Okay, I've thought about starting this thread for like three years now. There are plenty of people on these boards that really seem to know their stuff. And plenty more that claim to. Either way, that's fine by me. But I think for every one of those people, there are ten like myself that really have a very limited knowlege of how to properly run and maintain a computer. I would like for this to be a database, if you will, for people like myself to turn to to ask basic questions about computers. I'm not talking about trying to turn computers as servers or TioVos or or using Linux instead of Windows or anything complex like that. That's awesome to know how to do all that, but we have seperate threads for those kinds of higher technology topics for people to peruse through. What I'm talking about is stuff that some of you might think is so dumb and basic, that you can't really believe that there are people out there that don't know how to do it. But there are. And I am one of them. I need basic help. Here's what I use my computer for, in no particular order: email friends. come to bigsoccer. look at porn. buy concert tickets. get songs from iTunes. That's really about it. But I would like to be able to do so much more but have nobody that can help me. I have a strong suspicion that there are other people on these boards that are in the same boat and maybe are a little too intimidated to ask such basic questions like I have. I would like to invite them to post their questions, and for the armchair experts to please help with answering them. But of the ladder, I only ask that you be patient with us and not simply retort with oh so clever answers like 'stop using IE' or 'well your first problem is that you're on a PC and not a mac.' Thanks in advance Anyone game? Here's my first question (I have a lot of 'em in case nobody else joins in ) How do I back up my computer? I recently had a virus and had to have the fine folks at Dell walk me through a reset of the whole computer. When I did this, I, of course, lost all my iTunes songs, my emails, and pictures I had stored on here. There was nothing important, and I got all the songs back through third party software that I learned about later, but I would like to be prepared for the next time I screw up and have to start over.
First thing is you have to dedicate yourself to "backing up" your computer on occasion. I've installed backup programs and given people instructions but after a while people start slacking and eventually they all stop doing it. And like clockwork, the computer dies within two to five weeks after they quit. For MP3/AVI/MPG, i.e. media. The best backup is a CD or DVD recordable. I have all my MP3 files backed up to CD-R as well as on a computer hard drive; by having them on CD-R I can also use them on standalone players and my iRiver portable. Most newer DVD players have MP3 playback capability. The same thing goes for pictures. For bookmarks, documents, other small files Personally, I think a USB pocket/thumb/jump/keychain drive is the best thing for this. In most browsers you can export bookmarks. You can drag and drop other files there as well. And, you can take a USB drive to work and anywhere, really. The prices are fairly inexpensive for a good sized USB thumb drive - it is worth the investment. Whole system This is just personal experience but IMHO unless you are doing this frequently and have someone knowledgable to work with and maintain them, full system backups are usually worthless. Again, this is my opinion and others will differ but I have yet to see in my decades of computer existence a whole system backup be useful unless it was done with prior knowledge of potential damage to a computer (i.e. we are going to upgrade key components, better do a full backup). Most of the time, enough files and system settings have changed to make a full backup only slightly preferable to a reinstall. Email I use yahoo/gmail for email and have nothing saved on my hard drive. I have to trust yahoo/gmail. Making backups There are backup programs available for a nominal charge (some free?). If I'm going to archive a bunch of files for storage or safekeeping I use a compression program. I use WinRAR but that isn't free. At work I use 7-Zip to create archives and backups. 7-Zip will use .ZIP or it's own compression method and supports reading .ZIP, .RAR, and many other formats - and it's free.
This is awesome. Great to know all this. But I think you're underestimating my ignorance here. Like...okay, I put a blank CD in the CD tray and hit close. Now what? (Yeah, I really don't know what to do next.)
Now, keep in mind, I'm roughly as computer savvy as you are. Have you ever burned cds using iTunes? It's pretty easy--you just create a playlist, open the playlist, and then click the "burn cd" icon in the upper-right-hand corner. For other backup, I've used the flash memory/keychain drive that Grouchy mentions. (Something like this) A good one has about as much room as an iPod Nano, so it may not be enough space to save everything you want. However, using them is easy. You plug the thing into a USB port. You open up a pair of "My Computer" windows. One should show the files you want to move (say, your "My iTunes" files), and the other should have the icon for the flash drive. You simply copy and paste the files you want from one folder to another. I know jack shit about computers, but I figured out how it worked in about five minutes.
Awesome. AFLette was gonna get me one of those little portable things awhile back, but I didn't think I'd use it. Sounds easy enough. So burn the songs to CDs. Got it. I can do that. But what about pictures? Do I just drag the file that contains the pictures (or any other files I want) into the CD icon? Is it that easy?
