Essential Downloads...
People are always asking my advice on PCs and software, etc. This goes someway to alleviating that problem and also gives me a ready set of web links if you happen to be someone I know well enough to make a House Call on.
This page only suggests some recommended sites, please read the Disclaimer before accessing any of these sites.
Some of these links may also appear on some of the other pages within this site. They are grouped together here for easy review and access for the purposes of helping to keep your PC as up to date as possible. Much of the software is free, in the hope that you will upgrade, etc.
When buying a PC, remember that they date very quickly. A top of the range PC that you pay a £1,000 or more for today will probably cost you less than half in six months or less. With the pace of technology change, you probably need to update or renew your PC every two to three years, so why spend a fortune on it? Shop around, get some quotes and specifications from local PC shops. I won't name any here, but don't buy the first thing you are offered. Nationally, there is: PC World who quite often end up trying to sell you a Hewlett Packard, Staples usually have good deals as well. However, once you have a wish list from picking the brains of various suppliers, you could do a lot worse than to phone somebody like Dell who will often try to price match that specification and throw in lots of extras.
Although there appears to be many choices when selecting your broadband internet provider, essentially, there are really only two or three main ones.
BT or a cable television provide, such as: Virgin Media (Formerly NTL and Telewest). If you are a BT customer, you can choose their broadband, or one from another company, such as: AOL, Tiscali or Wanadoo. As long as you have a BT Telephone Line, you can choose any of these.
Bull Dog seem to be an alternative to all of the above, although your PC still has a physical connection to a telephone line. You don't seem to have to have a BT or Cable Line, but do make sure that you read the small print very carefully though.
The key differences are that with all of these, your PC is still physically connected to a telephone line. This means that there is the opportunity for malicious programs and viruses to hijack your PC and dial expensive telephone lines (£1 per minute or more). When this first started happening, BT just washed their hands of it and said it was not their problem, although they were happy to take their cut of the blood money generated from these lines. Now, they try to be more helpful, but there is still no guarantee that you won't get lumbered with a large bill.
This is why I have found it safer to choose a cable provider. Your PC gains its broadband internet connection through a cable modem or set top box, supplied by the company. Because your computer is not physically connected to a telephone line, then even if there is malicious software on your PC, it can't give you giant phone bills. It can try and slow your PC down, or even disable it, however.
What ever option you choose, remember that ISPs (Internet Service Providers) are the same as most other major service providers, such as Gas, Electricity and Water, etc, so can be viewed largely with the same disdain and cynicism. Or is that just me? What I mean is that when you first join up, you get cheap introductory offers, for the first year or so, then BAM!!! they try and hit you for more money, or worse still, newer customers get even better deals than you. Simply phone them and ask for a better deal (after your first year, usually). If they refuse, tell them you wish to cancel your subscription, as you are taking your business elsewhere. You can do this after your first year (or what ever your contract says). If they don't change their minds immediately, they will contact you very soon afterwards to offer you a better deal to keep your business. They just want to make you sweat to see if you cave in and stay on the higher rate. The last thing they want you to do is to take your business elsewhere. It's not just you, they're also worried that you may take your family and friends with you. You can also try this with your other utility providers.
While we're on the subject of Telecoms, etc., you may have heard of Skype That allows you to call anyone with a SKYPE account FREE using your PC and VOIP (Voice Over IP (Internet Protocol)). (I won't even attempt to try and explain what this is all about here. If you're interested, you can find out for yourself and call me if you need help setting it up at some later stage.)
Firstly, your computer needs to be protected from all sorts of threats. Any of the major Anti-Virus companies, such as Norton or McAfee are just as good as each other. The important thing is that you pay your protection money (Oops!!! Sorry! I mean, "renew your licence fee") every year, in order to stay protected against the latest threats.
Further to this, it is recommended that you keep your PC updated with the latest patches and upgrades for all of your software. Windows users can use: Windows Update. You will find yourself strongly encouraged to have the latest version of Windows. I don't think they still support Windows 95 and the days of Windows 98 also look numbered. Do download all the patches, service packs and driver updates, etc., it suggests. I would avoid the .NET Framework, unless you are a developer, in which case, you don't need this page anyway, as you probably already know far more than I do. You can also avoid all the Foreign Language Menus, unless, of course, it is your native tongue, in which case, help yourself. You will have the opportunity to obtain things such as DirectX which is useful for some games and Windows Media Player. For other non Microsoft software, please visit the relevant web site. Although it is a good place to get FREE viewers for the Microsoft Office Products, such as Powerpoint, Excel and Word. You may also decide to use a free office product, such as Open Office I would also STRONGLY ADVISE you downloading Microsoft's Anti Spyware product, now called Windows Defender (It only works with the later versions of Windows). It is currently free at the time of writing. Be Warned though, you must have a legitimite copy of Windows XP on your PC to download and install it. The site will attempt to validate your copy of Windows before allowing you to proceed with the download.Also, you must have Windows XP Service Pack 2 installed. This comes with newer versions of XP, otherwise, it must be downloaded and installed. This means validating your copy of Windows XP again. You can try ignoring validation, but I don't know if this will let you continue with the download or not.
This is free to use but only limited in checking 30 common programs on your computer.
The Anti Virus expert at the Open University recommends using Secunia Software Inspector to ensure that your computer is fully up to date with the latest versions of software and software patches.
It is easy to use and shows you where you can get a software upgrade or patch if need be. The site below is safe as it is a major computer security software provider.
