TVCH FORUMS HOME . JOIN . FAN CLUBS . ABOUT US . CONTACT . CHAT  
Bomis   Quick Links   TOPICS . TREE-VIEW . SEARCH . HELP! . NEWS . PROFILE
Archive through February 09, 2004

The TVClubHouse: Archives: 2004 January - Arpil: Computer Problems? Ask here... (ARCHIVES): Archive through February 09, 2004 users admin

Author Message
Daydreamer
Member

09-16-2003

Friday, February 06, 2004 - 6:49 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I have 2 questions, if anyone can help.

1. Everytime I open Outlook Express on my home computer my AIM automatically opens and signs on.
Is there a way to stop this?

2. On my work computer, I found a bunch of "temporary internet files" which looks like all the web sites I've visited. A bunch of them are cookies. Can I delete them all and erase all of the sites I've visited or will I be hurting something? PS - I don't know anything about cookies - to me they are something that you eat!

Draheid
Moderator

09-09-2001

Friday, February 06, 2004 - 8:14 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Daydreamer:

1. I've never seen OE open AIM, however I do know it's common for OE to start MSN Messenger. Unfortunately, I have not yet discovered any way to stop MSN Messenger from starting when I load Outlook Express myself. If I do find a way, I will be sure to post it here.

2. Temporary Internet Files and Cookies can be deleted by clicking 'Tools - Internet Options' in Internet Explorer, then click 'Delete Files' and 'Delete Cookies'.

Temporary Internet Files are copies of the pages you view while surfing the internet. They are intended to make your session more efficient by storing a copy of frequently viewed pages on your local computer making them quicker to reload when you revisit. Deleting these files will not affect anything other then they will have to reload the entire page the next time you visit a site.

Cookies are small pieces of information such as username, pages viewed, etc. from individual sites you visit. If you have to log in to a site, such as TVCH, having a cookie set, if you've chosen to have TVCH 'remember you', means you won't have to log in. Deleting cookies will mean you have to manually log in to sites that use the cookies for automatic login such as TVCH does.

Hope this helps.

Daydreamer
Member

09-16-2003

Friday, February 06, 2004 - 8:38 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Thank you Dra! You're so helpful!

Luvmom
Member

10-17-2000

Friday, February 06, 2004 - 8:55 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Thanks for trying Dra.I did everything you said but it still loads.I'll try what juju suggested.

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Friday, February 06, 2004 - 10:07 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Got this in my e-mail this morning. Do you think I should go there and give them my PIN????? DUH!

I reported it to Citibank fraud dept.

Subject: Citi E_Mail Veerification - jujuemail@yahoo.com
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2004 08:30:27 -0500

_Dear Citi Cleints,

_This Email was seent by-the _citibank _server to
veerify _your _e-mail_ adrress.
You musst clepotme this peorscs by clicking on the link
beloow and enteering in the small _window_ your _Citibank
Atm_ full Card Nummber and _PIN that you use_ in the local Atm Machine.
This is _done_ for-your prtcoetion -c- becaurse some_of_our
memmbers no lgoner have acsces to their email adresdess
and we must verify it.

http://citibanking.com...

To veerify _your_ e_mail adderss and akcess your CITI_bank
account, clik on the_link below_.

M8T8odvr





Littlec
Member

11-14-2003

Friday, February 06, 2004 - 10:12 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I heard about this email on the news the other day. They have gotten access to several accounts this way. SICK!!!

Draheid
Moderator

09-09-2001

Friday, February 06, 2004 - 10:48 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Juju, I removed most of the link information. Someone 'playing' to see what it does could inadvertantly submit information on your behalf. Here is the information about the address citibanking.com, fyi:

Registrant:
Santiago J. Caceres
199C Bo Daguao
Naguabo, Puerto Rico 00718-3056
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: CITIBANKING.COM

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Friday, February 06, 2004 - 11:43 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Oh! Thanks, Draheid. I thought I removed all identifying information about me, but maybe I inadvertantly posted the full headers version I sent to Citibank? Thanks for looking out for me. I can get into enough trouble all by myself without any pranksters helping me out.

Draheid
Moderator

09-09-2001

Friday, February 06, 2004 - 11:58 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Juju: It wasn't the headers I removed. The % codes on the link you posted are what is translated into a possibly identifiable code sent to that website when clicked on. That's the part I removed. It's likely the site would collect the unique code and convert that into YOUR e-mail address to SELL in someone else's spam list.

Either way, you're welcome.

