg-like, into the middle distance. Notifications are ignored, warnings unheeded, as you continue further into computer nirvana - especially this really annoying one about recovery disks - right click, don't tell me again sunshine, I'm the one in charge...

Fast forward to now - it's late, and your computer has crashed - again! You look at the manual / talk to your tech guy / phone a friend, and they say...

"Hey, no problem - just use the Recovery Disks."

At this point, cats have been known to jump through closed windows, rather than face the tirade of abuse and possible life-threatening hurled missiles that follow that phrase - because you didn't create them, did you?

Back in the good old days, when you purchased a new computer, you were given a set of floppy disks / CD's which contained a full version of your operating system - this was when technical support actually cared - maybe because they weren't jaded by years of supporting 40+ users yet. Nowadays, in efforts to stop piracy and make your life harder, manufacturers seldom do this - instead, they give you the option of doing this yourself by creating your own set of recovery disks, using your DVD burner (this applies even if you haven't got a DVD burner i.e. if you have a netbook - "it's no excuse you know" your manufacturer will say...)

Do yourself the ultimate favour - create the recovery disks, because if your hard drive does fail, you may have to pay (yes, that's "PAY") to get a set from your manufacturer. There's no more bitter pill to swallow than that which costs you money - twice.

"My computer runs so slowly..."

Computers are like marriages. First comes the initial spark of true love, where your computer can do NOTHING wrong - it's fast, exciting, and makes you go weak at the knees. Then comes the wedding, where you shower it with gifts like new hard drives, better expansion options, a dedicated place to sit (a new IKEA desk, rather than that tatty old thing you used to use...)

But later comes the 7 month itch. Your computer has become slow, lethargic, and lazy. You yearn for the days when it used to want to dress up for you, wear provocative desktops, whisper sweet nulls in your ear, but now all you get is moaning...

"I'm running out of memory!"
"Stop pushing my buttons, I can only do one thing at a time!"
"Your email is in the recycle bin!"

Your eyes start wandering, and you start looking at the porno mags, like PC PRO... (taking the analogy a bit to far aren't we...Ed)

As any good marriage counselor will tell you, it's about give and take - that is, it's about what resources you have and what resources are actually required. For a computer to run programs quickly, it needs the following...

• Free memory
• Free processor cycles
• Non-fragmented disk space
• Fast access to hardware

Free memory is the single, most important thing you require, which is why it's usually the first thing that's upgraded. Computers need memory space to do anything - think of memory as paper sheets that you write on. Every time that you need to make a note, you get a fresh piece of paper, and you keep using fresh sheets because it's easier. That's great, but what happens when you run out of sheets - you've got nothing more to write on. "Oh dear, I can't write that note to dear Aunt Jessie..."

Computers have a way of getting around this, called paging. What that means is that instead of using physical memory chips for memory, it copies some of it's memory onto your hard disk, which is analogous to our paper sheets being placed into a filing cabinet, and more paper sheets (that we've erased with a pencil) being brought out from another filing cabinet. The problem with this process is that it's sloooooooooowwww, so instead of our filing cabinet being in the same room, it's actually in another room - in another house - in the sea - of tranquility - on the moon. Aunt Jessie's really going to get that note now...

In short then, paging too much is not a good thing. Not only is it slow, but the computer is wasting it's time - which is where processor cycles come in. A processor cycle is simply a unit of time that computer can use to do something constructive. New, modern computers have CPU's (Central Processor Units) that can perform an incredible number of operations (or cycles) every second, but those precious cycles are easily lost through wastage, so instead of doing something useful, they could be being used to display a screen saver, or play a tune, or download crap from sharing sites. It's important then that if you want your computer to run efficiently, you should always make sure that you are only running what you have to - the infamous rule of thumb #1.

We've mentioned fragmented disk space - this is relatively low on on the list, but it still applies in some cases. Remember our paper filing cabinet analogy? Well, when you were filing your paper sheets, you didn't care where you put them. They are all over the place, and whenever you want to find that note to Aunt Jessie, you have to search through several filing cabinets to find the sheets you need - that's fragmentation, and it happens to your hard disk. The older / more abused your computer gets, the more fragmented (and slower) your hard disk becomes. At this point, defragging your hard disk (essentially resorting the disk space) becomes a viable option, but DON'T SWITCH OFF WHILST YOU'RE DOING IT!!!!

Fast access to hardware basically means making sure your computer can talk to it's peripherals (like hard disks or DVD / optical drives) quickly, and is the last thing that *could* slow a computer down. It could be that you have the wrong driver for the peripheral, or that something else is hammering it whilst you're trying to use it.

