On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 07:30:04 -0500, Jeff Thies
wrote:

On 1/17/2011 9:04 PM, Higgs Boson wrote:
On Jan 17, 1:09 pm, wrote:
Higgs Boson wrote:
(Of course it isn't just the *computer* that has low memory these
days...g)

But seriously, could anyone give me a heads-up as to the least
expensive way to deal with this problem?

For the past 'n' weeks, I've been getting a pop-up at the lower r.h.
corner of the screen with HUGE flame-like chart visuals and a message
"High memory usage by Firefox". It used to create more virtual
memory, but that has stopped, so maybe the End Is Nigh? Am I heading
for a crash? First time I have run into this, so not a clue.

I just installed a new app (Norton Ghost - successor to GoBack), and
got the message that my memory was too low to run certain functions of
Ghost.

Yes, I can go out& buy new memory $$$, but I suspect something else
is at play. My modest usage is not a memory hog. What could be
draining virtual memory to this extent?

Would appreciate any input.

The message does NOT come from the operating system, it is a construct of an
application program (possibly Firefox).

Try using Internet Explorer for a while and see if the problem disappears.

That's probably a good idea anyway; Firefox has been known to give your cat
warts. (If you don't have a cat, you'll probably be okay. Except for the
flames, of course.)

The reason given meoriginally NOT to use IE was that it "leaked" more
than others. Is that true? Any test data on that -- not anecdotal?
Any data on that?

IE has a long history of memory leaks on certain javascript DOM calls.
That may, or may not be an issue depending on what is on the web page
you are viewing. Mostly this is mitigated by both MS and the people who
write problematic code, but not entirely.

It does use substantially less memory than FF, that is probably
because it is more tightly integrated in.

I'm a web programmer/developer. I do not like IE, none of us do
(buggy and incomplete implementation of web standards). But on a minimal
system, IE will work where FF will have problems.

With all that said, it really is Norton causing the trouble, not FF.

Jeff




TIA

HB


Hey!!! A kindred spirit???
Norton USED to be the best you could get. Norton Utilities was the
best disk editor, back when Peter Norton WAS Norton.The early Norton
AntiVirus was precedent setting.
But today there are so many products that are SO MUCH better than
Norton's offering - particularly in how little they interfere with the
real business of "computing"
Norton products today just get in the way of everything, consuming
resources in prodigious ammounts.

wrote:
On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 07:30:04 -0500, Jeff
wrote:

On 1/17/2011 9:04 PM, Higgs Boson wrote:
On Jan 17, 1:09 pm, wrote:
Higgs Boson wrote:
(Of course it isn't just the *computer* that has low memory these
days...g)

But seriously, could anyone give me a heads-up as to the least
expensive way to deal with this problem?

For the past 'n' weeks, I've been getting a pop-up at the lower r.h.
corner of the screen with HUGE flame-like chart visuals and a message
"High memory usage by Firefox". It used to create more virtual
memory, but that has stopped, so maybe the End Is Nigh? Am I heading
for a crash? First time I have run into this, so not a clue.

I just installed a new app (Norton Ghost - successor to GoBack), and
got the message that my memory was too low to run certain functions of
Ghost.

Yes, I can go out& buy new memory $$$, but I suspect something else
is at play. My modest usage is not a memory hog. What could be
draining virtual memory to this extent?

Would appreciate any input.

The message does NOT come from the operating system, it is a construct of an
application program (possibly Firefox).

Try using Internet Explorer for a while and see if the problem disappears.

That's probably a good idea anyway; Firefox has been known to give your cat
warts. (If you don't have a cat, you'll probably be okay. Except for the
flames, of course.)

The reason given meoriginally NOT to use IE was that it "leaked" more
than others. Is that true? Any test data on that -- not anecdotal?
Any data on that?

IE has a long history of memory leaks on certain javascript DOM calls.
That may, or may not be an issue depending on what is on the web page
you are viewing. Mostly this is mitigated by both MS and the people who
write problematic code, but not entirely.

It does use substantially less memory than FF, that is probably
because it is more tightly integrated in.

I'm a web programmer/developer. I do not like IE, none of us do
(buggy and incomplete implementation of web standards). But on a minimal
system, IE will work where FF will have problems.

With all that said, it really is Norton causing the trouble, not FF.

Jeff




TIA

HB


Hey!!! A kindred spirit???
Norton USED to be the best you could get. Norton Utilities was the
best disk editor, back when Peter Norton WAS Norton.The early Norton
AntiVirus was precedent setting.
But today there are so many products that are SO MUCH better than
Norton's offering - particularly in how little they interfere with the
real business of "computing"
Norton products today just get in the way of everything, consuming
resources in prodigious ammounts.
Hi,
That is what you are saying.
If you are an expert on low language(machine code) You can do anything
you want. Norton stuff is nothing but memory hogger. It also snoops on
your system.

On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 15:13:29 -0500, wrote:

With all that said, it really is Norton causing the trouble, not FF.

Jeff




TIA

HB


Hey!!! A kindred spirit???
Norton USED to be the best you could get. Norton Utilities was the
best disk editor, back when Peter Norton WAS Norton.The early Norton
AntiVirus was precedent setting.
But today there are so many products that are SO MUCH better than
Norton's offering - particularly in how little they interfere with the
real business of "computing"
Norton products today just get in the way of everything, consuming
resources in prodigious ammounts.

The OP is using Ghost. He has to store those huge images somewhere.

Removing Norton would be high on my list of repairs G

On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 13:24:34 -0700, Tony Hwang
wrote:



wrote:
On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 07:30:04 -0500, Jeff
wrote:

On 1/17/2011 9:04 PM, Higgs Boson wrote:
On Jan 17, 1:09 pm, wrote:
Higgs Boson wrote:
(Of course it isn't just the *computer* that has low memory these
days...g)

But seriously, could anyone give me a heads-up as to the least
expensive way to deal with this problem?

For the past 'n' weeks, I've been getting a pop-up at the lower r.h.
corner of the screen with HUGE flame-like chart visuals and a message
"High memory usage by Firefox". It used to create more virtual
memory, but that has stopped, so maybe the End Is Nigh? Am I heading
for a crash? First time I have run into this, so not a clue.

I just installed a new app (Norton Ghost - successor to GoBack), and
got the message that my memory was too low to run certain functions of
Ghost.

Yes, I can go out& buy new memory $$$, but I suspect something else
is at play. My modest usage is not a memory hog. What could be
draining virtual memory to this extent?

Would appreciate any input.

The message does NOT come from the operating system, it is a construct of an
application program (possibly Firefox).

Try using Internet Explorer for a while and see if the problem disappears.

That's probably a good idea anyway; Firefox has been known to give your cat
warts. (If you don't have a cat, you'll probably be okay. Except for the
flames, of course.)

The reason given meoriginally NOT to use IE was that it "leaked" more
than others. Is that true? Any test data on that -- not anecdotal?
Any data on that?

IE has a long history of memory leaks on certain javascript DOM calls.
That may, or may not be an issue depending on what is on the web page
you are viewing. Mostly this is mitigated by both MS and the people who
write problematic code, but not entirely.

It does use substantially less memory than FF, that is probably
because it is more tightly integrated in.

I'm a web programmer/developer. I do not like IE, none of us do
(buggy and incomplete implementation of web standards). But on a minimal
system, IE will work where FF will have problems.

With all that said, it really is Norton causing the trouble, not FF.

Jeff




TIA

HB


Hey!!! A kindred spirit???
Norton USED to be the best you could get. Norton Utilities was the
best disk editor, back when Peter Norton WAS Norton.The early Norton
AntiVirus was precedent setting.
But today there are so many products that are SO MUCH better than
Norton's offering - particularly in how little they interfere with the
real business of "computing"
Norton products today just get in the way of everything, consuming
resources in prodigious ammounts.
Hi,
That is what you are saying.
If you are an expert on low language(machine code) You can do anything
you want. Norton stuff is nothing but memory hogger. It also snoops on
your system.


As usual, Tony, I have no idea if you are agreeing with me or
dissagreeing.

wrote:
On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 13:24:34 -0700, Tony
wrote:



wrote:
On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 07:30:04 -0500, Jeff
wrote:

On 1/17/2011 9:04 PM, Higgs Boson wrote:
On Jan 17, 1:09 pm, wrote:
Higgs Boson wrote:
(Of course it isn't just the *computer* that has low memory these
days...g)

But seriously, could anyone give me a heads-up as to the least
expensive way to deal with this problem?

For the past 'n' weeks, I've been getting a pop-up at the lower r.h.
corner of the screen with HUGE flame-like chart visuals and a message
"High memory usage by Firefox". It used to create more virtual
memory, but that has stopped, so maybe the End Is Nigh? Am I heading
for a crash? First time I have run into this, so not a clue.

I just installed a new app (Norton Ghost - successor to GoBack), and
got the message that my memory was too low to run certain functions of
Ghost.

Yes, I can go out& buy new memory $$$, but I suspect something else
is at play. My modest usage is not a memory hog. What could be
draining virtual memory to this extent?

Would appreciate any input.

The message does NOT come from the operating system, it is a construct of an
application program (possibly Firefox).

Try using Internet Explorer for a while and see if the problem disappears.

That's probably a good idea anyway; Firefox has been known to give your cat
warts. (If you don't have a cat, you'll probably be okay. Except for the
flames, of course.)

The reason given meoriginally NOT to use IE was that it "leaked" more
than others. Is that true? Any test data on that -- not anecdotal?
Any data on that?

IE has a long history of memory leaks on certain javascript DOM calls.
That may, or may not be an issue depending on what is on the web page
you are viewing. Mostly this is mitigated by both MS and the people who
write problematic code, but not entirely.

It does use substantially less memory than FF, that is probably
because it is more tightly integrated in.

I'm a web programmer/developer. I do not like IE, none of us do
(buggy and incomplete implementation of web standards). But on a minimal
system, IE will work where FF will have problems.

With all that said, it really is Norton causing the trouble, not FF.

Jeff




TIA

HB


Hey!!! A kindred spirit???
Norton USED to be the best you could get. Norton Utilities was the
best disk editor, back when Peter Norton WAS Norton.The early Norton
AntiVirus was precedent setting.
But today there are so many products that are SO MUCH better than
Norton's offering - particularly in how little they interfere with the
real business of "computing"
Norton products today just get in the way of everything, consuming
resources in prodigious ammounts.
Hi,
That is what you are saying.
If you are an expert on low language(machine code) You can do anything
you want. Norton stuff is nothing but memory hogger. It also snoops on
your system.


As usual, Tony, I have no idea if you are agreeing with me or
dissagreeing.
Hi,
I am just throwing something so you can further think. Stuff like Norton
will slow down the system and even cause a problem. Best thing to do
with a home PC is just protect it from Virus attack, block all the
garbage coming in and load it with just what you need(applications).
Never upgrade anything if things are doing fine. If you want to upgrade
wait until it is proven well.