Faerygdds
Member

08-29-2000

Friday, February 06, 2004 - 2:29 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
That is the worst fake e-mail scam I have ever seen! ROFL

For your amusement while you are having trouble with your machines...

computer problems

Crossfire
Member

08-07-2001

Saturday, February 07, 2004 - 12:40 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I've not looked into this in years, so I am really, really rusty when it comes to the current gold standard for dealing with this.

A long story shot, my mom is a little old fashion, and nearly dies every time she gets spam offering her a few extra inches.

She can just barely turn the computer on, so I am looking for something really super duper easy to make this stuff go away for her.

Is there anything I can do short of changing her email address? I need an add-on or a plug-in or something that works with outlook express.

Draheid
Moderator

09-09-2001

Saturday, February 07, 2004 - 1:14 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Crossfire: Have you considered devising some 'Rules' by which OE will automatically delete messages a) containing key words in the subject. b) contains key words in the message text, etc. You could configure multiple rules that should eliminate a large amount of offensive material for her. Be sure to include some of the more creative ways these type of messages are sent including variations of words, mis-spellings, etc. I would think you could easily devise a few rules that would not interfere with valid e-mails and still take care of the others.

To access the message rules feature (in Outlook Express 6), click on 'Tools - Message Rules - Mail'.

Hope that helps.

Crossfire
Member

08-07-2001

Saturday, February 07, 2004 - 1:24 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Rules? I did not know OE did rules. I thought that was an outlook feature. That should be perfect, I am a huge fan of outlook rules, I have tons of them on my own email. :-)

I'll get some set up later tonight that should be able to grab most of the offending mails as she has a few hundred stored in her deleted items folder which I can study for some patterns.

Thanks Dra. Once again...you da man.

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Saturday, February 07, 2004 - 4:16 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Man, do I feel like a fool. I had been dreading backing up my bookmarks because it is such a pain to do, copying each folder individually. And the export Wizard won't automatically remember where you put the last folder, so each time you either have to type in the new pathway or browse to it. BUT, I have not done it in a long time, and I would be very upset if I lost all my bookmarks, so today I resolved to do it. After about 20 painstaking minutes, when I was almost done, I got to thinking, "what if I just highlighted Favorites at the top of the list, instead of each individual folder?" What the heck, I tried that. It copied EVERYTHING in about two seconds. Dang! So, you kiddies out there at home, if you have lots of bookmarks, back them up now. Takes about 30 seconds total. LOL.

Here's how: Use a floppy. Open an IE browser. Click on File, Import and Export, Export Favorites. Then just highlight Favorites. Next screen where you have to type in where to send them, type in A:\Favorites, then Next and Finish, and voila! you are done.

To check, you can now go and open what you put on the floppy. Links to all of your Favorites should be on there.


On the up-side, I was looking at some stuff of a year ago when Bigdog and I put in a new hard drive and more RAM in my computer. I didn't know doodly squat about that stuff then, and now it all looks easy. Well, sort of easy. At least the RAM part. :-)

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Sunday, February 08, 2004 - 12:07 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Well, I thought I was done with the Trojans. Apparently not. Tried to open Word tonight to copy some text there from a website. Got an error message saying I don't have sufficient memory to open Word. I have plenty of memory, 376 MB RAM, huge, empty hard drive. I routinely have Word open and four or five browsers and maybe a photo-editor at the same time. No problems. Then I got the blue screen of death and had to reboot.

Now, at some point today, don't remember if it was before or after I was trying to check out the problem, I was in C:Properties\Troubleshooting and noticed that I still had System Restore disabled from back when I had the trojans and thought I was going to have to do regedit to get rid of them. So when I noticed that today, I unchecked the box that says Disable System Restore.

Then I started getting all sorts of error messages. Ran Norton, found nothing.

Ran Housecall online virus scan, found a Mosimp Trojan in a System Restore temp file. Killed it.

Rebooted. Still can't open Word. When I try to open it, it starts to open, then I hear a warning "ding" and the system freezes.

I am running another online trojan scan now, GFI_ TrojanScan. If that doesn't find and cure my problem, what is my next step? Uninstall Word and reinstall?

Draheid
Moderator

09-09-2001

Sunday, February 08, 2004 - 8:09 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Juju: First of all, how do you open word? I mean, do you use 'New Document' on the start menu, 'Microsoft Word' from the Programs Menu, shortcut on the task bar, etc. It is possible the 'link' or 'shortcut' to word is not working or could be calling the wrong program. To verify this, you could clicking 'Start - Run' (or use WinLogo key + 'R') to open a Run window. Then type winword and press [Enter].