*Secunia Software Inspector*
The Secunia Software Inspector will inspect your operating system and software for insecure versions and missing security updates. A default inspection normally lasts 5-40 seconds, while a thorough inspection may take several minutes. Note: If you have anti-virus software or similar enabled, an inspection may increase significantly in duration.
I recommend ticking the 'Enable thorough system inspection' tick box (found under the start button found on the web page) to search for software installed in non-default locations.
Secunia Software Inspector: http://secunia.com/software_inspector
*My source of information*
The Open University - Maths and Computing web site has useful information in a bulletin issued at:
http://mcs-notes1.open.ac.uk:8080/tbtdoc/safecompbull.nsf/50225E5652BC475D80256E1E00663FD1/59D0DC9DE473FB29802572FF0077D922?OpenDocument
AVG a FREE Virus checker can be found on this site. You'll have to hunt for it though, as they keep moving it, to encourage you to buy the free version.
Ad-Aware SE Personal - From Lavasoft. Search for the Free Download on this site if it is not easily visible on the link given. Experience has taught me that putting direct links to the download pages is often a waste of time as they keep getting moved. Download this file, install it, check for updates and then do a full system scan to start with. This removes a lot of ad-ware and pop ups.
Safer Networking's Spybot Search and Destroy - this removes a lot of spyware and trojan software that sits on your computer, monitoring key and mouse strokes, web sites visited, personal information sent over the internet, etc. This may or may not be used for malicious purposes at some point in the future, mainly fraud or identity theft. Both these and adware threats slow your PC down drastically. There is a link to a download page here, as with all software, download it, install it and check for updates. Afterwards, perform a full system scan.
Stinger is a free utility that attempts to identify and remove a number of known security threats. It is not intended to be used as a substitute for a fully fledged security product. It is suggest you create a folder in C:\Program Files called Stinger then download the program to there. You can then create a shortcut to it on your Desktop and Program Menus, etc. Occasionally, the filename has to change, as threats learn to work their way around it. Check for updates every week or so, but at least once a month, or if there has been a big attack recently, either on your PC, at work, or just in the news.
A lot of sites contain information in PDF (Portable Document Format) files. For these, you need Adobe Acrobat Reader. Your Operating System will determine what version you can download. The later versions currently include an E-Book Reader, which will need downloading separately if you still want it, but have an older system.
With the advent of Broadband and cheaper, larger storage capacities, reducing transmission times and saving on disk space have become less of an issue. However, if you have an older, slower system, or wish to optimize what you have got, then the compression program: Win Zip will prove extremely useful. Its name harks back to the days when you had a choice between either DOS (Disk Operating System) and Windows. Its DOS Counterpart (and rival) was PK Zip - nowadays, it can handle Windows, too!!! There are also other similar products on the market.
These days, the web appears to be just full of fancy content, that you seem to need support for from endless browser plug-ins, in order to be able to access it successfully. Although some browsers, such as: Internet Explorer do appear to attempt to sometimes support this, to be absolutely sure, if a job's worth doing.....
Your first stop should definitely be Macro Media where you can download their Flash and Shock Wave players. (Actually, this site now re-directs you to Adobe, so I don't know how long the Macro Media
Quick Time from Apple is also useful to have for some other types of Media Clips.
If you really hate the dominant vice-like death-grip that the big players appear to have on the Media Player market, then why not get yourself Win Amp or Real Player as a real alternative?
Many of these copiers have trouble copying certain CDs. EAC (Exact Audio Copy) is a free utility that analyses the audio track many times and can save it in a variety of formats to your hard disk. You can then burn it out to a CD ROM or a portable media player. You may need an MP3 Encoder to do this however. LAME is a popular one, but you will have to search for it. You can also search for DVD Ripping Software.
But what do you do once you have installed the aforementioned media players? Why, you'll be needing content of course. They can handle all of your audio and visual files, so your CD and DVD collections are a good place to start. See: Amazon 101 CD CD Wow CD-Wow DVD-Wow The Hut Movie Mail Love Film which is related to: Love Reading.
You can also download music from many on-line places, both from paying and some free sites. Many of these are free, but a potential source of threats.This is (or at least was, at time of writing) a free site: Soul Seek. Some popular paying sites are: Kazaa and Napster as well as Apple's I-Tunes. This, however, currently only works with their I-Pod technology. You may also find an increasing number of online retailers, such as: Woolworths also allow you to download content.
There are other file sharing networks and tools you can try such as: Bit Torrent, Pirate Bay and DC Plus Plus.
Music And Video Downloads - Keep coming back to this page for the latest in Music and Video downloads. The best collection of sites and pages for FREE legal MP3 and other music downloads.
If you really want to get away from the mainstream, then you could try another browser, such as: Mozilla or even Opera.
Do you use IM (Instant Messaging) software? AOL? MSN? Yahoo? Do you have multiple accounts for each? Do you wish you could access them all in one place? Just as you don't need a Hotmail or MSN account to access MSN Instant Messenger, you also don't need any of the proprietary Instant Messaging software to access your instant Messaging Chat Facility, as long as you already have an existing account with them. My AOL seems to work for messaging, years after I stopped using (and more importantly, paying for) it. Try Trillian. This is a good way to manage all of your Instant Messaging contacts in one place. Again, there are others to be found, especially if you are using the increasingly popular Windows alternative Operating System, Linux.