On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 14:34:08 -0700, Tony Hwang
wrote:



wrote:
On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 13:24:34 -0700, Tony
wrote:



wrote:
On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 07:30:04 -0500, Jeff
wrote:

On 1/17/2011 9:04 PM, Higgs Boson wrote:
On Jan 17, 1:09 pm, wrote:
Higgs Boson wrote:
(Of course it isn't just the *computer* that has low memory these
days...g)

But seriously, could anyone give me a heads-up as to the least
expensive way to deal with this problem?

For the past 'n' weeks, I've been getting a pop-up at the lower r.h.
corner of the screen with HUGE flame-like chart visuals and a message
"High memory usage by Firefox". It used to create more virtual
memory, but that has stopped, so maybe the End Is Nigh? Am I heading
for a crash? First time I have run into this, so not a clue.

I just installed a new app (Norton Ghost - successor to GoBack), and
got the message that my memory was too low to run certain functions of
Ghost.

Yes, I can go out& buy new memory $$$, but I suspect something else
is at play. My modest usage is not a memory hog. What could be
draining virtual memory to this extent?

Would appreciate any input.

The message does NOT come from the operating system, it is a construct of an
application program (possibly Firefox).

Try using Internet Explorer for a while and see if the problem disappears.

That's probably a good idea anyway; Firefox has been known to give your cat
warts. (If you don't have a cat, you'll probably be okay. Except for the
flames, of course.)

The reason given meoriginally NOT to use IE was that it "leaked" more
than others. Is that true? Any test data on that -- not anecdotal?
Any data on that?

IE has a long history of memory leaks on certain javascript DOM calls.
That may, or may not be an issue depending on what is on the web page
you are viewing. Mostly this is mitigated by both MS and the people who
write problematic code, but not entirely.

It does use substantially less memory than FF, that is probably
because it is more tightly integrated in.

I'm a web programmer/developer. I do not like IE, none of us do
(buggy and incomplete implementation of web standards). But on a minimal
system, IE will work where FF will have problems.

With all that said, it really is Norton causing the trouble, not FF.

Jeff




TIA

HB


Hey!!! A kindred spirit???
Norton USED to be the best you could get. Norton Utilities was the
best disk editor, back when Peter Norton WAS Norton.The early Norton
AntiVirus was precedent setting.
But today there are so many products that are SO MUCH better than
Norton's offering - particularly in how little they interfere with the
real business of "computing"
Norton products today just get in the way of everything, consuming
resources in prodigious ammounts.
Hi,
That is what you are saying.
If you are an expert on low language(machine code) You can do anything
you want. Norton stuff is nothing but memory hogger. It also snoops on
your system.


As usual, Tony, I have no idea if you are agreeing with me or
dissagreeing.
Hi,
I am just throwing something so you can further think. Stuff like Norton
will slow down the system and even cause a problem. Best thing to do
with a home PC is just protect it from Virus attack, block all the
garbage coming in and load it with just what you need(applications).
Never upgrade anything if things are doing fine. If you want to upgrade
wait until it is proven well.
Well, I'll agree to a point, Tony - but if you are connected to the
internet running a Windows system, it is VERY good policy to install
Microsoft's security updates (to "plug" the holes in the system) as
they are made available.
To protect it from a virus attack requires some sort of anti-virus.
Norton is almost a virus itself.
There are simple virus protection programs out there that DO work and
do not assume, like Norton does, that you are an absolute idiot and
will take no responsibility for your actions on the net or elsewhere.

They are, however, totally useless if you do not install the signature
updates in a very timely manner. If you don't, you are susceptible to
first day type attacks.(may as well not have antivirus if it is not up
to date)

I work with this stuff on a daily basis.

Tony Hwang wrote:

Hey!!! A kindred spirit???
Norton USED to be the best you could get. Norton Utilities was the
best disk editor, back when Peter Norton WAS Norton.The early Norton
AntiVirus was precedent setting.
But today there are so many products that are SO MUCH better than
Norton's offering - particularly in how little they interfere with
the real business of "computing"
Norton products today just get in the way of everything, consuming
resources in prodigious ammounts.
Hi,
That is what you are saying.
If you are an expert on low language(machine code) You can do anything
you want. Norton stuff is nothing but memory hogger. It also snoops on
your system.

It's more than that: Norton is the barnacle of the software world!

After "Uninstalling" you have to download Symantec's Sooper-Sekret removal
tool to chip out the stuff the uninstall routine didn't get. Then you have
to manually scan the registry to snip out anything involving "Norton" or
"Symantec."

You're pretty clean at that point and can install the free Microsoft
Security Essentials or the anti-virus of your choice.

Still, there are those who go to all the trouble to purge their system of
Norton, then install McAffee (because it was free from their ISP).

On 1/18/2011 3:13 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 07:30:04 -0500, Jeff
wrote:

On 1/17/2011 9:04 PM, Higgs Boson wrote:
On Jan 17, 1:09 pm, wrote:
Higgs Boson wrote:
(Of course it isn't just the *computer* that has low memory these
days...g)

But seriously, could anyone give me a heads-up as to the least
expensive way to deal with this problem?

For the past 'n' weeks, I've been getting a pop-up at the lower r.h.
corner of the screen with HUGE flame-like chart visuals and a message
"High memory usage by Firefox". It used to create more virtual
memory, but that has stopped, so maybe the End Is Nigh? Am I heading
for a crash? First time I have run into this, so not a clue.

I just installed a new app (Norton Ghost - successor to GoBack), and
got the message that my memory was too low to run certain functions of
Ghost.

Yes, I can go out& buy new memory $$$, but I suspect something else
is at play. My modest usage is not a memory hog. What could be
draining virtual memory to this extent?

Would appreciate any input.

The message does NOT come from the operating system, it is a construct of an
application program (possibly Firefox).

Try using Internet Explorer for a while and see if the problem disappears.

That's probably a good idea anyway; Firefox has been known to give your cat
warts. (If you don't have a cat, you'll probably be okay. Except for the
flames, of course.)

The reason given meoriginally NOT to use IE was that it "leaked" more
than others. Is that true? Any test data on that -- not anecdotal?
Any data on that?

IE has a long history of memory leaks on certain javascript DOM calls.
That may, or may not be an issue depending on what is on the web page
you are viewing. Mostly this is mitigated by both MS and the people who
write problematic code, but not entirely.

It does use substantially less memory than FF, that is probably
because it is more tightly integrated in.

I'm a web programmer/developer. I do not like IE, none of us do
(buggy and incomplete implementation of web standards). But on a minimal
system, IE will work where FF will have problems.

With all that said, it really is Norton causing the trouble, not FF.

Jeff




TIA

HB


Hey!!! A kindred spirit???

Works for me!

Norton USED to be the best you could get. Norton Utilities was the
best disk editor, back when Peter Norton WAS Norton.The early Norton
AntiVirus was precedent setting.
But today there are so many products that are SO MUCH better than
Norton's offering - particularly in how little they interfere with the
real business of "computing"

My IT buddy hates Norton and it sure didn't used to be that way. As far
as anti virus, he says NOD32. Myself, I run a firewall and that is it.

Norton products today just get in the way of everything, consuming
resources in prodigious ammounts.

Agreed.

Jeff

On Jan 18, 6:15*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
Tony Hwang wrote:

Hey!!! A kindred spirit???
Norton USED to be the best you could get. Norton Utilities was the
best disk editor, back when Peter Norton WAS Norton.The early Norton
AntiVirus was precedent setting.
But today there are so many products that are SO MUCH better than
Norton's offering - particularly in how little they interfere with
the real business of "computing"
Norton products today just get in the way of everything, consuming
resources in prodigious ammounts.
Hi,
That is what you are saying.
If you are an expert on low language(machine code) You can do anything
you want. Norton stuff is nothing but memory hogger. It also snoops on
your system.

It's more than that: Norton is the barnacle of the software world!

After "Uninstalling" you have to download Symantec's Sooper-Sekret removal
tool to chip out the stuff the uninstall routine didn't get. Then you have
to manually scan the registry to snip out anything involving "Norton" or
"Symantec."

OMG!!

You're pretty clean at that point and can install the free Microsoft
Security Essentials or the anti-virus of your choice.

Is it good? I'm suspicious of anything free, or indeed anything from
Microsoft.

Still, there are those who go to all the trouble to purge their system of
Norton, then install McAffee (because it was free from their ISP).

Ewwww....I had always been told that Norton was a hog, so when my
renewal date comes up pretty soon, does the NG advise me to not
renew? And instead
install WHAT??!! (Not McAfee -- I had trouble with them long ago).

Will I get 3,000 different recommendations, or is there concensus on
one or two outstanding programs that do as good a job while eating
fewer electrons? KISS.

As another poster on this thread hath vouchsafed:

There are simple virus protection programs out there that DO work and
do not assume, like Norton does, that you are an absolute idiot and
will take no responsibility for your actions on the net or elsewhere.

Well...."absolute" maybe not, but....

HB

On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 18:40:11 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson
wrote:

On Jan 18, 6:15Â*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
Tony Hwang wrote:

Hey!!! A kindred spirit???
Norton USED to be the best you could get. Norton Utilities was the
best disk editor, back when Peter Norton WAS Norton.The early Norton
AntiVirus was precedent setting.
But today there are so many products that are SO MUCH better than
Norton's offering - particularly in how little they interfere with
the real business of "computing"
Norton products today just get in the way of everything, consuming
resources in prodigious ammounts.
Hi,
That is what you are saying.
If you are an expert on low language(machine code) You can do anything
you want. Norton stuff is nothing but memory hogger. It also snoops on
your system.

It's more than that: Norton is the barnacle of the software world!

After "Uninstalling" you have to download Symantec's Sooper-Sekret removal
tool to chip out the stuff the uninstall routine didn't get. Then you have
to manually scan the registry to snip out anything involving "Norton" or
"Symantec."

OMG!!

You're pretty clean at that point and can install the free Microsoft
Security Essentials or the anti-virus of your choice.

Is it good? I'm suspicious of anything free, or indeed anything from
Microsoft.

Still, there are those who go to all the trouble to purge their system of
Norton, then install McAffee (because it was free from their ISP).

Ewwww....I had always been told that Norton was a hog, so when my
renewal date comes up pretty soon, does the NG advise me to not
renew? And instead
install WHAT??!! (Not McAfee -- I had trouble with them long ago).

Will I get 3,000 different recommendations, or is there concensus on
one or two outstanding programs that do as good a job while eating
fewer electrons? KISS.

go to free.avg.com and install the free basic coverage.
As another poster on this thread hath vouchsafed:

There are simple virus protection programs out there that DO work and
do not assume, like Norton does, that you are an absolute idiot and
will take no responsibility for your actions on the net or elsewhere.

Well...."absolute" maybe not, but....

