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007 ? - or: The Spyware That Hates You (and your PC)
Are you using
Windows and Internet Explorer to surf the 'net? If you are you
will have no doubt heard about Spyware and Adware and other Malware
that
will be ruinous to your valuable home or work computer. It is
very
likely that you will have experienced first hand the terrible problems
that these unwanted programs will cause - premium rate diallers,
unwanted porn links, relentless pop-ups and the resulting 'sick'
computer. If you have not had trouble yet...without protection,
you almost certainly will. These malicious programs will be lurking
inside your PC and the trouble will be brewing. This harmful
rubbish is generally allowed into your
machine without you knowing due to the insecurity of Microsoft's
Internet Explorer web-browser - which is often called "Insecure
Exploder" by those that have continually suffered from these problems!
So come on, get with the programme! Get a new, more secure and better browser!
So come on, get with the programme! Get a new, more secure and better browser!
I use Firefox a leading edge browser from Mozilla:
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Your PC is hobbled
by Spyware, Adware, Malware, Pop-Ups, Diallers, and Dodgy Links?
It's probably all the fault of Microsoft's not very wonderful Internet Explorer browser.
So get the program
- Get the FIREFOX Browser.
Whatever you do, Just Get
A Better
Browser
The United States military
have, in fact, discouraged its departments from using Microsoft
products, in particlar the Internet Explorer browser, because of
inherent security flaws that could compromise the US military's
computer
systems. Instead other software, such as that provided by Mozilla
a favoured as being more secure.
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Citizens Advice over, now on to:
ME - THE CONSUMER - AND MY PC
So on with computers in general, and I am writing as a computer user - a consumer, just like you and this article is about my own experiences and from experiences related to me from other computer users.
ME - THE CONSUMER - AND MY PC
So on with computers in general, and I am writing as a computer user - a consumer, just like you and this article is about my own experiences and from experiences related to me from other computer users.
It was in 2001 that I decided to really get back up to date and into the twenty-first century and build myself a new computer. I had been keeping up to date with all the latest developments, of course. It is always wise to buy a selection of the latest PC (personal computer) magazines and read the reviews about the latest computer trends and developments in hardware and software.
See notes on UPGRADING below:
The Hardware
Eventually I settled on the specific components that I considered would serve my own personal needs well and naturally, being keen on PC's and electronics in general, I built my own PC. I don't particularly recommend that everyone should build their own PC, but anyone with a little electronics or computer experience could build their own machine and it really helps the user appreciate what a marvel of technology a PC really is!
Self building a computer does not always save money, although with careful buying, especially if you are building a mid-range machine rather than the very latest top-spec machine, I would expect that you could save a worthwhile sum in many instances. My latest build saved me over £100 compared to a shop bought unit of the same specification.
Self building has the great advantage of being able to build the machine to your exact requirements and specification. You can also build up your machine stage by stage, starting with a fairly basic, but upgradeable machine, and working up to a fully featured unit that exactly meets your needs, and thereby also spreading the cost over time. This approach enables your PC to be customised to your own individual and exact requirements. In my case I chose to start with an AMD XP processor, AMD processors offer remarkable value for money, a Soltek Motherboard with 256MB of DDR RAM, a separate AGP graphics card, DVD ROM and floppy drives. Though some (stingy) computer manufacturers omit one, I still believe that a floppy drive is extremely useful and for the sake of a less than a tenner (£10) it really should be included.
 The inside of the P.C. |
As time went by I upgraded the
on-board AC97 sound to a new Creative Soundblaster PCI card, which
improved the sound quality and gave better connectivity for recording from external sources. The 256MB of RAM memory was upgraded to 512MB, and a CD-RW drive was added to the original DVD ROM drive, so that back-up and music CD's could be burned. It is reasonable straightforward to assemble a PC, the various parts slot together, it is almost impossible to put anything in the wrong place. Just ensure that you read the motherboard manual carefully. |
The most difficult thing is selecting compatible hardware items, i.e. items that will work at their best together to give maximum performance and without conflicts. This is a matter of research - achieved by reading a some books, current magazines and doing some research on the internet, if you have access. Nearly all boards will physically fit together, but some just work better with each other than others. AMD mainboards will only work with AMD processors in the same way that Intel mainboards will only work with Intel processors. Types of RAM (memory) is also another important consideration.