If that doesn't help locate the problem, you might just try to 'Repair' word rather then unistall/reinstall.

Let me know if this helps.

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Sunday, February 08, 2004 - 9:13 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
You are right again, Draheid!!! Yay! I was just coming here to tell you I found the problem. It was a corrupted shortcut. To answer your question, I get to Word via a shortcut I have placed on my desktop.

Second trojan scan last night found nothing. Tried to open Word again this morning. Got the message, "There is not enough memory or disk space to run Word."

It then occurred to me that my Word is part of Works Suite 2000, and I went there and tried to open Word. It opened fine. So I trashed the old shortcut and pulled out a new one. Works fine.

Yay!!! Thanks for being there, Dra.

Suitsmefine
Member

07-29-2002

Sunday, February 08, 2004 - 9:48 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Well I am about to let everyone here know just how STUPID I am when it comes to computers...so please keep your laughter to a minimum, and if you must talk about me...whisper in invisible ink! LOL!!! Last night my computer did some very wierd things. I tried to log on and this message came up "Your computer does not have a hard disk, your hard disk is not functioning correctly or your hard disk requires a special device driver."
Then it shut down Windows....when I tried to get it back on it said a fatal error had occurred and shut it down again...then a message came up that said boot failure and when i tried to reboot with floppy it said it was not found. Finally this morning it just magically came back on....What does all of this mean and how do I make a new floppy to reboot with?

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Sunday, February 08, 2004 - 1:14 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Suits, your operating system might differ. I have Windows ME, but I went to Start, Help, and looked for boot disk, which is also known as a startup disk. Mine says:

To create a startup disk

Open Add/Remove Programs properties in Control Panel.
Click the Startup Disk tab, and then click Create Disk.
Follow the instructions on the screen.


NOTE: It is always a good idea to have a boot disk on hand, but I wouldn't do anything with it for now unless Dra or one of the experts tells you so. You might have also received a boot diskette when you got your computer, probably did.

Suitsmefine, I would be afraid your hard drive is going bad and would mentally prepare myself for it, if I were you. One thing you could do while your computer is still letting you access the internet, is do a free online virus scan at http://housecall.trendmicro.com/. I did that last night when my computer started acting screwy and my up-to-date Norton anti-virus did not detect anything. Warning, it takes a LONG time, like maybe an hour or more, if you are on dialup.

Draheid will be along shortly to give you the real answers, I am sure.

Suits, you are not stupid. You are in a stage of learning. Good luck.

Draheid
Moderator

09-09-2001

Sunday, February 08, 2004 - 1:33 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Suitsmefine: First thing you should do is create the boot diskette as Juju describes. It's always a good idea to have a way to boot your computer other then from the hard drive as they do occasionally fail. Second, I recommend you try to save to floppy or some other removable media any critical files you need to have in case you are having trouble with your hard drive. Saving those files now will definitely help. It is always a good practice to have backups of any important files you have in case of hard drive failure.

Once you have safely backed up any important data, I suggest you run Scandisk on your hard drive and allow it to also perform a 'Surface Scan' to see if there are any serious problems with the hard drive. Before running this, I would recommend you boot your computer in 'Safe Mode' to exclude any programs from running while the scan is performed.

If you have any questions about these suggestions, please ask and I will be happy to provide detailed instructions. Please include the version of Windows you are running to better help with these instructions.

Suitsmefine
Member

07-29-2002

Sunday, February 08, 2004 - 4:53 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Juju, Thanks for your advice and I will try the virus scan. And thanks for making me feel better about my "learning process" LOL!
Dra, I ran the Scandisk and there were no bad sectors in my hard drive...about that, I have a question...do you have to let it run through ALL the sectors...I am not using many the majority of mine are unused, so how can they go bad?
I am running Windows 98 As for the other info on my computer here is what I know.
Performance Tab
memory 56.0 MB RAM
System resources 73% free
File System 32-bit
Virtual Memory 32-bit
Disk Compression Not Installed
and it says Your system is configured for optimal performance
Hard Disk C:\16418MB Free
Pentium(r)II Processor
Now if it is as Juju said and my hard drive is going What will I need to do then...can those be replaced or is it new computer time?
I am so sorry to bug you with these questions that I know I SHOULD know.THANKS SO MUCH!!!

Suitsmefine
Member

07-29-2002

Sunday, February 08, 2004 - 5:03 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
One other thing...this last time it finally got it back up it said Pri Master Hard disk: S.M.A.R.T. BAD, Backup and Replace....yet when I ran scandisk it showed nothing was bad....I am so confused....How would I backup and replace it?