HB

On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 18:40:11 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson
wrote:

On Jan 18, 6:15*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
Tony Hwang wrote:

Hey!!! A kindred spirit???
Norton USED to be the best you could get. Norton Utilities was the
best disk editor, back when Peter Norton WAS Norton.The early Norton
AntiVirus was precedent setting.
But today there are so many products that are SO MUCH better than
Norton's offering - particularly in how little they interfere with
the real business of "computing"
Norton products today just get in the way of everything, consuming
resources in prodigious ammounts.
Hi,
That is what you are saying.
If you are an expert on low language(machine code) You can do anything
you want. Norton stuff is nothing but memory hogger. It also snoops on
your system.

It's more than that: Norton is the barnacle of the software world!

After "Uninstalling" you have to download Symantec's Sooper-Sekret removal
tool to chip out the stuff the uninstall routine didn't get. Then you have
to manually scan the registry to snip out anything involving "Norton" or
"Symantec."

OMG!!

You're pretty clean at that point and can install the free Microsoft
Security Essentials or the anti-virus of your choice.

Is it good? I'm suspicious of anything free, or indeed anything from
Microsoft.

Still, there are those who go to all the trouble to purge their system of
Norton, then install McAffee (because it was free from their ISP).

Ewwww....I had always been told that Norton was a hog, so when my
renewal date comes up pretty soon, does the NG advise me to not
renew? And instead
install WHAT??!! (Not McAfee -- I had trouble with them long ago).

Will I get 3,000 different recommendations, or is there concensus on
one or two outstanding programs that do as good a job while eating
fewer electrons? KISS.

As another poster on this thread hath vouchsafed:

There are simple virus protection programs out there that DO work and
do not assume, like Norton does, that you are an absolute idiot and
will take no responsibility for your actions on the net or elsewhere.

Well...."absolute" maybe not, but....

HB




Why don't you just tell us what OS you run?

It has been days already.

I still want to know about your flames in FF.

On 1/18/2011 9:50 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 18:40:11 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson
wrote:

On Jan 18, 6:15 pm, wrote:
Tony Hwang wrote:

Hey!!! A kindred spirit???
Norton USED to be the best you could get. Norton Utilities was the
best disk editor, back when Peter Norton WAS Norton.The early Norton
AntiVirus was precedent setting.
But today there are so many products that are SO MUCH better than
Norton's offering - particularly in how little they interfere with
the real business of "computing"
Norton products today just get in the way of everything, consuming
resources in prodigious ammounts.
Hi,
That is what you are saying.
If you are an expert on low language(machine code) You can do anything
you want. Norton stuff is nothing but memory hogger. It also snoops on
your system.

It's more than that: Norton is the barnacle of the software world!

After "Uninstalling" you have to download Symantec's Sooper-Sekret removal
tool to chip out the stuff the uninstall routine didn't get. Then you have
to manually scan the registry to snip out anything involving "Norton" or
"Symantec."

OMG!!

You're pretty clean at that point and can install the free Microsoft
Security Essentials or the anti-virus of your choice.

Is it good? I'm suspicious of anything free, or indeed anything from
Microsoft.

Still, there are those who go to all the trouble to purge their system of
Norton, then install McAffee (because it was free from their ISP).

Ewwww....I had always been told that Norton was a hog, so when my
renewal date comes up pretty soon, does the NG advise me to not
renew? And instead
install WHAT??!! (Not McAfee -- I had trouble with them long ago).

Will I get 3,000 different recommendations, or is there concensus on
one or two outstanding programs that do as good a job while eating
fewer electrons? KISS.

go to free.avg.com and install the free basic coverage.
As another poster on this thread hath vouchsafed:

It doesn't catch everything. Nod32 does:

http://www.eset.com/download/free-trial/nod32-antivirus

My IT buddy had a client into gaming and such (all the places viruses
can be found) and he would have to clean up that machine every few weeks
(tried AVG, Kaspersky...). With Nod32, no trouble at all for going on 2
years. He swears by it.

http://www.eset.com/home/compare-eset-to-competition

The OP may not need it, but it is arguable the best with a lower
overhead. It's also not well known, which is why I mention it.

Jeff



There are simple virus protection programs out there that DO work and
do not assume, like Norton does, that you are an absolute idiot and
will take no responsibility for your actions on the net or elsewhere.

Well...."absolute" maybe not, but....

HB

On Jan 18, 8:40*pm, Higgs Boson wrote:
On Jan 18, 6:15*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:



Tony Hwang wrote:

Hey!!! A kindred spirit???
Norton USED to be the best you could get. Norton Utilities was the
best disk editor, back when Peter Norton WAS Norton.The early Norton
AntiVirus was precedent setting.
But today there are so many products that are SO MUCH better than
Norton's offering - particularly in how little they interfere with
the real business of "computing"
Norton products today just get in the way of everything, consuming
resources in prodigious ammounts.
Hi,
That is what you are saying.
If you are an expert on low language(machine code) You can do anything
you want. Norton stuff is nothing but memory hogger. It also snoops on
your system.

It's more than that: Norton is the barnacle of the software world!

After "Uninstalling" you have to download Symantec's Sooper-Sekret removal
tool to chip out the stuff the uninstall routine didn't get. Then you have
to manually scan the registry to snip out anything involving "Norton" or
"Symantec."

OMG!!



You're pretty clean at that point and can install the free Microsoft
Security Essentials or the anti-virus of your choice.

Is it good? *I'm suspicious of anything free, or indeed anything from
Microsoft.



Still, there are those who go to all the trouble to purge their system of
Norton, then install McAffee (because it was free from their ISP).

Ewwww....Ihad always been told that Norton was a hog, so when my
renewal date comes up pretty soon, does the NG advise me to not
renew? *And instead
install WHAT??!! *(Not McAfee -- I had trouble with them long ago).

Will I get 3,000 different recommendations, or is there concensus on
one or two outstanding programs that do as good a job while eating
fewer electrons? KISS.

As another poster on this thread hath vouchsafed:

There are simple virus protection programs out there that DO work and
do not assume, like Norton does, that you are an absolute idiot and
will take no responsibility for your actions on the net or elsewhere.

Well...."absolute" maybe not, but....

HB

I run Avast Free with FF sandboxed (XP SP3)...it works for me!

Higgs Boson wrote:
Ewwww....I had always been told that Norton was a hog, so when my
renewal date comes up pretty soon, does the NG advise me to not
renew? And instead
install WHAT??!! (Not McAfee -- I had trouble with them long ago).

Will I get 3,000 different recommendations, or is there concensus on
one or two outstanding programs that do as good a job while eating
fewer electrons? KISS.


If you value your life and those of your grandchildren, do not renew your
Norton subscription.

Google "anti-virus reviews." There are many well-meaning people and
institutions that have twisted them all assunder. The one I use, Microsoft
Security Essentials (MSE) is always in the top three or four.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best...s-software.htm
http://www.security-faqs.com/the-top...-programs-2010
http://www.nist.org/news.php?extend.93

I use MSE because I figure MS knows its own internal workings better than
anyone else and their product, MSE, would stand a better chance of being
unobtrusive. I have no proof for this belief, it just makes sense (to me).

Remember, no anti-virus program catches everything. And no, you can't use
two at the same time.

On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 07:05:50 -0600, "HeyBub"
wrote:

Higgs Boson wrote:
Ewwww....I had always been told that Norton was a hog, so when my
renewal date comes up pretty soon, does the NG advise me to not
renew? And instead
install WHAT??!! (Not McAfee -- I had trouble with them long ago).

Will I get 3,000 different recommendations, or is there concensus on
one or two outstanding programs that do as good a job while eating
fewer electrons? KISS.


If you value your life and those of your grandchildren, do not renew your
Norton subscription.

Google "anti-virus reviews." There are many well-meaning people and
institutions that have twisted them all assunder. The one I use, Microsoft
Security Essentials (MSE) is always in the top three or four.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best...s-software.htm
http://www.security-faqs.com/the-top...-programs-2010
http://www.nist.org/news.php?extend.93

I use MSE because I figure MS knows its own internal workings better than
anyone else and their product, MSE, would stand a better chance of being
unobtrusive. I have no proof for this belief, it just makes sense (to me).

Remember, no anti-virus program catches everything. And no, you can't use
two at the same time.



Not TOTALLY true. If, for instance, Rogers is your ISP they have
antivirus protection you can enable online - and you can STILL use an
installed anti-virus. It's called "belt and suspenders" when you use 2
different products end to end.

On Jan 19, 4:40*am, Bob Villa wrote:
On Jan 18, 8:40*pm, Higgs Boson wrote:



On Jan 18, 6:15*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:

Tony Hwang wrote:

Hey!!! A kindred spirit???
Norton USED to be the best you could get. Norton Utilities was the
best disk editor, back when Peter Norton WAS Norton.The early Norton
AntiVirus was precedent setting.
But today there are so many products that are SO MUCH better than
Norton's offering - particularly in how little they interfere with
the real business of "computing"
Norton products today just get in the way of everything, consuming
resources in prodigious ammounts.
Hi,
That is what you are saying.
If you are an expert on low language(machine code) You can do anything
you want. Norton stuff is nothing but memory hogger. It also snoops on
your system.

It's more than that: Norton is the barnacle of the software world!

After "Uninstalling" you have to download Symantec's Sooper-Sekret removal
tool to chip out the stuff the uninstall routine didn't get. Then you have
to manually scan the registry to snip out anything involving "Norton" or
"Symantec."

OMG!!

You're pretty clean at that point and can install the free Microsoft
Security Essentials or the anti-virus of your choice.

Is it good? *I'm suspicious of anything free, or indeed anything from
Microsoft.

Still, there are those who go to all the trouble to purge their system of
Norton, then install McAffee (because it was free from their ISP).

Ewwww....Ihadalways been told that Norton was a hog, so when my
renewal date comes up pretty soon, does the NG advise me to not
renew? *And instead
install WHAT??!! *(Not McAfee -- I had trouble with them long ago).

Will I get 3,000 different recommendations, or is there concensus on
one or two outstanding programs that do as good a job while eating
fewer electrons? KISS.

As another poster on this thread hath vouchsafed:

There are simple virus protection programs out there that DO work and
do not assume, like Norton does, that you are an absolute idiot and
will take no responsibility for your actions on the net or elsewhere.

Well...."absolute" maybe not, but....

HB

I run Avast Free with FF sandboxed (XP SP3)...it works for me!

Somebody on a computer group also recommend Avast, free or paid.

I inquired there whether I need to Uninstall Norton while trying out
Avast.

QUESTION: What is "sandboxing"? I am running XP, but don't know what
"SP3" means.

TIA

HB

On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 12:34:39 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson
wrote:

QUESTION: What is "sandboxing"? I am running XP, but don't know what
"SP3" means.

Service Pack 3...likely you are updated with patches? Right?

Give us the rest of the system information...

At least the HDD size and/or if you have two HDDs.