With this in mind it is essential to bear in mind the settings of the motherboard's BIOS. The BIOS is the Basic Input and Output System and is stored on a chip on the motherboard and is the firmware that kicks the motherboard, and hence the PC, into action when you press the power button. The BIOS allows the various components on the motherboard to work with each other and thereby communicate with the Operating System that will be loaded onto the Hard Drive.
The Software
Even after all the research in finding the best value hardware for your requirements many may still remain quite ignorant about one area - The Operating System. The operating system is what allows the various physical components (the hardware) to work together and with other applications as a useful computing system. In general most PC buyers and users consider Windows as the 'one and only' operating system. How wrong can they be? Windows (supplied by Microsoft) is just one operating system (OS), but there are others.
So, many users will just
assume that all PCs come with the Microsoft 'Windows' operating system,
and that's what is loaded onto most general use desktop PC's, indeed my
first PC's were Windows based. There are, however, many
alternative operating systems and some may have heard of UNIX which is
a
very powerful system heralding from the 1960's but is still very
relevant today because it is extremely powerful and very stable.
UNIX is the choice of many ISP's (Internet Service Providers) because
it
is so reliable - much more so than Windows, it is said.
There are other OS's too, such as (IBM's now defunct) OS2, Solaris and also Free BSD, which is currently under development. The alternative operating system that is rapidly gaining popularity since it is also quite suitable for the home 'desktop' is LINUX (pronounced Linn-Ucks). Many people will have heard of Linux since it can often be readily installed on most 'ordinary' PC's. IBM and SUN SYSTEMS are heavily promoting the LINUX operating system at the moment. Linux, like UNIX, is also favoured by some ISP's since, again, it is so powerful, stable and more secure than using the Microsoft Windows alternative.
Many computer consumers cannot have failed to have seen another alternative type of machine to a PC - this comes in the form of the Apple MAC (i-MAC and Power MAC etc), but an Apple machine is a very different animal to a PC. It is also as good as impossible to self-build a MAC computer, Apple machines are built by Apple themeselves and are loaded with their own exclusive operating system and software. A MAC is perhaps a little more specialised than a PC using Windows, but is arguably more powerful, more secure, more stable and excels in the area of Desk Top Publishing - according to the MAC afficionados anyway. These machine are undoubtedly excellent and are the apples of many a computer users eye! The Apple operating system is very UNIX like in its structure, which is why it is chosen for reliability over Windows.
There are other OS's too, such as (IBM's now defunct) OS2, Solaris and also Free BSD, which is currently under development. The alternative operating system that is rapidly gaining popularity since it is also quite suitable for the home 'desktop' is LINUX (pronounced Linn-Ucks). Many people will have heard of Linux since it can often be readily installed on most 'ordinary' PC's. IBM and SUN SYSTEMS are heavily promoting the LINUX operating system at the moment. Linux, like UNIX, is also favoured by some ISP's since, again, it is so powerful, stable and more secure than using the Microsoft Windows alternative.
Many computer consumers cannot have failed to have seen another alternative type of machine to a PC - this comes in the form of the Apple MAC (i-MAC and Power MAC etc), but an Apple machine is a very different animal to a PC. It is also as good as impossible to self-build a MAC computer, Apple machines are built by Apple themeselves and are loaded with their own exclusive operating system and software. A MAC is perhaps a little more specialised than a PC using Windows, but is arguably more powerful, more secure, more stable and excels in the area of Desk Top Publishing - according to the MAC afficionados anyway. These machine are undoubtedly excellent and are the apples of many a computer users eye! The Apple operating system is very UNIX like in its structure, which is why it is chosen for reliability over Windows.
