This page is intended to provide some useful resources, hints and tips to make your PC computing experience easier.

PDA/Smartphones

Regarding phone and battery life, I personally find that my phone seems to require about 40 to 45% of its’ charge for one days activity, thereby rendering pretty unworkable any routine other than charging every night, I put it on charge just before I go to bed and unplug it when I get up.

NB if the phone goes flat everything you have entered on the phone since last synchronization will be gone (scary thought) I recommend daily synchronization and daily backup of your outlook data file on the pc to DVDRW (this last step can be automated, within Windows XP). I have over the time I have owned a PDA experienced the following critical issues personally; PC failure, PDA complete power drain and outlook data file synchronization corruption, all of which I was able to recover from with a minimum of disruption due to the charging, synchronization and daily backup routine I pursue, and which I commend to you.

Spyware:
This  is a growing nuisance it slows down your pc and internet connection and generates spam.  Go here for details www.lavasoftusa.com  download the free version of Ad-aware, keep updating it and run it regularly to quarantine the rubbish that accumulates as a result of web browsing. It is also a good idea to run and keep regularly updated a programme called Spybot Search and Destroy which can be downloaded from here www.safer-networking.org Please see some notes about spybot here.

There is an interesting article about spyware here http://www.itweek.co.uk/News/1154939

N.B. If you use any p2p file sharing services you will have to make sure that Ad-aware and or Spybot does not disable them.  However you are probably better off without them!

Viruses:

Buy an up to date anti-virus programme, NOD32 (ESET), McAfee (Network Associates) or Norton (Symantec), keep updating it regularly, check for updates prior to downloading e-mail N.B. Update processes typically take longer than e-mail downloading so this is the only safe way to proceed.  There is still a risk that you become infected by a new virus that the anti-virus programme has yet to provide protection for but this risk is a small one. 

Expect to spend money on anti-virus software annually.

Hard Disk Maintenance:

A) Checking the drive for errors keeps the file system properly organised and can provide early warning of hard drive failure. This should be done every few weeks unless problems are found in which case it should be more frequent.  N.B. Hard drive failure is not a possibility it WILL HAPPEN, the only question is when?  Back your data up or one day it will all be gone!

B) Defragmenting the drive can speed up your system but here are a few suggestions to help the process: Clean up the drive by deleting the web cache, browser history, empty the recycle bin, turn off system restore (make sure all is well first), delete all *.tmp files with dates older than today, compact your e-mail folders and delete the contents of the windows temp directory.  Then turn off anti-virus software, screen saver, power management and any other running programmes now you can defragment.  N.B. Unless you  run large databases or accountancy software I would suggest defragmenting no more frequently than every three months otherwise your keenness may simply be speeding up the inevitable failure of your hard disk.  Remember the defragment process moves a lot of data around your hard drive making it work very hard so check it for errors and back up before doing it. 

Error messages:
"This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down" on its' own this message is meaningless, click details and write down the "programme x caused problem whatever in y at z address" this is the real error message that can be looked up. Do not bother with the registers or stack dump information unless asked for it by support personnel (which has never happened to me).

I usually start looking up errors in the newsgroup archives: go to www.google.co.uk  click on groups and type in the key words from the error message.  If you are lucky you will find other people who have had the same problem and some suggested solution from technicians.

As is say of the front of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, "Don't Panic" you are very unlucky if you get a problem nobody has had before.

Urban Myth:
"There are problems with Windows XP", I cannot understand why over five years after Microsoft released this operating system I still keep hearing this from prospective purchasers, my view is you would not want to run a Nuclear Power Station with a PC but XP is certainly the best Windows I have worked with, more stable and intuitive than its' predecessors.   Microsoft released the successor to Windows XP called Windows Vista at the end of January 2007, I recommend it for new users with no legacy hardware/software.  If you have old hardware and software you can expect some incompatibilities when trying to run with Vista, some of which are never going to be fixed.

The information on this page is believed to be accurate at the time of writing, 27th July 07, but is subject to change without notice.

Whilst I have mentioned a number of companies products on this page please note that any warranty and performance issues rest with the producers of these products and not with me. I hereby acknowledge all copyright rests with the respective owners and cannot be held  responsible for the performance (or not) of any of these products nor can I guarantee that services available from external websites will continue to be available or will continue to operate as described above.  You should always maintain an up to date backup of essential data and never install new software without disabling all running programmes and ensuring that your backup is readable.

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