On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 07:05:50 -0600, "HeyBub"
wrote:

Google "anti-virus reviews." There are many well-meaning people and
institutions that have twisted them all assunder. The one I use, Microsoft
Security Essentials (MSE) is always in the top three or four.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best...s-software.htm
http://www.security-faqs.com/the-top...-programs-2010
http://www.nist.org/news.php?extend.93

I use MSE because I figure MS knows its own internal workings better than
anyone else and their product, MSE, would stand a better chance of being
unobtrusive. I have no proof for this belief, it just makes sense (to me).

Remember, no anti-virus program catches everything. And no, you can't use
two at the same time.



I use MSE on two machines.

My bride visits coupon sites (some loaded with dangerous software I
found out).

She clicked... MSE told me something like the file had XYZ number of
viruses (more than dozens).

MSE stopped it dead in it it's tracks.

Manually run this on your system. Point to the file:

C:\Windows\System32\MRT.exe

By default it is supposed to run once a month. Users can run it...

On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 12:34:39 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson
wrote:

On Jan 19, 4:40Â*am, Bob Villa wrote:
On Jan 18, 8:40Â*pm, Higgs Boson wrote:



On Jan 18, 6:15Â*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:

Tony Hwang wrote:

Hey!!! A kindred spirit???
Norton USED to be the best you could get. Norton Utilities was the
best disk editor, back when Peter Norton WAS Norton.The early Norton
AntiVirus was precedent setting.
But today there are so many products that are SO MUCH better than
Norton's offering - particularly in how little they interfere with
the real business of "computing"
Norton products today just get in the way of everything, consuming
resources in prodigious ammounts.
Hi,
That is what you are saying.
If you are an expert on low language(machine code) You can do anything
you want. Norton stuff is nothing but memory hogger. It also snoops on
your system.

It's more than that: Norton is the barnacle of the software world!

After "Uninstalling" you have to download Symantec's Sooper-Sekret removal
tool to chip out the stuff the uninstall routine didn't get. Then you have
to manually scan the registry to snip out anything involving "Norton" or
"Symantec."

OMG!!

You're pretty clean at that point and can install the free Microsoft
Security Essentials or the anti-virus of your choice.

Is it good? Â*I'm suspicious of anything free, or indeed anything from
Microsoft.

Still, there are those who go to all the trouble to purge their system of
Norton, then install McAffee (because it was free from their ISP).

Ewwww....Ihadalways been told that Norton was a hog, so when my
renewal date comes up pretty soon, does the NG advise me to not
renew? Â*And instead
install WHAT??!! Â*(Not McAfee -- I had trouble with them long ago).

Will I get 3,000 different recommendations, or is there concensus on
one or two outstanding programs that do as good a job while eating
fewer electrons? KISS.

As another poster on this thread hath vouchsafed:

There are simple virus protection programs out there that DO work and
do not assume, like Norton does, that you are an absolute idiot and
will take no responsibility for your actions on the net or elsewhere.

Well...."absolute" maybe not, but....

HB

I run Avast Free with FF sandboxed (XP SP3)...it works for me!

Somebody on a computer group also recommend Avast, free or paid.

I inquired there whether I need to Uninstall Norton while trying out
Avast.

QUESTION: What is "sandboxing"? I am running XP, but don't know what
"SP3" means.

TIA

HB
Sand boxing is playing around - SP3 is service pack 3

wrote:
Sand boxing is playing around - SP3 is service pack 3

You're thinking of a different kind of box to play with.

"Sandboxing" is a partitioning of resources (RAM, disk space), completely
disconnected from the operting system or other resources such that if
anything goes amis, its effects will be confined to the sandbox.

On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:42:42 -0600, "HeyBub"
wrote:

wrote:
Sand boxing is playing around - SP3 is service pack 3

You're thinking of a different kind of box to play with.

"Sandboxing" is a partitioning of resources (RAM, disk space), completely
disconnected from the operting system or other resources such that if
anything goes amis, its effects will be confined to the sandbox.

Using virtual machine technology?

On Jan 19, 1:41*pm, Oren wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 12:34:39 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson

wrote:
QUESTION: *What is "sandboxing"? *I am running XP, but don't know what
"SP3" means.

Service Pack 3...likely you are updated with patches? Right?

Give us the rest of the system information...

At least the HDD size and/or if you have two HDDs.

OK, here goes:

At least the HDD size and/or if you have two HDDs.

OK, here goes:

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Version 2002 Service Pack 3

Computer Intel (R) Pentium (R) 4 CPU 2.80 GHz
2.79 GHz 750 MB of RAM

Ext HD 160 GB

I lost track of the pie chart that showed C drive HD usage, but it was
quite a bit -- maybe 75% or more. Wherethehell did I find that?!

Hope this is the desired info, and thanks for your patience; I have
been running hard on some urgent stuff.

NOW Some q, which I also posted on alt.computer.workshop:

1. Can I install Avast -- the virus program people are recommending
-- w/o Uninstalling Hog Norton? Or will they fight and mess me up
even worse?
Avast says it only requires 100 MB of HD space. So can I install
it alongside the Hog? Or could I install it on the External HD?

2. Somewhat like #1: Do I have to Uninstall Norton in order to try
Avast?

3. Should I use the Avast FREE PROGRAM or spring a few bux for the
paid one? I don't mind paying if I get a lot more for my money.
Here's what they offer for the paid program:

Download avast! Internet SecurityInternet
SecurityBest
protection
Antivirus with anti-spyware
The minimum protection for every PC.
Enjoy worry-free web surfing
Innovative Sandbox technology protects you from dangerous websites.
Safely shop or bank online
Firewall prevents theft of your personal and financial data.
Stop bothersome SPAM
Antispam keeps unwanted emails out of your inbox.
Protect up to 3 PCs in your home
Best value offer – get your PCs fully protected only for $20 each!

Some of this stuff duplicates what is offered by Windows, such as
Firewall. Can ANY Antispam really work? I only have one PC. Dunno
anything about the Sandbox technology, which claims to "protect [me]
from dangerous websites. Who decides what is "dangerous"? Sounds very
general.

What do youse guys think about Free vs Paid Avast versions?

4. Norton does AUTOMATIC BACKUPS AND FILE RECOVERY. Those are
valuable programs which I would be sorry to lose, as I have always
been VERY stupid about backup and have lost valuable files as a
result. Does anyone have recommendation for *idiot-proof backup/file
recovery* that is not too fat?

5. Even if I go through all the clean up and discard steps that one
of my honorable friends listed in such thoughtful detail, will that
free up enough from my
6 year-old, underpowered C Drive HD? If not, what do I do? Buy
another HD? Or use External HD as main drive?

6. What's the connection between HD RAM and Virtual Memory? I tried
to read the WikiPedia article on Virtual Memory, but too technical for
moi.
It's VIRTUAL MEMORY that the "flame-like" pie charts in the lower
r.h. corner of the screen have been threatening me with. What do I
have to do to get more Virtual Memory? Is it a function of
available HD RAM?

OK, that's a lot of questions. I am slobberingly grateful for the
TLC..

HB

Higgs Boson wrote:

NOW Some q, which I also posted on alt.computer.workshop:

1. Can I install Avast -- the virus program people are recommending
-- w/o Uninstalling Hog Norton? Or will they fight and mess me up
even worse?
Avast says it only requires 100 MB of HD space. So can I install
it alongside the Hog? Or could I install it on the External HD?

Uninstall Norton. It has so many hooks into the operating system that
coexistence with another AV program is problematic. To uninstall Norton, you
MUST use their Sooper-Sekret removal tool downloaded from their website.


2. Somewhat like #1: Do I have to Uninstall Norton in order to try
Avast?


The absolute answer is No, you do not. The practical answer is Yes.


3. Should I use the Avast FREE PROGRAM or spring a few bux for the
paid one? I don't mind paying if I get a lot more for my money.
Here's what they offer for the paid program:

Download avast! Internet SecurityInternet
SecurityBest
protection
Antivirus with anti-spyware
The minimum protection for every PC.
Enjoy worry-free web surfing
Innovative Sandbox technology protects you from dangerous websites.
Safely shop or bank online
Firewall prevents theft of your personal and financial data.
Stop bothersome SPAM
Antispam keeps unwanted emails out of your inbox.
Protect up to 3 PCs in your home
Best value offer – get your PCs fully protected only for $20 each!

Some of this stuff duplicates what is offered by Windows, such as
Firewall. Can ANY Antispam really work? I only have one PC. Dunno
anything about the Sandbox technology, which claims to "protect [me]
from dangerous websites. Who decides what is "dangerous"? Sounds very
general.

What do youse guys think about Free vs Paid Avast versions?

Free is always better. Further, spam is a completely separate problem to be
addressed after the anti-virus condition. Spam won't kill your machine - a
virus will.


4. Norton does AUTOMATIC BACKUPS AND FILE RECOVERY. Those are
valuable programs which I would be sorry to lose, as I have always
been VERY stupid about backup and have lost valuable files as a
result. Does anyone have recommendation for *idiot-proof backup/file
recovery* that is not too fat?

There are literally dozens. Comodo, Image for Windows, SyncToy, Macrium
Reflect, and a simple batch file triggered by Windows scheduler come to
mind.


5. Even if I go through all the clean up and discard steps that one
of my honorable friends listed in such thoughtful detail, will that
free up enough from my
6 year-old, underpowered C Drive HD? If not, what do I do? Buy
another HD? Or use External HD as main drive?

You cannot (usually) use an external drive as the main drive. The system
won't boot from a USB device (unless the motherboard is very new or you take
other, convoluted, steps). Even if you could run the operating system from
an external drive, you wouldn't want to. The transfer rate on a USB device
is magnitudes slower than an internal hard drive (12Mbps vs 780Mbps -YMMV).

You can EASILY replace your hard drive. Forty gigabyte drives can now be
found in the bottom of CrackerJack boxes! You can buy a sooped-up 1 Terabyte
(1000 gigabytes) for less than eighty bucks. Moving your stuff - including
the entire operating system - is a single button push with the cloning
software that will come with the new drive. If your hand fits a screwdriver,
it's a simple task.


6. What's the connection between HD RAM and Virtual Memory? I tried
to read the WikiPedia article on Virtual Memory, but too technical for
moi.
It's VIRTUAL MEMORY that the "flame-like" pie charts in the lower
r.h. corner of the screen have been threatening me with. What do I
have to do to get more Virtual Memory? Is it a function of
available HD RAM?


"Virtual memory" is a file on your hard drive. When you run out of RAM for
application programs, the operating system dumps part of real memory to this
file to free up RAM for the application requesting RAM. When control is
returned to that part of memory that was dumped to disk, that segment is
reloaded and execution resumes.

Assume you have two programs, A & B running and now attempt to run program
C. The operating system (OS) determines there is not enough room in RAM to
run C, so it dumps program A out to Virtual Memory (a scratch file on your
disk) and loads program C.

Now something happens that program A was waiting for (say a key-press). The
OS dumps program B to disk, reloads program A. And so on.