With all this is mind, let's look at a couple of vict.. er, case studies. Mr. X came to me, complaining that his XP machine was slow - on examination, it turned out that his task tray (that's the little area on the bottom right of the windows desktop) had so many icons that it covered the entire taskbar! It seems Mr. X loved his gadgets, and had been trawling around the freeware sites looking for interesting ones, and then installing them - the trouble is that each one of these icons is a program that requires memory and processor cycles, so un-installing these programs made the machine responsive again.

Mrs. Y had a new laptop (less than 3 months old) that was so slow, it took 25 minutes to load! In this case, windows explorer had somehow been nobbled (possibly by a trojan, or a rogue game) to the point where the hard disk light was constantly on - a sure sign of excessive hard disk activity. In this case, the only thing to do was to recover the machine to a factory fresh state by using the recovery disks.

What's that? Recovery disks? Surely you know... ...Oh dear... **clickety-clickety..**

Impatience - the greatest computer killer of all...

It's been a long day. You're tired, your boss has been on your back about that job that came in late, and the traffic was bad on the way home. To top it all, you've just had a barney with your partner about TV / dinner / the in-laws / the kids / their dopey brother who's just come to stay and eaten all the cheese. To relax (who are you trying to kid here...Ed) you turn on your computer to do a bit of surfing...

... and a couple of minutes later, you're still waiting... ...the bloody thing must be locked up again - I'll reboot it...

...oh God, it's rebooting again... .. and again... ...AND AGAIN! ARRRGGHH!

Welcome to the greatest computer killer of them all - Impatience.

Computers are supposed to be lightning fast - after all, everything in them runs at the speed of electricity - but unfortunately, we will insist on actually using them. We install countless little gadgets, gizmos, and thingummies that all take time to start up when your computer boots, and to make matters worse, we then try and do something positive, like web browsing. The poor computer tries to do what you want, but it's now approaching the point where too many things are asking for resources.

So it stalls you. It starts queueing the requests (if you're British, you should be used to queueing for God's sake), dealing with them as best it can. Systems requests, like updates to the Operating System or Anti Virus usually get first choice, at which point, your computer slows down to a crawl - it is of course, at this point, that we take the loaded gun of impatience, and shoot ourselves in the foot with it by hitting the "reset" button - effectively telling the computer to stop ANYTHING it's doing (including writing to your hard drive), and start again. It's no surprise then, to see your computer getting it's knickers in a twist as it tries to go through it all over again.

A word of advice from the experts. Computers very seldom "lock up and die" - they can go off for long sulks though (think of your partner after a blazing row and you might come close). To see if you're computer is really frozen, check the following...

• Can you turn the num lock on and off (the num lock is a little key on the right hand side of a normal keyboard, in the little separate calculator keypad with the numbers - if you press it, a little light on the keyboard should go on or off, showing the state of the numeric keypad)
• Do you see ANY lights flickering on the computer (not just on, but actually flickering - these lights may show the state of a hard drive, or network device)
• Will the mouse move at all

If you can say "yes" to any of these, there's a 95% chance that your computer is NOT "locked up". If in doubt, wait 20 minutes - the chances are that any important tasks should have finished by then, and you'll be OK to reboot.

Now then, I fancy a cheese and pickle sandwich. Hang on a minute, where's that block of farmhouse cheddar gone...

"Have you turned it off and on again?"

"Have you turned it off and on again?"

We've all heard the standing joke in computer circles (or at, whilst you've been watching "The IT Crowd"). I'm sure your best friend / partner / lover has mentioned it to you when you've been struggling to cope with the endless problems that have been plaguing you with your beloved computer since you switched on this morning. Through clenched, gritted teeth, you have replied, as nonchalantly as possible...

"Of course I have..."

Only you haven't, have you? Until they mentioned it, it never crossed your mind. Guiltily, and as quietly as possible, you hit the reset switch... and marvel, as everything starts working again...

There's a very good reason why this piece of urban legend actually works in 95% of cases, with everything from PC's to satalite boxes to mobile phones. Simply put, you're allowing your computer to get itself reorganized in the way it beleives it should be. The result: a once slow and dying machine is magically transformed into a fast, working computer - at least until you start loading programs again. One word of warning - make sure you use this as a last resort, as too many people believe that this is the first thing you should try - not true. Shut your machine down cleanly, rather than hitting the reset switch or power button first - it will save you from developing bald patches...

"Hey I've got a new computer - now what?"

Let's be honest with ourselves.

