A thread for boring computer questions.

(people here have had the same problem)

so, you're right, i'd have to get someone else to d/l it for me, but i couldn't actually *use* it, could i? it's just a demo, right? hmmm.

with every passing day, i realise how little i actually know about computers is in inverse proportion to how much my family thinks i know. gah.

I usually hate reccomending people do this due to the amount of unscrupulous PC shops there are out there taking advantage of people lack of knowledge.

A knoppix CD would get you up and running for most things but in the long term having your PC back with an installed OS is reccomended.

Boot your PC in Safe mode

Run the aforementioned programs.

Now make sure you have some kind of software firewall that starts up when windows does and restart your machine.

aha! now that sounds more than plausible. it seems to be trying to run various things on start-up, then not being able to find the executable files, and thus getting confused and crotchety (or is that me?).

Now, how do I run msconfig? Where/what is it?

Haha I ran AVG on Friday. It found 1,002 - that's ONE THOUSAND AND TWO, folks - viruses on my PC! Mainly trojan horses, but a handful of dialers too.

I've deleted the lot, natch, and done the msconfig thing, and still there are pop-ups on start-up, and problems finding applications (especially the defrag button), and now I've just installed my digicam picture viewer and suddenly AOL won't connect to the interweb anymore! Argh!

Or - can you justify buying a new one?

*Blushes*

Express is a smaller and slightly slower wireless transmitter, but it does something Extreme doesn't do, it allows you to play music wirelessly into any old stereo (and it plugs right into the electrical socket in your wall).

I think this is right.

What is the difference in speed between the two?

A little backstory-I currently have my Powerbook anchored to cable modem in the corner of my house, but considering long-term costs I am thinking of getting Airport (our only phone jack is in the kitchen) and switching to DSL. I just worry about everything slowing down.

http://images.apple.com/airportexpress/images/index_speed12162002.gif

http://images.apple.com/airportexpress/images/index_speed12162002.gif

You might also find this useful: http://scribbling.net/how-to-fix-moms-computer

try HERE maybe you can find out what kind of speed difference to expect for the privilege of saving a paltry $40 a month

I've actually got a Linksys that I'm about to hook up in a week or two, to a home network of two (2) macs. Do I actually need to mess about with MAC spoofing? I actually have zero idea abbout setting it up, all I know is that I can point my browser to the router's address and there's some web-based admin form.

type: telnet hostname/IP

Ken L: yeah but you can also just go to your web broswer and type in telnet://your.address.here and it'll work too, launch the program for you if you don't want to remember to find terminal.

A) If you are doing the MAC cloning you have to have your computer physically linked to the router, do not do it over wireless.

B) If you are updating the software for the hardware you also cannot do this over wireless.

C) You cannot do B anyway using a Mac.

Not paying attention to these three steps will result in your router being completely fried. The upshot is that they send you a replacement immediately, for free, because their website DOES NOT TELL YOU THAT YOU CANNOT UPDATE SOFTWARE USING A MAC.