You can see that insufficient RAM can generate a lot of disk activity.
Further, if there is insufficient Virtual Memory space (your drive is full),
everything croaks.

Usually the OS will grab additional disk space to enlarge its Virtual Memory
pool. You can adjust the size of Virtual Memory (the "paging" file) as
follows:

Open My Computer
Pick "Properties"
Pick the "Advanced" tab
Pick Performance "Settings" button
Select the "Advanced" tab
In the "Virtual Memory" box, punch the "Change" button
Adjust the numbers, or better still, select the "System managed size" option

wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:42:42 -0600, "HeyBub"
wrote:

wrote:
Sand boxing is playing around - SP3 is service pack 3

You're thinking of a different kind of box to play with.

"Sandboxing" is a partitioning of resources (RAM, disk space),
completely disconnected from the operting system or other resources
such that if anything goes amis, its effects will be confined to the
sandbox.

Using virtual machine technology?

A sub-set, yes.

On Jan 19, 11:28*pm, Higgs Boson wrote:
OK, here goes:

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition *Version 2002 *Service Pack 3

Computer Intel (R) *Pentium (R) 4 CPU 2.80 GHz
2.79 GHz * 750 MB of RAM

Ext HD *160 GB

I lost track of the pie chart that showed C drive HD usage, but it was
quite a bit *-- maybe 75% or more. *Wherethehell did I find that?!

OK, good. You're in pretty decent shape hardware-wise, and running
Windows XP is not such a bad thing! (My home PC runs on XP like a
champ, and has for 7 years.)

The pie chart you referred to can be found by going into "My Computer"
or hitting both the Windows key (looks like MS's logo) and E at the
same time. In the left hand pane of that window you found an icon
labeled "C:\" or something similar. Right-click on the icon and in the
menu that comes up choose "Properties". /Voila/, pie chart!


NOW Some q, which I also posted on alt.computer.workshop:

1. *Can I install Avast -- *the virus program people are recommending
-- w/o Uninstalling Hog Norton? * Or will they fight and mess me up
even worse?

As someone else said, you REALLY should uninstall Norton. These sorts
of protection suites are notoriously unfriendly towards each other,
and for good reason: they're both trying to do the same job at the
same time. Think of it like two armies trying to defend the same
territory at the same time, but there's no united commander to
coordinate it. There will be friendly fire and collateral damage.


3. *Should I use the Avast FREE PROGRAM or spring a few bux for the
paid one? *I don't mind paying if I get a lot more for my money.

The free version of Avast! should be just fine for most everything you
do. The paid version has a lot of extras that are nice but not
necessary if you take the more reasonable path of being careful on the
Internet. What do I mean?
- Never use your debit card when making purchases, only a credit card;
if there's fraud or a dispute,
you're out no money while you dispute it, but if you use a debit
card the bank can take their sweet
time giving you your money back.
- Ditch Outlook (Express) and either go with a good, solid web-based
email provider like Gmail, or
use a better email application like Thunderbird (http://
www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/),
made by the same folks who gave you Firefox.
- Do not post your email address on-line, like in places such as this
forum. 'Bots can harvest your
addy and use it to spam you.
- If you're really concerned about attacks against your computer, get
a router. A router, among other
things, is a type of hardware firewall. The Intartubes would only be
able to see past your modem
to the router, and would not be able to see or find your PC.


Some of this stuff duplicates what is offered by Windows, such as
Firewall.

Windows Firewall is a one-way firewall: it only protects against
things that are coming _at_ your computer. Avast's firewall is two-
way: not only will it protect you against incoming bad stuff, but it
also monitors outgoing traffic to make sure it's legit. The benefit of
this is if malware has secretly gotten onto your machine, Avast's
firewall will either stop it from getting out to connect with its
master, or it will alert you to the fact that something wicked is on
your system.

In theory, if you install Avast's firewall, Windows will not bug you
about its own firewall.


Can ANY Antispam really work?

No, in that it won't stop the amount of spam, but yes in that it can
automatically kill a lot of it, which will help reduce the amount of
spam you see.


Dunno anything about the Sandbox technology, which claims to "protect [me]
from dangerous websites. *Who decides what is "dangerous"?

Honestly, if you're running Firefox you have this capability built-in:
Go to Tools--Preferences. In the Preferences window, click on the
"Security" tab, and look for "Block reported attack sites" and "Block
reported web forgeries" and Firefox will access the same web-wide
database of known bad/evil websites that Norton, McAfee, Avast!, and
others use.


4. *Norton does AUTOMATIC BACKUPS AND FILE RECOVERY. *Those are
valuable programs which I would be sorry to lose, as I have always
been VERY stupid * about backup and have lost valuable files as a
result. *Does anyone have recommendation for *idiot-proof backup/file
recovery* that is not too fat?

This is something that can be done by Windows, and I would bet that's
what Norton does is activate and monitor the Windows built-in back-up
utility. To find out how to set this up yourself for worry-free back-
ups, read PC World's excellent article:
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscente...n_too ls.html
(the first page of the article is all about how to create a space for
doing the back-up, which you already have on your external hard drive)


6. *What's the connection between HD *RAM and Virtual Memory?

OK, let's get some terms clarified: HD and RAM are two different
things. HD is your hard drive, RAM is the computer's working memory.
Think of your computer as an office: the hard drive is the file
cabinets and bookshelves in the office, and RAM is the size of the
desk. RAM is your work space, the HD is your storage space.

Now, imagine you're juggling a lot of projects in the office—too many
to fit on your desk at the same time. So you take some shelf space on
your bookcases and stick one or two of your projects on there to give
you enough space on the desk to work. As you switch between projects,
sometimes you have to pull a project off the shelf and move one from
the desk onto the shelf. That's what your computer does with virtual
memory. If your computer has too much stuff that won't fit on the desk
and you have WAY too much stuff stored on the bookshelves that you
don't have room to stick projects there temporarily, the computer gets
constipated.

That's what it sounds like is happening with your virtual memory
problem, which is why I recommended some _serious_ housecleaning to
free up some space on your hard drive—the bookshelves.


5. Even if I go through all the clean up and discard steps that one
of my honorable friends listed in such thoughtful detail, will that
free up enough from my
6 year-old, underpowered C Drive HD?

Maybe. My own storage drive is actually smaller than yours, and my
computer is also older. Part of that, I think, is that I'm a freak
about yearly housecleaning on the computer along the lines of what I
suggested, which has kept us from running out of space. So my own
inexpert guesstimate-from-a-distance is that you need to free up some
space or find some new space.

I suggest doing the housecleaning no matter what, because we are
notoriously bad about throwing away our digital trash. Since hard
drives are so cheap we'd rather just move all our junk to a bigger
hard drive than go to the effort of cleaning up the one we have that
otherwise works perfectly well. It's akin to the proliferation of self-
storage places: we'd rather pay some company to hold our stuff for us,
which we never use, rather than live within our means by going through
our households, tossing what's trash and donating what we don't use or
_TRULY_ need.


If not, what do I do? Buy another HD?
Or use External HD as main drive?

Run _NOTHING_ from the external hard drive. External hard drives are
meant for storage, not operations. They aren't mean to be run like that
—you'd wear it out very fast—and you'd hate how slow it would be.
Using that office analogy, the external hard drive is the storage
closet down the hall. You wouldn't want to have to get up from your
desk every single time you need something because you stuck it in the
closet.

If your 160GB hard drive is nearly full, I'm guessing you probably
have a lot of music or video or photos stored on the drive. You have
three choices: move some of that stuff to an archive somewhere else,
get a second internal hard drive strictly for storage of media, or
replace your existing hard drive with a larger one. The benefit of the
latter is that you only have to worry about space and connections for
one physical drive; the benefit of the former is it's easier to back
up as you tell your system "back up this entire drive."

Mind you, that same "just back it up" benefit can be derived by
something called partitioning: making Windows see a single large
physical hard drive as a few smaller drives with separate drive
letters. I did this with the system at home—C:\ is the Windows OS and
programs, K:\ is where we store all our "stuff" (my wife and I both
have names that start with K, so it's easy to remember which drive our
stuff is on), and L:\ is for the Linux OS (which I am still VERY
experimental on). Monthly I plug the external hard drive in and back-
up K:\, leaving C:\ and L:\ undisturbed.

Either way, you'll want to have your friendly neighborhood geek do the
installation for you, or at the very least be there to guide you
through doing it yourself. I highly recommend the latter, if you
really want to gain a deeper appreciation and understanding for how
computers work.

On Jan 19, 1:41*pm, Oren wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 12:34:39 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson

wrote:
QUESTION: *What is "sandboxing"? *I am running XP, but don't know what
"SP3" means.

Service Pack 3...likely you are updated with patches? Right?

Give us the rest of the system information...

At least the HDD size and/or if you have two HDDs.

??? I posted a long reply yesterday w/all the required info, plus a
list of questions. It didn't show up, so I posted THIS reply, and
THAT didn't go through either.
Later today I will try again w/the original post. Just didn't want
people thinking I was neglecting the matter.

HB

On Jan 20, 10:16*am, Higgs Boson wrote:
On Jan 19, 1:41*pm, Oren wrote:

On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 12:34:39 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson

wrote:
QUESTION: *What is "sandboxing"? *I am running XP, but don't know what
"SP3" means.

Service Pack 3...likely you are updated with patches? Right?

Give us the rest of the system information...

At least the HDD size and/or if you have two HDDs.

??? *I posted a long reply yesterday w/all the required info, plus a
list of questions. *It didn't show up, so I posted THIS reply, and
THAT didn't go through either.
Later today I will try again w/the original post. *Just didn't want
people thinking I was neglecting the matter.

HB

I didn't see the HDD size...only the external HDD size?

On Jan 20, 8:16*am, Higgs Boson wrote:
On Jan 19, 1:41*pm, Oren wrote:

On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 12:34:39 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson

wrote:
QUESTION: *What is "sandboxing"? *I am running XP, but don't know what
"SP3" means.

Service Pack 3...likely you are updated with patches? Right?

Give us the rest of the system information...

At least the HDD size and/or if you have two HDDs.

??? *I posted a long reply yesterday w/all the required info, plus a
list of questions. *It didn't show up, so I posted THIS reply, and
THAT didn't go through either.
Later today I will try again w/the original post. *Just didn't want
people thinking I was neglecting the matter.

HB

Oops, it DID show up, and in reply I got the most ***incredible
tutorial*** from KYLE that I am sure will benefit other non-geeks like
myself who are dealing with hassles sans guru. For my comments on
Kyle's tutorial, see his new post.

HB

On Jan 20, 7:40*am, Kyle wrote:
On Jan 19, 11:28*pm, Higgs Boson wrote:

OK, here goes:

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition *Version 2002 *Service Pack 3

Computer Intel (R) *Pentium (R) 4 CPU 2.80 GHz
2.79 GHz * 750 MB of RAM

Ext HD *160 GB

I lost track of the pie chart that showed C drive HD usage, but it was
quite a bit *-- maybe 75% or more. *Wherethehell did I find that?!