Enough of the
background! Back to the story of my own machine: So I had a built
myself a reasonably powerful and good value piece of computer hardware
onto which I installed Windows from my Microsoft Windows ME CD-ROM disk (yuck in hindsight).
After twelve months of using my new PC I became increasingly despondent
and, let's face it, annoyed with the number of times Windows crashed,
locked up, froze, blue-screened or gave spurious and frustrating
'Windows has performed an illegal operation' type of messages.
The
more software that was loaded onto the system the slower it ran, of
course. Annoyingly the more Windows Updates (bug fixes and
security patches) that were applied to the system the more unstable and
frustrating the whole computing experience became. Okay so I
could
fix all these little problems, but why should the general user be
subject to all this time-wasting? We just want to do stuff!
I reloaded the OS and software and it was okay-ish, but it still wasn't
a really pleasing experience to operate.
Windows ME, like Windows 98, uses the FAT32 (File Allocation Table) file system (the way the files are structured on your hard drive) which is is acknowleged is prone to instability and subsequent blue screens and crashes. Incidentally Windows 95 used FAT16 which was just as unreliable.
I later changed to Windows 2000 Professional which uses the NTFS (New Technology File System). NTFS is a much more efficient file system and proves to be vastly more reliable than FAT - very well done Microsoft! Windows 2000 Professional is actually the Microsoft 'marketing name' of the operating system, its technical name is actually NT5.0, which followed on from the previous operating system Windows NT4 (which you may possibly have heard of). It is interesting to note that Windows XP is actually Windows NT5.1, i.e. a slight update of Windows 5.0 (Win 2000 Pro) with a newer, some would say cartoon like, visual interface.
During all this time I naturally kept up with the latest developments. It is always a good idea to have a look at the internet to find out what's hot and what's not, read the magazines and buy the odd book. No-one can have failed to notice the increasing amount of coverage being devoted to the increasingly popular alternative Operating System - LINUX, or to give it its correct name GNU/LINUX. Linux has been a very popular alternative in the server market, its cheaper to run and far more stable than the vastly more expensive Microsoft Windows alternative. This is a market that IBM are developing heavily. As corporations and companies are at a point of replacing the old, unreliable and unsupported Windows NT server systems IBM is offering LINUX as the more stable more secure and cheaper alternative.
LINUX use up by 50 per cent in 2003
Windows ME, like Windows 98, uses the FAT32 (File Allocation Table) file system (the way the files are structured on your hard drive) which is is acknowleged is prone to instability and subsequent blue screens and crashes. Incidentally Windows 95 used FAT16 which was just as unreliable.
I later changed to Windows 2000 Professional which uses the NTFS (New Technology File System). NTFS is a much more efficient file system and proves to be vastly more reliable than FAT - very well done Microsoft! Windows 2000 Professional is actually the Microsoft 'marketing name' of the operating system, its technical name is actually NT5.0, which followed on from the previous operating system Windows NT4 (which you may possibly have heard of). It is interesting to note that Windows XP is actually Windows NT5.1, i.e. a slight update of Windows 5.0 (Win 2000 Pro) with a newer, some would say cartoon like, visual interface.
During all this time I naturally kept up with the latest developments. It is always a good idea to have a look at the internet to find out what's hot and what's not, read the magazines and buy the odd book. No-one can have failed to notice the increasing amount of coverage being devoted to the increasingly popular alternative Operating System - LINUX, or to give it its correct name GNU/LINUX. Linux has been a very popular alternative in the server market, its cheaper to run and far more stable than the vastly more expensive Microsoft Windows alternative. This is a market that IBM are developing heavily. As corporations and companies are at a point of replacing the old, unreliable and unsupported Windows NT server systems IBM is offering LINUX as the more stable more secure and cheaper alternative.