If you're over 40, you're a technophobe. You may not realize it yet, but admission of this simple fact is going to save you pain and suffering in the long run. TV remotes confuse us, to the point where when the battery runs low, we try and press the buttons harder, just to force that last erg of energy in the device into use by shear force of will. Microwaves mystify us, phones perplex us, and children's toys fascinate us - we're hopeless, and we've just gone and bought ourselves a piece of technology that we're not even sure we want (we only bought it because Dave in accounts has one, and he said it was the best thing since sliced bread...).

So, what do we do with it?

Firstly, let's identify the type of computer you have...

• Desktop - This is a computer which has a separate box, screen, keyboard & mouse. The Desktop is usually more powerful than other types of computer (depending on how much money you spent) and can be expanded (added to), but requires a dedicated area in the house (like a desk, or table)...
• Laptop - This computer has a screen and keyboard, connected by a hinge, clam shell style. It usually has most of the features of a desktop (DVD drive, card ports, USB ports) but is usually not as powerful.
• Notebook/ Net book - This computer looks like a very small laptop. It (usually) has no DVD drive, and is less powerful than the laptop. Net books are smaller than notebooks.

If your computer doesn't match any of the above, your either a very rich person (I hate you already) or you have a computer that was probably designed by DaVinci himself - either way, you're reading the wrong blog...

This is all what we term hardware - the physical bits of the machine. You also need software - a set of instructions for the computer that turn it from a piece of electronic junk, into something we can use (if temporarily). You have two types of software...

• Operating Systems - to use a computer for anything, we need a way of controlling it, and this is where the Operating System (or O/S) comes in. The Operating System controls the hardware, so getting the right Operating System for the level of hardware in your computer is vital - too powerful, and your computer will slow to a crawl, too weak, and you won't be able to use the computer for anything. Desktops tend to use "Premium" editions of Operating Systems (i.e. you pay more money for functionality that was included in the last release for free) where net books use "Home" editions (all the bits that you may actually find useful have been nobbled). Whatever you have it will probably be too powerful for your machine, as Computer companies tend to ship whatever flavour of O/S that is in season - not necessarily the one that runs the quickest/ does the most.
  
• Applications - Sometimes called Programs. Applications are software that allows us to perform a task, from word processing to web browsing, gaming to art. Again, if the software is too powerful for the machine, the machine will slow to a crawl...

As I come from a PC background, let's look at what's available for the PC in terms of O/S. Most people with a PC run a flavour of Microsoft Windows, and you are probably one of them. Currently, the flavour of the month is Windows 7, but your PC could also have one of it's predecessors, namely Windows Vista or Windows XP. All of these do the same job, but with differing levels of gimmickry. Desktops/laptops can run any of these, but net books/notebooks should be running Windows 7 or XP (they use less resources than Vista, and don't crash half as much). If you're not running Windows, you may be running a Linux or Apple based O/S - congratulations, as you may not have as many problems in the long run as your windows brethren.

As you see from the above, it's vitally important to get it right, but it's not rocket science. Here's the general rule of thumb when it comes to running applications...

• Net book / Notebook - Web browsing, word processing, social networking.
• Laptops - All the above, plus spreadsheets, art, music creation, light games
• Desktops - Almost anything

if you want your ownership of your computer to be as pain free as possible, remember the 1st rule...

"DON'T RUN MORE THAN YOU HAVE TOO"

Welcome!

Hello one and all. If you've come here from my previous site, you'll now roughly what to expect from me - for those who don't allow me to introduce myself...

I'm a over 40. There, I've said it and I don't care. Not only am I an over 40, but I'm a computer expert, in the sense that I've been working with them all my adult life. I've seen things that would make your hair curl - really. I'm also a cartoonist, which means I have a weird outlook on life - if you add all these up, what you have is basically a mad anarchist who can draw a bit, and can fix your laptop (or at least, draw a nice little picture of it before it bursts into flames...)

I fix computers - sometimes my own, sometimes other peoples, and sometimes under duress. In the course of my life, I've witnessed the revolution that is computers for the masses. Computers are great aren't they? (** ducks bricks thrown at monitor **)

Day by day, I've seen healthy, grown men cry in despair as these pieces of electronic mayhem wreck their otherwise peaceful existence with blue screens, flashing lights and seemingly unending problems which would test the patience of the holiest of clergy.

But I'm not here to help you - oh no. I'm here to help you make sense of it all, with insight, humour and a wicked pencil sketch. Hopefully, not only will you leave me educated (e.g. "I'm not going on THAT site again"), but with a sense of well being, or at least, the feeling that you're not alone in all this. So don your tin hat (optional), and join me in the journey...

.. but remember to take some travel sickness pills.