OK, good. You're in pretty decent shape hardware-wise, and running
Windows XP is not such a bad thing! (My home PC runs on XP like a
champ, and has for 7 years.)

The pie chart you referred to can be found by going into "My Computer"
or hitting both the Windows key (looks like MS's logo) and E at the
same time. In the left hand pane of that window you found an icon
labeled "C:\" or something similar. Right-click on the icon and in the
menu that comes up choose "Properties". /Voila/, pie chart!

NOW Some q, which I also posted on alt.computer.workshop:

1. *Can I install Avast -- *the virus program people are recommending
-- w/o Uninstalling Hog Norton? * Or will they fight and mess me up
even worse?

As someone else said, you REALLY should uninstall Norton. These sorts
of protection suites are notoriously unfriendly towards each other,
and for good reason: they're both trying to do the same job at the
same time. Think of it like two armies trying to defend the same
territory at the same time, but there's no united commander to
coordinate it. There will be friendly fire and collateral damage.

Yeah, I suspected as much. Guess there's no use hanging on to the
next few months just because I paid for them already. They sent me a
free disc for Ghost, since I was having such hell with the old GoBack,
and damn'f it didn't take over my E drive!

3. *Should I use the Avast FREE PROGRAM or spring a few bux for the
paid one? *I don't mind paying if I get a lot more for my money.

The free version of Avast! should be just fine for most everything you
do. The paid version has a lot of extras that are nice but not
necessary if you take the more reasonable path of being careful on the
Internet. What do I mean?
- Never use your debit card when making purchases, only a credit card;
if there's fraud or a dispute,

(Excuse CAPS - helps reply stand out)

TRUST ME, I WOULDN'T GO *NEAR* A DEBIT CARD!
* you're out no money while you dispute it, but if you use a debit
card the bank can take their sweet
* time giving you your money back.

- Ditch Outlook (Express) and either go with a good, solid web-based
email provider like Gmail, or

I NEVER USE OE. I USE GMAIL AND VERIZON (the latter because it's part
of a package).

* use a better email application like Thunderbird (http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/),
* made by the same folks who gave you Firefox.
- Do not post your email address on-line, like in places such as this
forum. 'Bots can harvest your
* addy and use it to spam you.

I'VE TRIED NOT TO, BUT COULDN'T SEE A WAY TO DO IT? CAN I POST FROM A
FAKE EMAIL ADDRESS OR NONE? SERIOUSLY, I'VE TRIED TO LOOK INTO THIS.
MAYBE YOU CAN HELP?

- If you're really concerned about attacks against your computer, get
a router. A router, among other
* things, is a type of hardware firewall. The Intartubes would only be
able to see past your modem
* to the router, and would not be able to see or find your PC.

I THINK I DO HAVE A ROUTER. SOMEONE INSTALLED WIFI ON MY SYSTEM.
HOWEVER, I HAVE SEEN NORTON FOIL SEVERAL WORMS AND VIRII.

Some of this stuff duplicates what is offered by Windows, such as
Firewall.

Windows Firewall is a one-way firewall: it only protects against
things that are coming _at_ your computer. Avast's firewall is two-
way: not only will it protect you against incoming bad stuff, but it
also monitors outgoing traffic to make sure it's legit. The benefit of
this is if malware has secretly gotten onto your machine, Avast's
firewall will either stop it from getting out to connect with its
master, or it will alert you to the fact that something wicked is on
your system.

In theory, if you install Avast's firewall, Windows will not bug you
about its own firewall.

Can ANY Antispam really work?

No, in that it won't stop the amount of spam, but yes in that it can
automatically kill a lot of it, which will help reduce the amount of
spam you see.

Dunno anything about the Sandbox technology, which claims to "protect [me]
from dangerous websites. *Who decides what is "dangerous"?

Honestly, if you're running Firefox you have this capability built-in:
Go to Tools--Preferences. In the Preferences window, click on the
"Security" tab, and look for "Block reported attack sites" and "Block
reported web forgeries" and Firefox will access the same web-wide
database of known bad/evil websites that Norton, McAfee, Avast!, and
others use.

4. *Norton does AUTOMATIC BACKUPS AND FILE RECOVERY. *Those are
valuable programs which I would be sorry to lose, as I have always
been VERY stupid * about backup and have lost valuable files as a
result. *Does anyone have recommendation for *idiot-proof backup/file
recovery* that is not too fat?

This is something that can be done by Windows, and I would bet that's
what Norton does is activate and monitor the Windows built-in back-up
utility. To find out how to set this up yourself for worry-free back-
ups, read PC World's excellent article:http://www.pcworld.com/businesscente...create_idiotpr...
(the first page of the article is all about how to create a space for
doing the back-up, which you already have on your external hard drive)

6. *What's the connection between HD *RAM and Virtual Memory?

OK, let's get some terms clarified: HD and RAM are two different
things. HD is your hard drive, RAM is the computer's working memory.
Think of your computer as an office: the hard drive is the file
cabinets and bookshelves in the office, and RAM is the size of the
desk. RAM is your work space, the HD is your storage space.

Now, imagine you're juggling a lot of projects in the office—too many
to fit on your desk at the same time. So you take some shelf space on
your bookcases and stick one or two of your projects on there to give
you enough space on the desk to work. As you switch between projects,
sometimes you have to pull a project off the shelf and move one from
the desk onto the shelf. That's what your computer does with virtual
memory. If your computer has too much stuff that won't fit on the desk
and you have WAY too much stuff stored on the bookshelves that you
don't have room to stick projects there temporarily, the computer gets
constipated.

That's what it sounds like is happening with your virtual memory
problem, which is why I recommended some _serious_ housecleaning to
free up some space on your hard drive—the bookshelves.

5. *Even if I go through all the clean up and discard steps that one
of my honorable friends listed in such thoughtful detail, will that
free up enough from my
6 year-old, underpowered C Drive HD?

Maybe. My own storage drive is actually smaller than yours, and my
computer is also older. Part of that, I think, is that I'm a freak
about yearly housecleaning on the computer along the lines of what I
suggested, which has kept us from running out of space. So my own
inexpert guesstimate-from-a-distance is that you need to free up some
space or find some new space.

I suggest doing the housecleaning no matter what, because we are
notoriously bad about throwing away our digital trash. Since hard
drives are so cheap we'd rather just move all our junk to a bigger
hard drive than go to the effort of cleaning up the one we have that
otherwise works perfectly well. It's akin to the proliferation of self-
storage places: we'd rather pay some company to hold our stuff for us,
which we never use, rather than live within our means by going through
our households, tossing what's trash and donating what we don't use or
_TRULY_ need.

If not, what do I do? *Buy another HD?
Or use External HD as main drive?

Run _NOTHING_ from the external hard drive. External hard drives are
meant for storage, not operations. They aren't mean to be run like that
—you'd wear it out very fast—and you'd hate how slow it would be.
Using that office analogy, the external hard drive is the storage
closet down the hall. You wouldn't want to have to get up from your
desk every single time you need something because you stuck it in the
closet.

If your 160GB hard drive is nearly full, I'm guessing you probably
have a lot of music or video or photos stored on the drive. You have
three choices: move some of that stuff to an archive somewhere else,
get a second internal hard drive strictly for storage of media, or
replace your existing hard drive with a larger one. The benefit of the
latter is that you only have to worry about space and connections for
one physical drive; the benefit of the former is it's easier to back
up as you tell your system "back up this entire drive."

Mind you, that same "just back it up" benefit can be derived by
something called partitioning: making Windows see a single large
physical hard drive as a few smaller drives with separate drive
letters. I did this with the system at home—C:\ is the Windows OS and
programs, K:\ is where we store all our "stuff" (my wife and I both
have names that start with K, so it's easy to remember which drive our
stuff is on), and L:\ is for the Linux OS (which I am still VERY
experimental on). Monthly I plug the external hard drive in and back-
up K:\, leaving C:\ and L:\ undisturbed.

Either way, you'll want to have your friendly neighborhood geek do the
installation for you, or at the very least be there to guide you
through doing it yourself. I highly recommend the latter, if you
really want to gain a deeper appreciation and understanding for how
computers work.

On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:28:10 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson
wrote:

6. What's the connection between HD RAM and Virtual Memory? I tried
to read the WikiPedia article on Virtual Memory, but too technical for
moi.
It's VIRTUAL MEMORY that the "flame-like" pie charts in the lower
r.h. corner of the screen have been threatening me with. What do I
have to do to get more Virtual Memory? Is it a function of
available HD RAM?


This is snipped from MS, regarding XP and virtual memory*. If you
actually had a second internal drive you can swap the pagefile to
another drive. ( from C:\ to drive letter:\ Your OS has help and
support you can also search.

*show tocWindows XP Professional Product Documentation Performance
and maintenance

To change the size of the virtual memory paging file

You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the
Administrators group in order to complete this procedure. If your
computer is connected to a network, network policy settings may also
prevent you from completing this procedure.

1. Open System in Control Panel.

2. On the Advanced tab, under Performance, click Settings.

3. On the Advanced tab, under Virtual memory, click Change.

4. Under Drive [Volume Label], click the drive that contains the
paging file you want to change.

5. Under Paging file size for selected drive, click Custom size, and
type a new paging file size in megabytes in the Initial size (MB) or
Maximum size (MB) box, and then click Set.

If you decrease the size of either the initial or maximum page file
settings, you must restart your computer to see the effects of those
changes. Increases typically do not require a restart.


Note

• To open System, click Start, click Control Panel, click Performance
and Maintenance, and then click System.

• To have Windows choose the best paging file size, click System
managed size.

• For best performance, do not set the initial size to less than the
minimum recommended size under Total paging file size for all drives.
The recommended size is equivalent to 1.5 times the amount of RAM on
your system. Usually, you should leave the paging file at its
recommended size, although you might increase its size if you
routinely use programs that require a lot of memory.

• To delete a paging file, set both initial size and maximum size to
zero, or click No paging file. Microsoft strongly recommends that you
do not disable or delete the paging file.

Oren wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:28:10 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson
wrote:

6. What's the connection between HD RAM and Virtual Memory? I tried
to read the WikiPedia article on Virtual Memory, but too technical for
moi.
It's VIRTUAL MEMORY that the "flame-like" pie charts in the lower
r.h. corner of the screen have been threatening me with. What do I
have to do to get more Virtual Memory? Is it a function of
available HD RAM?


This is snipped from MS, regarding XP and virtual memory*. If you
actually had a second internal drive you can swap the pagefile to
another drive. ( from C:\ to drive letter:\ Your OS has help and
support you can also search.

*show tocWindows XP Professional Product Documentation Performance
and maintenance

To change the size of the virtual memory paging file

You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the
Administrators group in order to complete this procedure. If your
computer is connected to a network, network policy settings may also
prevent you from completing this procedure.