LINUX use up by 50 per cent in 2003
I had a conversation with a
systems administrator who told me that he maintained twenty identical
servers, nineteen of which run Linux and one Windows. He spends
more time fixing problems on the Windows machine than all the other
Linux machines put together! It is no surprise to learn, then,
that the sales of Linux Servers soared by 50% during 2003.
LINUX (pronounced Linn-Ucks) promises a more efficient, more stable and much more secure operating system - supposedly much less prone than Windows to malicious attack from the numerous viruses out there that play havoc with your Windows PC and can waste your valuable time. Because Linux is a true multi-user system and thus the general users will not be logged on as 'administrator' (the user that has system-wide permissions), in the unlikely event that the user contracts a virus it (theoretically) should not spread system wide and affect other users or the vital system files (as may happen in Widows) because the logged-on user should have no permission to alter the system files in any way. This helps virus immunity, the user could be affected, but the system itself should not be i.e. the computer will not be rendered useless. This is not the case in Windows, of course, where the user can, if he or she wishes, delete system files willy nilly and this is why viruses are so much of a problem in Windows since they effectively have the same permissions as the user.
Even better than all this though, is that you can get a LINUX operating system complete with almost every type of application you could ever need - FOR FREE! LINUX is often distributed on free CDs or DVDs provided with magazines, it is also available to download from the internet. These are not time-limited demos, but full programmes that the user is free to use and distribute to others - legally.
While I don't necessarily
advocate the 'something for nothing approach' - I have always paid my
way, it is quite possible to get LINUX for nothing. It is equally
possible to buy a Linux 'distribution' as a boxed set, complete with
manuals and support for around £30 to £50, depending on
which version of GNU/Linux (distribution) you choose, in this way it
supports the Linux community. Compare this to the £400ish
that it would cost to separately buy the Windows OS, load on the MS
Office suite, a Firewall and a Photo Editor, for example. All
these applications come with LINUX for no additional outlay. Not
forgetting the extra cost for an Anti-Virus application that is vital
for Windows, an item that is not considered an absolute necessity for a
GNU/LINUX computer.
I decided to try this
magic
out for myself and wiped Windows off my PC in 2003 (after backing up
all
my documents of course!), and replaced it with MANDRAKE LINUX (now named Mandriva - 2006).
Mandrake Linux is one of many 'flavours' of GNU/LINUX. Each flavour is
called a DISTRIBUTION and each distribution is compiled by a different organisation or company or individual.
MANDRAKE LINUX was often voted most suitable GNU/LINUX distributuion in computer publications. I installed Mandrake 9.1 and found it extremely stable - never crashing, not even on one occasion during many months of use. The magazine 'Personal Computer World' voted the later distribution Mandrake 9.2 as the top distribution in their March 2004 issue. Mandrake 10.1 was available from late 2004 and version 10.2 from mid 2005. The name of the distribution was later changed to MANDRIVA.
MANDRAKE LINUX was often voted most suitable GNU/LINUX distributuion in computer publications. I installed Mandrake 9.1 and found it extremely stable - never crashing, not even on one occasion during many months of use. The magazine 'Personal Computer World' voted the later distribution Mandrake 9.2 as the top distribution in their March 2004 issue. Mandrake 10.1 was available from late 2004 and version 10.2 from mid 2005. The name of the distribution was later changed to MANDRIVA.
The GNU/LINUX distributions available for you include, among many others: . |
MANDRIVA - A very user friendly and comprehensive distribution, which is a delight to use. I find it vastly superior to Windows. Its incredibly stable and runs much much faster too.
SuSE - Now developed by NOVELL - An acomplished very powerful and popular distribution.
UBUNTU LINUX - A very popular choice in 2005 / 2005 : Ubuntu is "Linux For Human Beings"
There are many other distributions too such as Debian and Slackware and a great little disribution called KNOPPIX or DEMOLINUX that can load directly off a bootable CD ROM, running the operating system and a generous provision of programes from within the system RAM! It is a great idea to try out Linux in this way, but of course it will run slower from a CD ROM compared to running from a hard drive, but it's still great.
