Clever s*ds - help required please!!

[eirian]

even though most people won't get that

[clvrlad]

well im only doing what my mate gary told me to do

after all its the only way to get rid of Terminate and Stay Resident
tsr sucks....

[LAT]

MAMA! They're talking a foreign language again.

[MBH]

even though most people won't get that

I didn't get that and needed a Google - we must have taken the other fork in the road.

(Who the heck leaves cutlery lying around in the road )

[giraffe]

A domesticated hedgehog?

[Bunnylump]

OK I am considering sending my son into the land of the DONGLE.

He's in Cornwall, and has rented his house for 9 months, so doesn't want to get involved in setting up contracts for phone lines etc for 12 or 18 months so that he can get internet. He COULD sign up to Tiscali (who are quite cheap for the phone and internet), but obviously that would have to be for a relatively long period, and also I'm hearing that their customer service is pretty carp.

So we're wondering about mobile broadband. Does anyone have any thoughts or experience of this, and is there anything we should look out for or questions we should ask before chosing one?

Any feedback would be gratefully received, since we know NOTHING about this and don't want to do the wrong thing. Thanks in advance.

[gill216]

Don't necessarily to go for the old trusty if you go to dongle. I signed up with my previous provider" Orange" for 18 months because I need internet access while in my seaside retreat as well as at home.

Mistake- its very slow in that area. I should have gone to T3 but I found that out too late. Find out who has the best coverage in the area first. Secondly be sure the bandwidth is adequate. If you go over the monthly allowance it becomes very pricy.

Apart from those 2 points I'm happy with Mr Dongle

[giraffe]

I think my OH is with Tmobile and we really struggled to get a connection where we were in cornwall (and it was incredibly slow even when it worked) in the summer. My orange mobile worked oK, but I guess it can vary a few miles down the road.

[clvrlad]

well it does depend on his location most locations do get some coverage about 99% of the country is covered
i used three quite and do have times i cant get online

4 times so far this year each time it was available a few hours later and was due to maintenance
and since three are mid way through upgrading their network to a higher speed im not complaining (usually happened late at night only once was during the day)

three do have the cheapest allowance (payg) but since i can top up and convert to more allowence from their website which accessing is free its relatively easy to use

however id advise checking coverage here

http://www.broadband-expert.co.uk/mobil ... broadband/

and looking at the different packages available and seeing which he wants but as a aside note i do succesfully play WOW on it so the connection is good

[clvrlad]

hmm got a tricky one not so much help as wondering why
tonight i can get on PB no problem but i try google and it times out...

[giraffe]

It crashed on me the other day while I was trying to send a pm. Reappeared later.

[MBH]

My only DONGLE knowledge is invalid here. We use Vodaphone kit on the laptops on the bus, but it is fed through the Surf Control filtering system on the Council's server - and the server is dying [Don't panic - the 'server' is a computer system, not a job title]

Basically it's so slow it takes me 3 or 4 'refresh' keys on every screen to get it to send, and sometimes it simply doesn't work at all.

As I say - not relevant to your situation.

----------------------------

On a different note. I've got a damned Trojan / Hijacker infection on this computer. It got past the defences on Friday (while I was at work). I've runt AVG check which detected 4 problems and cleared 2, other other 2 said "Virus Identified Packet Hidden"

I also updated SpyBot and ran that - it found quite a collection of things it wasn't happy about, and 'fixed' all but 2. It recommended a restart and re-run of the check, which again found some problems but 'fixed' all of them.

Then - as the restart continued - I sat and watched the damned problem 're-install' itself (I think) as command-line box after command-line box appeared, attempted to run something (which I couldn't see as the NEXT box appeared on top of it), and this went on for over a minute. AVG was then run and came back to showing the same 4 infections!

I looked at the 'Recover System' area with the idea of going back before Friday - but it says I have no valid recovery points.... Never seen that before either.


Anything practical I should be doing? Or just plough on regardless??

[clvrlad]

please tell me you've got a clean image of your basic setup so when a confident young teenager deletes everything you can get it back.....

[SparkOut]

Anything practical I should be doing?

The best would be to put a clean image back onto it, as clvrlad said. Otherwise it will be a very, very dodgy business to get it "clean" - it really depends on what the malware is and what damage it does. For instance, it may be possible to remove the infected files but what it infects may be system files that are needed to run Windows stably, and so you may need to do lots of repair after cleaning. A complete reinstall job would be my own choice.

Or just plough on regardless??

Definitely NOT!

1) Disconnect it from the network. You don't want it to be able to download more nasties from anywhere.
2) Restart in safe mode and run the AVG checks.
3) Go into the registry editor and look under HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run and list all the items on the right hand side.
4) Repeat 3) but use HKCU instead of HKLM
5) Investigate all the items you have in the lists. (Let me know by pm and we can check them out and delete the nasty ones, and probably some that aren't "nasty", just carp.)
6) Check for "inappropriate" entries in the "startup" folder.

[Biscuit]

how do i check whether I have a clean image for any emergencies?

There is something on the system when I go into system properties it shows a disc called D which has 2.05 GB available out of 11.5 and it is called HP_recovery

Biscuit

[MBH]

Latest update. I put it into a local computer shop that I trust £30 for a service plus £10 for secure / format / system re-install. Got a call yesterday saying it's done (he said the price was £45 (?) I'll check that).

There was an offer that for an extra £10 I could have a clean disk for resetting the machine to this current point in case of problems in the future.

Bearing in mind that I don't know where the £45 is going to come from is this a sensible purchase or is it something I should be able to create myself?

Thanks for all the help and advice on this thread anyway - I'm learning bits and pieces (but don't know what 'field' this falls into... it's not Application Programming - the world where I come from, but it's not really engineering in the old sense [where the tools of the trade were screwdrivers and soldering irons] )

Unfortunatly it's also an area that I have NO INTEREST in, as it seems deliberatly and unnecessarily complicated and I was taught to make software as simple and as user-friendly as possible

[clvrlad]

it's not Application Programming - the world where I come from...
I was taught to make software as simple and as user-friendly as possible

...

lol its part of the "oops ive trashed it" field of computer knowledge
i picked it up as good system use
admittedly i dont do it mostly because everything i want is the basic programs which i can reinstall as and when i want them, the only program specific stuff im thinking of copying is my wow updates...
they are about 3 gigs and at my modem speed itll take awhile to down load them fresh if i format

[SparkOut]

is this a sensible purchase or is it something I should be able to create myself?

That depends on what you have to hand. If you still have the original Windows installation disks, then no - you don't need to pay anything (although you can, of course). You can set your own image up with http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm and save that for "go back to start" safety.
If you don't have original Windows disks, then I would certainly suggest you get physical "return to square one" media from the shop.

[Bunnylump]

Could someone please explain to me what BACKLOGGING is, in the context of blogging? It's just my daughter is having to do an essay on setting up blogs for schools and doesn't understand what that bit means! We are guessing it's something to do with checking for inappropriate entries on old stuff but aren't sure.

[MBH]

I've not heard that, and our friend Google doesn't seem to help (yet). A couple of choices:

1) Dodgy spell checker didn't know what BLOGGING was and corrected it

2) BACK-LOGGING - working forwards on your blog regarding what you did today, but being able to work backwards to start your blog (for instance) from the start of a time period.

3) Not the same as (2), but having missed a number of days on your blog, having a back-log of things to post so you can't post what happend today YET until you're caught up.

4) The large log at the back of your fire that needs to get hot enough to burn your paper diaries to cinders when you're foolish enough to post on the world wide web all the things you should be keeping in a book under your pillow


Just my thoughts (must get back to work)