1. Open System in Control Panel.

2. On the Advanced tab, under Performance, click Settings.

3. On the Advanced tab, under Virtual memory, click Change.

4. Under Drive [Volume Label], click the drive that contains the
paging file you want to change.

5. Under Paging file size for selected drive, click Custom size, and
type a new paging file size in megabytes in the Initial size (MB) or
Maximum size (MB) box, and then click Set.

If you decrease the size of either the initial or maximum page file
settings, you must restart your computer to see the effects of those
changes. Increases typically do not require a restart.


Note

• To open System, click Start, click Control Panel, click Performance
and Maintenance, and then click System.

• To have Windows choose the best paging file size, click System
managed size.

• For best performance, do not set the initial size to less than the
minimum recommended size under Total paging file size for all drives.
The recommended size is equivalent to 1.5 times the amount of RAM on
your system. Usually, you should leave the paging file at its
recommended size, although you might increase its size if you
routinely use programs that require a lot of memory.

• To delete a paging file, set both initial size and maximum size to
zero, or click No paging file. Microsoft strongly recommends that you
do not disable or delete the paging file.

Hi,
To play with page file size and virtual memory, etc. One must understand
what they are. I always install OS alone on a smallish
HDD and data, applications spread around on other HDDs. Also I format
HDD interlaced. I like using SCSI or SATA HDD with bigger cache and
higher rpm. People who don't do regular back up is I'd say very stupid.

On Jan 20, 1:15*pm, Tony Hwang wrote:
Oren wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:28:10 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson
*wrote:

6. *What's the connection between HD *RAM and Virtual Memory? *I tried
to read the WikiPedia article on Virtual Memory, but too technical for
moi.
* * *It's VIRTUAL MEMORY that the "flame-like" pie charts in the lower
r.h. corner of the screen have *been threatening me with. * What do I
have to do to get * more * Virtual Memory? *Is it a function of
available HD RAM?

This is snipped from MS, regarding XP and virtual memory*. *If you
actually had a second internal drive you can swap the pagefile to
another drive. ( from C:\ to *drive letter:\ *Your OS has help and
support you can also search.

*show tocWindows XP Professional Product Documentation *Performance
and maintenance

To change the size of the virtual memory paging file

You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the
Administrators group in order to complete this procedure. If your
computer is connected to a network, network policy settings may also
prevent you from completing this procedure.

1. *Open System in Control Panel.

2. *On the Advanced tab, under Performance, click Settings.

3. *On the Advanced tab, under Virtual memory, click Change.

4. *Under Drive [Volume Label], click the drive that contains the
paging file you want to change.

5. *Under Paging file size for selected drive, click Custom size, and
type a new paging file size in megabytes in the Initial size (MB) or
Maximum size (MB) box, and then click Set.

If you decrease the size of either the initial or maximum page file
settings, you must restart your computer to see the effects of those
changes. Increases typically do not require a restart.

Note

• To open System, click Start, click Control Panel, click Performance
and Maintenance, and then click System.

• To have Windows choose the best paging file size, click System
managed size.

• For best performance, do not set the initial size to less than the
minimum recommended size under Total paging file size for all drives.
The recommended size is equivalent to 1.5 times the amount of RAM on
your system. Usually, you should leave the paging file at its
recommended size, although you might increase its size if you
routinely use programs that require a lot of memory.

• To delete a paging file, set both initial size and maximum size to
zero, or click No paging file. Microsoft strongly recommends that you
do not disable or delete the paging file.

Hi,
To play with page file size and virtual memory, etc. One must understand
what they are. I always install OS alone on a smallish
HDD and data, applications spread around on other HDDs. Also I format
HDD interlaced. I like using SCSI or SATA HDD with bigger cache and
higher rpm. People who don't do regular back up is I'd say very stupid.

You're right - I AM "very stupid" and got hurt for it several times
losing data in crash. But I'm not geek enough to "play with page file
size and virtual memory". So If I hear back from my old guru, I'll
discuss it with him.
..

Tx

HB

On Jan 20, 12:55*pm, Oren wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:28:10 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson

wrote:
6. *What's the connection between HD *RAM and Virtual Memory? *I tried
to read the WikiPedia article on Virtual Memory, but too technical for
moi.
* * It's VIRTUAL MEMORY that the "flame-like" pie charts in the lower
r.h. corner of the screen have *been threatening me with. * What do I
have to do to get * more * Virtual Memory? *Is it a function of
available HD RAM?

This is snipped from MS, regarding XP and virtual memory*. *If you
actually had a second internal drive you can swap the pagefile to
another drive. ( from C:\ to drive letter:\ *Your OS has help and
support you can also search.

*show tocWindows XP Professional Product Documentation Performance
and maintenance

To change the size of the virtual memory paging file

You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the
Administrators group in order to complete this procedure. If your
computer is connected to a network, network policy settings may also
prevent you from completing this procedure.

1. *Open System in Control Panel.

2. *On the Advanced tab, under Performance, click Settings.

3. *On the Advanced tab, under Virtual memory, click Change.

4. *Under Drive [Volume Label], click the drive that contains the
paging file you want to change.

5. *Under Paging file size for selected drive, click Custom size, and
type a new paging file size in megabytes in the Initial size (MB) or
Maximum size (MB) box, and then click Set.

If you decrease the size of either the initial or maximum page file
settings, you must restart your computer to see the effects of those
changes. Increases typically do not require a restart.

Note

To open System, click Start, click Control Panel, click Performance
and Maintenance, and then click System.

To have Windows choose the best paging file size, click System
managed size.

For best performance, do not set the initial size to less than the
minimum recommended size under Total paging file size for all drives.
The recommended size is equivalent to 1.5 times the amount of RAM on
your system. Usually, you should leave the paging file at its
recommended size, although you might increase its size if you
routinely use programs that require a lot of memory.

To delete a paging file, set both initial size and maximum size to
zero, or click No paging file. Microsoft strongly recommends that you
do not disable or delete the paging file.

THANK you much for this heads-up. I have to study it to digest; my
few remaining neurons probably can us the exercise!

HB

On Jan 20, 8:38*am, Higgs Boson wrote:
On Jan 20, 7:40*am, Kyle wrote:

On Jan 19, 11:28*pm, Higgs Boson wrote:

OK, here goes:

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition *Version 2002 *Service Pack 3

Computer Intel (R) *Pentium (R) 4 CPU 2.80 GHz
2.79 GHz * 750 MB of RAM

Ext HD *160 GB

I lost track of the pie chart that showed C drive HD usage, but it was
quite a bit *-- maybe 75% or more. *Wherethehell did I find that?!

OK, good. You're in pretty decent shape hardware-wise, and running
Windows XP is not such a bad thing! (My home PC runs on XP like a
champ, and has for 7 years.)

The pie chart you referred to can be found by going into "My Computer"
or hitting both the Windows key (looks like MS's logo) and E at the
same time. In the left hand pane of that window you found an icon
labeled "C:\" or something similar. Right-click on the icon and in the
menu that comes up choose "Properties". /Voila/, pie chart!

NOW Some q, which I also posted on alt.computer.workshop:

1. *Can I install Avast -- *the virus program people are recommending
-- w/o Uninstalling Hog Norton? * Or will they fight and mess me up
even worse?

As someone else said, you REALLY should uninstall Norton. These sorts
of protection suites are notoriously unfriendly towards each other,
and for good reason: they're both trying to do the same job at the
same time. Think of it like two armies trying to defend the same
territory at the same time, but there's no united commander to
coordinate it. There will be friendly fire and collateral damage.

Yeah, I suspected as much. *Guess there's no use hanging on to the
next few months just because I paid for them already. *They sent me a
free disc for Ghost, since I was having such hell with the old GoBack,
and damn'f it didn't take over my E drive!

3. *Should I use the Avast FREE PROGRAM or spring a few bux for the
paid one? *I don't mind paying if I get a lot more for my money.

The free version of Avast! should be just fine for most everything you
do. The paid version has a lot of extras that are nice but not
necessary if you take the more reasonable path of being careful on the
Internet. What do I mean?
- Never use your debit card when making purchases, only a credit card;
if there's fraud or a dispute,

(Excuse CAPS - helps reply stand out)

TRUST ME, I WOULDN'T GO *NEAR* A DEBIT CARD!

* you're out no money while you dispute it, but if you use a debit
card the bank can take their sweet
* time giving you your money back.
- Ditch Outlook (Express) and either go with a good, solid web-based
email provider like Gmail, or

I NEVER USE OE. *I USE GMAIL AND VERIZON (the latter because it's part
of a package).

* use a better email application like Thunderbird (http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/),
* made by the same folks who gave you Firefox.
- Do not post your email address on-line, like in places such as this
forum. 'Bots can harvest your
* addy and use it to spam you.

I'VE TRIED NOT TO, BUT COULDN'T SEE A WAY TO DO IT? *CAN I POST FROM A
FAKE EMAIL ADDRESS OR NONE? *SERIOUSLY, I'VE TRIED TO LOOK INTO THIS.
MAYBE YOU CAN HELP?

- If you're really concerned about attacks against your computer, get
a router. A router, among other
* things, is a type of hardware firewall. The Intartubes would only be
able to see past your modem
* to the router, and would not be able to see or find your PC.

I THINK I DO HAVE A ROUTER. *SOMEONE INSTALLED WIFI ON MY SYSTEM.
HOWEVER, I HAVE SEEN NORTON FOIL SEVERAL WORMS AND VIRII.



Some of this stuff duplicates what is offered by Windows, such as
Firewall.

Windows Firewall is a one-way firewall: it only protects against
things that are coming _at_ your computer. Avast's firewall is two-
way: not only will it protect you against incoming bad stuff, but it
also monitors outgoing traffic to make sure it's legit. The benefit of
this is if malware has secretly gotten onto your machine, Avast's
firewall will either stop it from getting out to connect with its
master, or it will alert you to the fact that something wicked is on
your system.

In theory, if you install Avast's firewall, Windows will not bug you
about its own firewall.

Can ANY Antispam really work?

No, in that it won't stop the amount of spam, but yes in that it can
automatically kill a lot of it, which will help reduce the amount of
spam you see.

Dunno anything about the Sandbox technology, which claims to "protect [me]
from dangerous websites. *Who decides what is "dangerous"?

Honestly, if you're running Firefox you have this capability built-in:
Go to Tools--Preferences. In the Preferences window, click on the
"Security" tab, and look for "Block reported attack sites" and "Block
reported web forgeries" and Firefox will access the same web-wide
database of known bad/evil websites that Norton, McAfee, Avast!, and
others use.

4. *Norton does AUTOMATIC BACKUPS AND FILE RECOVERY. *Those are
valuable programs which I would be sorry to lose, as I have always
been VERY stupid * about backup and have lost valuable files as a
result. *Does anyone have recommendation for *idiot-proof backup/file
recovery* that is not too fat?