VECTOR LINUX is very useful if you have an ancient PC or laptop creaking away in the corner and that you want to put to good use with Linux. It is very minimalist distribution and could work well where resources are at a minimum, it is based on the SLACKWARE distribution.
That's just a few, there are many many more out there.
 Why
Windows? |
Why Linux? |
Linux
& You |
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| Computers are great? |
Other Related pages:
Favourite
FREE Software Why
Windows? Penguin
saves the day Why Linux? Linux
and
You Linux In The
Limelight Upgrading a P.C. |
| Tux, the usually
friendly Linux penguin, prepares for battle! |
A NEW PC . |
 I built a new PC for Jules in 2004. Not a rip-roaring games machine
since it won't be used to play graphics intensive games, but something
very respectable none the less:
*ASUS A7N8X-X mainboard with LAN and USB
2.0 and nforce chipset
*AMD 2800XP Barton CPU *1536 PC3200 DDR RAM *80 GB + 120 GB Western Digital Hard Drives with 8MB Cache *GeForce FX5200 128 MB Graphics Card *Liteon DVD ROM *Liteon CDRW *3.5" Floppy *Silver Nokia style case with 400w PSU It all works beautifully fast. ASUS
make a fine motherboard.
Gamers may consider a 256 MB Geforce FX5700
Graphics card or higher and possibly the ASUS A7N8X
motherboard.
For GNU/LINUX users I would recommend the
ASUS A7V8X-X motherboard which features the VIA chipset, which may be
more compatible.
 Another excellent general purpose motherboard would be the MSI KT4AV-L |
OpenOffice.org - A comprehensive Office Suite for Linux and Windows
ADSL GUIDE - Your Guide To Broadband Internet
OpenOffice.org for a better office suite
ADSL GUIDE - Your Guide To Broadband Internet
Mandriva
SuSE Linux - from NOVELL.com
Ubunto Linux - A popular choice in 2005/2006
Fedora Linux
Red Hat Linux
Zero to Linux in 5 Minutes
How To Obtain Knoppix
Linux Questions.org
Linux on a Laptop
Apple MAC
Cheep Linux
Try out Linux from a CD-ROM:
How To Obtain Knoppix
KNOPPIX is
a Linux distribution deleoped by Klaus Knopper based on the Debian Linux distribution. KNOPPIX is
designed to boot off and run directly from a CD-ROM. Just set
your
BIOS to boot from the CD-ROM before the hard drive. Knoppix will
then boot up and run, detecting much of your hardware automatically. It
will even detect FAT32 partitions on your hard-drive (but not
NTFS). Knoppix is loaded with applications, including CD
burning software.
OpenOffice.org - A comprehensive Office Suite for Linux and Windows
2004 - ANOTHER NEW PC: . |
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In 2004 after building the new PC for Jules, I thought I would upgrade again. "What a nut", I can almost hear you think!
For this PC I opted for the following components: *ABIT KV8 Motherboard with LAN *AMD 2800XP CPU *1024DDR RAM *40 GB Western Digital H.D.D. (O.S.) *160GB Western Digital H.D.D. (Data) *Radeon 256MB Graphics Card *LiteOn DVD ROM *LiteOn DVD+/-RW *Creative Soundblaster sound card *Floppy Drive *Card Reader *'Nokia' Style Case w. 400W PSU |
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OpenOffice.org for a better office suite
ADSL GUIDE - Your Guide To Broadband Internet
Mandriva
SuSE Linux - from NOVELL.com
Ubunto Linux - A popular choice in 2005/2006
Fedora Linux
Red Hat Linux
Zero to Linux in 5 Minutes
How To Obtain Knoppix
Linux Questions.org
Linux on a Laptop
Apple MAC
Cheep Linux
Try out Linux from a CD-ROM:
How To Obtain Knoppix
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