[PCWorld]

Post your comments for 25 Questions, 25 Answers here

[FenderGuy2112]

This is an excellent article. Basic and to the point. Vista 64-bit is crap though...
FenderGuy2112

[SCOOPNJ78]

Why would Microsoft name its new operating system after a fallen hotel during 911 that was attached to the WTC?

[fraunthall]

Enjoyed the various bits of info, but have to comment on leaving a PC running overnight, which means indefinitely. Besides the issues of power consumption and refreshing the caches, etc., my sister's experience is instructive. She lives in a rural area prone to more power surges and brownouts than I've ever experienced in the city and leaves her computer running 24/7 without UPS protection. Recently, her computer, running windows xp home suffered an unrecoverable boot failure which I believe, on the available evidence, was caused by one or more power surges or short blackouts which contaminated or otherwise damaged the boot sectors of her HD. I have had that happen to me as well, but I believe in regular image/incremental backups, which have saved my butt on more than one occasion. She could not be persuaded to take these extra precautions.

[Yert]

You need a 64-bit PC so there will be more 64-bit software written! :P

[heathge]

Odd Question....... The article recommendeds to place a WI-FI router away from large CD collections.... Am I missing some of Lincoln's humor, or does optical media pose some sort of interference problem; or worse yet, some damaging affect to GB of data/music/movies?

[SCOOPNJ78]

hi, I agree, dont know where that one came from too, maybe someone on here on steriods!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pizzaman]

I think you left out a very good reason to shut down a PC at night or any time it's not in use for several hours: Shutting down limits the PC's exposure to the internet. In particular, a PC that's regularly shut down becomes a very undesirable host for BOTS.
My machine takes about 30 seconds to boot and that's not much of an annoyance.

[pizzaman]

I think, in theory anyway, the metalic layer in CDs -- if the router is next to a whole bookshelf of them -- could interfere with the signal.

[snorg]

To keep your PC off the web you just turn on Zone Alarm's internet lock.

[pizzaman]

Thanks, but actually that sounds like a commercial, and I imagine only a small percentage of PC users have Zone Alarm. I was trying to give some general advice, not push a particular product.



I'm using DSL with a dynamic IP address. I'm also behind a router that automatically logs out after an hour of non-use, so nearly every time I boot I have a new IP address. And my router is set up not to answer pings.



I haven't tried Zone Alarm, but I tried several others and I'm very happy with McAfee security. In particular, McAfee takes longer than, for instance, Norton to do a complete virus scan, but it also has such a low impact on my system that I hardly notice it's running.

[excelsior9]

Power fluctuations indeed, can abound in many areas of the country.

I cannot understand anyones failure to use something as inexpensive

and readily available as a UPC especially when electrical fluctuations are known to be a problem.

I cannot imagine what your sister was thinking.

[excelsior9]

I tried Zone Alarm for awhile. though it was pretty good, it did not live up to expectations. I have seen several viruses, worms, and trojan horses slip by McAfee and Norton.

A company called Avast has a free download version of their Avast AV that is better than the afore mentioned products. On my first scan, Avast discovered two trojans completely missed by Norton.

[Bamfy]

A note to the author, you have an error...



*"Then 'splain this: If you load Vista's Command Line environment and
type the MEM command, the program reports "655360 bytes available to
MS-DOS. "And it still runs such old DOS programs as the
early spreadsheet Visicalc, a major application in pre-DOS days and one
of the first ported to DOS. If you don't believe me, download the DOS
version of Visicalc and see for yourself."*



I became interested in VisiCalc, being that it played a pivital role within the early days of PCs, and attempted to download and run it. First off I need to make mention that I am currently running Vista 64-bit. Back to the point, Visicalc does not run in cmd. MEM also does not work. I am a bit tech savvy, but not with MS-DOS... If anyone floats on these forums and knows a way to fix/run Visicalc, drop a line, as I might be doing it wrong... However it's doubtful after an hour of pooring over every how-to on cmd... (I am a speed reader, fyi.)