This is something that can be done by Windows, and I would bet that's
what Norton does is activate and monitor the Windows built-in back-up
utility. To find out how to set this up yourself for worry-free back-
ups, read PC World's excellent article:http://www.pcworld.com/businesscente...create_idiotpr...
(the first page of the article is all about how to create a space for
doing the back-up, which you already have on your external hard drive)

6. *What's the connection between HD *RAM and Virtual Memory?

OK, let's get some terms clarified: HD and RAM are two different
things. HD is your hard drive, RAM is the computer's working memory.
Think of your computer as an office: the hard drive is the file
cabinets and bookshelves in the office, and RAM is the size of the
desk. RAM is your work space, the HD is your storage space.

Now, imagine you're juggling a lot of projects in the office—too many
to fit on your desk at the same time. So you take some shelf space on
your bookcases and stick one or two of your projects on there to give
you enough space on the desk to work. As you switch between projects,
sometimes you have to pull a project off the shelf and move one from
the desk onto the shelf. That's what your computer does with virtual
memory. If your computer has too much stuff that won't fit on the desk
and you have WAY too much stuff stored on the bookshelves that you
don't have room to stick projects there temporarily, the computer gets
constipated.

That's what it sounds like is happening with your virtual memory
problem, which is why I recommended some _serious_ housecleaning to
free up some space on your hard drive—the bookshelves.

5. *Even if I go through all the clean up and discard steps that one
of my honorable friends listed in such thoughtful detail, will that
free up enough from my
6 year-old, underpowered C Drive HD?

Maybe. My own storage drive is actually smaller than yours, and my
computer is also older. Part of that, I think, is that I'm a freak
about yearly housecleaning on the computer along the lines of what I
suggested, which has kept us from running out of space. So my own
inexpert guesstimate-from-a-distance is that you need to free up some
space or find some new space.

I suggest doing the housecleaning no matter what, because we are
notoriously bad about throwing away our digital trash. Since hard
drives are so cheap we'd rather just move all our junk to a bigger
hard drive than go to the effort of cleaning up the one we have that
otherwise works perfectly well. It's akin to the proliferation of self-
storage places: we'd rather pay some company to hold our stuff for us,
which we never use, rather than live within our means by going through
our households, tossing what's trash and donating what we don't use or
_TRULY_ need.

I agree with you on this; just lack the tech skills, but am working on
locating my old guru.

If not, what do I do? *Buy another HD?
Or use External HD as main drive?

Run _NOTHING_ from the external hard drive. External hard drives are
meant for storage, not operations. They aren't mean to be run like that
—you'd wear it out very fast—and you'd hate how slow it would be.
Using that office analogy, the external hard drive is the storage
closet down the hall. You wouldn't want to have to get up from your
desk every single time you need something because you stuck it in the
closet.

Very good analogy for the non-geek; thank you.

If your 160GB hard drive is nearly full,

No, it's got lots of room.

I'm guessing you probably have a lot of music or video or photos
stored on the drive. You have
three choices: move some of that stuff to an archive somewhere else,
get a second internal hard drive strictly for storage of media, or
replace your existing hard drive with a larger one. The benefit of the
latter is that you only have to worry about space and connections for
one physical drive; the benefit of the former is it's easier to back
up as you tell your system "back up this entire drive."

Uh, unclear. Are you saying that a single HD is easier to back up?
Intuitively, sounds right.

Mind you, that same "just back it up" benefit can be derived by
something called partitioning: making Windows see a single large
physical hard drive as a few smaller drives with separate drive
letters. I did this with the system at home—C:\ is the Windows OS and
programs, K:\ is where we store all our "stuff" (my wife and I both
have names that start with K, so it's easy to remember which drive our
stuff is on), and L:\ is for the Linux OS (which I am still VERY
experimental on). Monthly I plug the external hard drive in and back-
up K:\, leaving C:\ and L:\ undisturbed.

When I got my present computer, nearly 6 years ago, I thought about
partitioning, but I didn't have the skill, and 40 GB seemed to stretch
into the dim horizon. Well, we know better now! I have checked out
some Seagates wih 500 GB for $114.00; doesn't sound bad. I understand
that it's more eexpensive if you buy complete with cables and manual.
Is a non-geek safer doing that than going bare? I read that I HAVE the
cables and of course the motherboard. But I want a HD that, as one
kind poster put it, lets you just press a button to transfer all
existing data.

Either

...

read more »

On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 07:40:05 -0800 (PST), Kyle
wrote:

6. *What's the connection between HD *RAM and Virtual Memory?

OK, let's get some terms clarified: HD and RAM are two different
things. HD is your hard drive, RAM is the computer's working memory.
Think of your computer as an office: the hard drive is the file
cabinets and bookshelves in the office, and RAM is the size of the
desk. RAM is your work space, the HD is your storage space.

(I liked your comments)

RAM is physical memory. Virtual memory is a system file (pagefile.*
hidden in the root directory (folder).

Now days RAM is on the hardware and not just the motherboard. HHDs
have memory cache (2MB), CPU (6MB) videos cards (64MB?), etc.

The OP can increase his page file size, for a start. I agree about
Norton removal).

Oren wrote:
On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 07:40:05 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

6. What's the connection between HD RAM and Virtual Memory?

OK, let's get some terms clarified: HD and RAM are two different
things. HD is your hard drive, RAM is the computer's working memory.
Think of your computer as an office: the hard drive is the file
cabinets and bookshelves in the office, and RAM is the size of the
desk. RAM is your work space, the HD is your storage space.

(I liked your comments)

RAM is physical memory. Virtual memory is a system file (pagefile.*
hidden in the root directory (folder).

Now days RAM is on the hardware and not just the motherboard. HHDs
have memory cache (2MB), CPU (6MB) videos cards (64MB?), etc.

The OP can increase his page file size, for a start.I agree about
Norton removal).

Hi,
How about scratch pad memory, Associate memory? Virtual memory address
is generated by complex math algorithm. Even if say you have 4GB of
RAM it can be made if you had humpteen GB of memory. What is your back?

On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 13:44:21 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson
wrote:

On Jan 20, 12:55*pm, Oren wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:28:10 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson

wrote:
6. *What's the connection between HD *RAM and Virtual Memory? *I tried
to read the WikiPedia article on Virtual Memory, but too technical for
moi.
* * It's VIRTUAL MEMORY that the "flame-like" pie charts in the lower
r.h. corner of the screen have *been threatening me with. * What do I
have to do to get * more * Virtual Memory? *Is it a function of
available HD RAM?

This is snipped from MS, regarding XP and virtual memory*. *If you
actually had a second internal drive you can swap the pagefile to
another drive. ( from C:\ to drive letter:\ *Your OS has help and
support you can also search.

*show tocWindows XP Professional Product Documentation Performance
and maintenance

To change the size of the virtual memory paging file

You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the
Administrators group in order to complete this procedure. If your
computer is connected to a network, network policy settings may also
prevent you from completing this procedure.

1. *Open System in Control Panel.

2. *On the Advanced tab, under Performance, click Settings.

3. *On the Advanced tab, under Virtual memory, click Change.

4. *Under Drive [Volume Label], click the drive that contains the
paging file you want to change.

5. *Under Paging file size for selected drive, click Custom size, and
type a new paging file size in megabytes in the Initial size (MB) or
Maximum size (MB) box, and then click Set.

If you decrease the size of either the initial or maximum page file
settings, you must restart your computer to see the effects of those
changes. Increases typically do not require a restart.

Note

To open System, click Start, click Control Panel, click Performance
and Maintenance, and then click System.

To have Windows choose the best paging file size, click System
managed size.

For best performance, do not set the initial size to less than the
minimum recommended size under Total paging file size for all drives.
The recommended size is equivalent to 1.5 times the amount of RAM on
your system. Usually, you should leave the paging file at its
recommended size, although you might increase its size if you
routinely use programs that require a lot of memory.

To delete a paging file, set both initial size and maximum size to
zero, or click No paging file. Microsoft strongly recommends that you
do not disable or delete the paging file.

THANK you much for this heads-up. I have to study it to digest; my
few remaining neurons probably can us the exercise!

HB

Look on the bright side. You 're the administrator on that machine.

On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 15:41:42 -0700, Tony Hwang
wrote:

How about scratch pad memory, Associate memory? Virtual memory address
is generated by complex math algorithm. Even if say you have 4GB of
RAM it can be made if you had humpteen GB of memory. What is your back?

A virtual RAM drive?

On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 14:13:38 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson
wrote:



When I got my present computer, nearly 6 years ago, I thought about
partitioning, but I didn't have the skill, and 40 GB seemed to stretch
into the dim horizon. Well, we know better now! I have checked out
some Seagates wih 500 GB for $114.00; doesn't sound bad. I understand
that it's more eexpensive if you buy complete with cables and manual.
Is a non-geek safer doing that than going bare? I read that I HAVE the
cables and of course the motherboard. But I want a HD that, as one
kind poster put it, lets you just press a button to transfer all
existing data.


Whoa. Spending money on a 500GB drive when you have plenty left on
your 160GB makes no sense.
PC manufacturers set the big partitioned HD trap for many customers.

Memory and backups are unrelated.
You got good advice on the memory issue. Remove what caused it - some
kind of Norton app - or add memory, or both.
Backups, partitioning (usually unnecessary) and recovery strategies
are a different issue.
As far as a "press a button" method, that probably exists with an
external HD/software combo but I don't know anything about it.
Probably way expensive too, and it won't be "push button."
Don't toss your Norton Ghost CD.
It's good stuff when used correctly. Wait a while until you learn
more.

--Vic

Vic Smith wrote:
On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 14:13:38 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson
wrote:



When I got my present computer, nearly 6 years ago, I thought about
partitioning, but I didn't have the skill, and 40 GB seemed to stretch
into the dim horizon. Well, we know better now! I have checked out
some Seagates wih 500 GB for $114.00; doesn't sound bad. I understand
that it's more eexpensive if you buy complete with cables and manual.
Is a non-geek safer doing that than going bare? I read that I HAVE the
cables and of course the motherboard. But I want a HD that, as one
kind poster put it, lets you just press a button to transfer all
existing data.


Whoa. Spending money on a 500GB drive when you have plenty left on
your 160GB makes no sense.
PC manufacturers set the big partitioned HD trap for many customers.

Memory and backups are unrelated.
You got good advice on the memory issue. Remove what caused it - some
kind of Norton app - or add memory, or both.
Backups, partitioning (usually unnecessary) and recovery strategies
are a different issue.
As far as a "press a button" method, that probably exists with an
external HD/software combo but I don't know anything about it.
Probably way expensive too, and it won't be "push button."
Don't toss your Norton Ghost CD.
It's good stuff when used correctly. Wait a while until you learn
more.

--Vic
Hmmm,
Most mobo BIOS can do a recovery, all the Lenov(IBM) laptops has a blue
button to push for recovery/restore coming from hidden partition, etc.
Just bring up the task manager to see what's going on and adjust atart
up applications.