Draheid
Moderator

09-09-2001

Sunday, February 08, 2004 - 5:18 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Suitsmefine: You should occasionally allow scandisk to run through the entire hard drive just to verify the entire drive is ok. Based on the information you provided, I would say your computer could be old enough that the drive might begin to have problems. Replacing a drive is not difficult or very expensive. What will require the most effort will be re-installing all the software currently on your system.

Now, having said all that, there is another very good possible explanation for what you experienced last night. All computers use some sort of battery to maintain the system configuration when the computer is turned off. This configuration includes the information the computer needs to access the hardware installed, including the hard drive. If this information is lost, it is possible the computer would not recognize the hard drive and would then report it as 'missing' or 'not present'. Most times when this happens, you should be presented with a setup program to reconfigure this information, most of which the computer will usually automatically recognize for you.

To possibly determine if this might be the case, be observant of things like the time setting on your computer. If you see that the time is set wrong and you reset it, only to discover the next time you turn on the computer the time is wrong again, I would strongly suspect this batter is not working. This also should be fairly easy to remedy. It would require delving into the computer and locating the battery, obtaining a new battery to replace the old with, then changing it out. Once you change the battery, you will need to reset the configuration once more.

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

After refreshing and seeing your last message, it would appear the hard drive has integrated diagnostics that may detect problems that scandisk can not see. Although this is not normally the case, it is possible. Based on your last post, I would recommend you look into replacing the hard drive. If you are able to purchase a new drive before the old one becomes completely unusable, it is possible that you could move everything from your old drive to the new one and alleviate having to reinstall everything or losing any information in the process.

I would suggest you check with the store where you will purchase the drive or investigate online, if the drive you choose has software included to help you in the process of replacing an old drive. I believe most new drives include some software to make this much easier to do.

Finally, I would also recommend you look into adding more memory to your computer. You will find additional memory will make the computer run much faster for you.

Hope this helps. Again, if you have any questions or have any concerns about any of this, either ask here or you might want to take the computer in and have the repairs/upgrade done for you.

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Sunday, February 08, 2004 - 8:48 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Suits, we replaced our hard drive with a MUCH bigger one last year. Bigdog had never been inside a computer case before, but he did it just following the instructions that came with the new hard drive. There were instructions and software in the package that also told how to very easily copy all your old hard drive information over onto the new one, which he did with no problems.

I forget where you live, BUT if you live in or near a major city, go right now to today's newspaper before you throw it away and look for flyers for all the office and electronics stores - Circuit City, Office Max, Office Depot, Best Buy. Look through them all for the best price on an internal hard drive. 40 Gb or higher will be just fine. You can come report here if you are not sure what you have picked out is the right thing, before you buy it.

While you are at it, and before you look through the ads, might as well determine what kind of RAM you need, as 56 MB is WAY too small in today's world. Go to www.crucial.com (something Bob2112 taught me) and look up your computer make and model (you might have to use the pulldown menu there if you don't immediately see your model among the most common types). It will tell you what RAM you need. You will most likely need something like SDRAM PC133 or numbers of that sort. Then when you are looking at flyers for hard drives, you can look to see if they also have RAM on sale.

Okay, now if you are not too computer literate, you might not know what "backing up" means. It basically means saving on diskette the stuff you would be lost without if your computer suddenly completely died. You might have an address book, or pictures of the relatives, your Favorites on the internet, letters you have written to people and wanted to save, things like that. Or you may have next to nothing. Depends on what kind of user you are. One or two days ago, I posted here how to save your internet Favorites. If you don't know how to put the other stuff on diskette, come back and ask.

By the way, Suits, I am NOT an expert. I just know how to look at things from an amateur's viewpoint and how to figure some things out. Draheid, Jed, and Bob are, if not ALL experts, at least major geeks. Maybe Zachsmom too and maybe Twiggyish. so, if I ever tell you something that contradicts what they say, do what they say and not what I say.

Good luck, Suits.

Suitsmefine
Member

07-29-2002

Monday, February 09, 2004 - 5:41 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Thanks Dra and Juju! You were both immensely helpful! ... if I should disappear, you will know I am in the floor, cursing, trying to resurrect my puter! LOL
I also forgot to mention yesterday that last week my monitor went capooey....don't know what that might have to do with anything...we replaced it.

The only problem I am having this morning is with my sound....NO SOUND! When I first turned it on there was sound, but after opening IE there is none...any ideas?
Once again Thanks ever so much, you guys are great!