Monday, January 09, 2006

Computer says 'no'

I'm back again! Well it's no coincidence that I'm back at work and now I've got time to blog [I haven't actually got that much time as I've got loads of work to do, but there's always time to blog].
V came down on Wednesday for a few days and then I drove her back up on Friday and spent the weekend in Stevenage, thus the lack of posts. I had a good weekend and V asked me what I wanted from the relationship.....*shock*.....As I've said before I'm quite happy with the way things are and so I told her that, sticking to honesty as the best policy, but I did add that she could call me boyfriend if she wanted to, but with the distance and only seeing each other on various weekends it'd be hard to have a proper 'relationship. She replied that she'd rather it that we were just 'seeing each other' as 'boyfriend/girlfriend' dictates some kind seriousness, and that she liked things as they are now.
*phew* It's quite nice to not be too tied down as there's nothing worse than being in a constrictive relationship [although I must add for fairness that not all relationships are like that, and that they are brilliant things. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them] and I can still be the same person in Ramsgate as I was before, just a little more confident, self-assured, and happy.
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On another note....aren't PCs crap??? Over the past week I've had to reformat 2 friends laptops due to the sheer amount of crap software/spyware/errors on them. I did try to uninstall non-necessary programmes but in once case when I removed a virus it took away some key system files making windows inoperable, and in the other some programmes refused to be uninstalled and resulted in system crashes. All the important files and data were backed up and so a clean start would be best with the installation of minimal features plus some very important Anti-virus and Anti-Spyware software.
Both are working brilliantly now and it's very nice to have a clean desktop. Dan, whose laptop I fixed last night, had also complained that his laptop had been slower ever since he'd dropped it from the kitchen worktop!! I thought it could be something to do with his RAM, and so I check how much was recognised, 256MB, and then opened the laptop to discover 2 x 256MB RAM installed, equaling 512MB, so either one had come lose and it had broken. I took both the dimms out, swapped them around, and hey presto, all was fine in laptop land. I wonder how much PC world would charge just to swap a few RAM around??? mmmm



I may have been a bit hasty when I said "Aren't PCs crap?", they're not always that way if you look after them and don't install shit on them. I currently use Norton Internet Security 2005 and also Ad-Aware Personal (Free anti spyare and malware) and recommend that you have at least some kind of protection "Be good, and if you can't be good be safe."

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the REALLY useful advice about giving up work.

I saw Karen Jones briefly on Sunday. She was looking well. She's gone redhead, which is a good look for her.

Still as mentalist as ever. Bless her.

Michael said...

Know exactly what you mean.

I get called by friends who's "PC's are running really slow" and find out they let their antivirus expire two years ago, haven't updated spyware or ran it in over a year (usually when I installed it for them...), and have 40 icons on their screen because they had to check out virtual girl or some other system killing and pointless program.

Anonymous said...

cheers for sorting out my laptop ... who would have thought that they dont like being dropped from the kitchen worktop !!!

Ginny said...

Oh how I wish you were here! My computer is doing wonky things lately. The husband's been working on it, but it still just doesn't seem to be running properly.

adem said...

Ginny - What's it doing??

Ginny said...

It's running really slow and then says I'm out of system resources (which I know isn't true - I have lots of space on the computer). When I reboot it always says I'm running in safe mode or something like that.

Peter has done a refrag and we have wiped off everything that isn't necessary off the computer. We're running Norton 2005 which has managed to catch the latest virus twice last week, so I don't think it's infected with anything.

Any suggestions? Thanks.

Ginny said...

Oops almost forgot... we're running Windows ME. My BIL says he hates ME and that causes all sorts of problems, but we've had it for the past 4-5 years and have never had problems until now.

adem said...

It sounds like you may be running a bit low on RAM (the memory your computer uses on the fly whilst running programmes) and this happens when you are running quite a few programmes at the same time, thus using lots of RAM.

This is sometimes caused by secret software, i.e. Spyware that is sometimes installed on your PC without your knowledge. And this can clog up your system memory, meaning the computer runs slow and can come up with the 'system resources' message.

I'd recommend downloading Ad-Aware Personal which is free.

Run it, get the latest update, and it will detect and hopefully remove any baddies. Click here for a bit of info on how to run it and what to do.

I hope this helps. If it doesn't help it may be worth buying a bit more RAM to speed things up (can't guarantee it though and may be worth getting someone to physically look at it.)

P.S. If windows doesn't shut down properly then it will come up with the 'Safe Mode' option. When you have rebooted, Windows hasn't shut down properly due to stalling with the 'System resources' problem.

swisslet said...

or get a mac....

ST

(who works for one of the biggest computer companies in the world, in fact, who works for the grandaddy of all PC companies!)


on a more practical note, hardware firewalls are good too - get a router between your internet connection and your computer. Simple to set up and deadly effective.

adem said...

Yep that'll work too. I got a new wireless router a few months ago with built in firewall and nothing gets through that baby!!

ST- Can I have a free computer??? Or at least give Ginny one.

Ginny said...

Hi Adem,

Thanks for the help. I did have a really old version of Ad-aware, but downloaded and scanned the computer with the new one. It caught a lot of stuff running in the background (which we figured was one of the problems). So far it is running better and a little faster. THANK YOU!

adem said...

That's okay Ginny. I hope it helps a little bit. I think next up is a new PC. Could you "borrow" one from the government job??

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry but you all read that post and go all speccy-techy! What about the fact the 'just seeing each other' means she can shag around? Or perhaps its just that boyfriend no.3 doesn't have the same ring to it?

Seriously you internet people are far too nice to each other, why not give each other shit about stuff like normal friends!

adem said...

Cheers Jonny.

The fact is that I am the only person she is seeing. I wouldn't be 'the other man'. I am actually happy that it is nothing too serious. nuff said you c**t!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

See I can have a laff!!!

We'll have a drink together tomorrow night so that you don't get jealous!!