Step 1: Purchase maracas and banana suit. Step 2: Put on banana suit. Step 3: Dance to "It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time." Sorry, couldn't resist. Seriously though, a couple questions. 1. What Operating System are you running? I'm making a leap of faith that you know what an operating system is and know what you've got. *crosses fingers* 2. Do you know what, if any CD Burning program is on your system. Roxio, Sonic, etc.? 3. Do you have any CD-R/CD-RW discs? From there I can explain saving music, video, and pictures, etc. to a disc.
Mine is pretty small (512MB), but I use it mainly to move things from my work computer to my home computer or vice versa. You'd want a bigger one if you're using it for backup. I should note, however, that they don't hold a huge amount of space. I believe the biggest ones, like I mentioned above, can hold about as much as an iPod nano. Come to think of it, I've never tried to burn a song I bought from the iTunes music store onto a disk. I'm certain that it works with other mp3 files, however, and I'm almost certain that it works with stuff you buy directly from iTunes.
I've not tried this - since I've got "My Documents" on my RAID array that can survive a disk crash without loss of data, and I'm notoriously lazy when it comes to backups - but Microsoft makes it pretty easy. If you've got XP, this looks like an idiot-proof method of backing up your computer: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/bott_03july14.mspx
I can burn CDs. I have Sonic, but I've always just used iTunes to make CDs. I'm using WindowsXP Home. I have CD-R discs that I make CDs with. This banana suit is hard to type in.
Be sure to wear the banana suit. It's an important step, but unfortunately omitted on Microsoft's website.
One of the reasons why I never used a Windows backup was because back in the old days I had my Athlon 800 cpu. It had a heat sink that was heavy as a brick and loud as a jet plane. Sweet... The motherboard had a VIA chipset (KT133 I think) and if you had Microsoft backup installed the motherboard would randomly lock up with a single horizontal line going across the screen. Strange, stupid, but true. That above link looks easy enough though.
See, that's why I get so frustrated going to their web site. They leave out the little things cause they assume I already know to to 'em. That's why I came to you guys. I don't know why I still have this thing on already. I'm not planning on actually backing up the computer till some Saturday when I have time.
I'm definitely a fan of backing up "important" media like my music, videos, and documents onto an external USB hard drive. Depending on the size you need, they're not that expensive and they are pretty easy to use especially considering they generally come with their own backup software, often allowing for "one-button" backups (i.e. plug in the hard drive, push a button on the front, go get beer ). I do this every 3-4 months or so, even though I have a Mac which of course some people claim will never crash. Me, well I don't feel like taking the risk, so I backup. It's an easy and really a vital step nowadays for basic computer maintenance.
Definitely also splurge for virus detection software that runs continuously (the better kinds use "unused" CPU cycles, so they shouldn't affect your computer's performance) and download free spyware detection software like Spybot or Ad-Aware. It helps immensely in keeping crud out of your computer, sort of a virtual Q-Tip, if you will.
I do pay for virus protection and also run Ad-Aware and Spybot. Someone a long, long time ago pointed me in the right direction on both of those fronts. And looking at how much stuff those all catch combined, I feel very comfortable with taking the time, effort, and money to get them all.
Okay, thnk's to all of you for all your info. I feel pretty good about how to back up my computer now. Okay, stupid question number two: How does a website work? I'm not talking about like how it operates like from teh technical hosting standpoint, I'm wondering how it happens from the 'what do I have to do' standpoint. Like let's say I call up Jim's hosting company and buy myself some space. Now what? Do they send me a link to my new page? Do I pay for amout of pages I have? Do I just have a blank canvas and am expected to know how to fill it? Or are there programs out there that walk me through it? For example: I am getting married soon and after the wedding, I would like to have a site of my own that people can look at. (I want it to be nice, too, not some crappy photobucket page that I get for free. I want a nice looking page that anyone can look at, link from, and all around interact with, without the hassles of ads or slow loading pages, or ametuerish looking layout.
Bingo. On a most basic level, you rent space and bandwidth from a hosting company, and you stick what you want in that space and they serve it out over the leased bandwidth. There are software packages you can install (or find a host that already has the software installed) called "content management systems" that remove the need to know the nuts and bolts of the language that pages are written in and all of that. Most CMS provide web-based interfaces - you hit a web page, log in, and manage the content of your site. For example, every blog on the internet is run with various types of blog software. I use "WordPress", which I like. But, there are different CMS packages that provide different functionality. Some provide weblogs, some provide moblogs, some provide basic page managment. Then there are other packages - like "Gallery" - that provide photo gallery capabilities. I also use Gallery. Of course, since I'm my own webhost I have to handle the sysadmin duties like ensuring the right software is installed and compiled. If you choose a web host that already provides the CMS package you want, it's easy. If you don't, the difficulty of installation varies dramatically depending on which CMS you pick (and what software is available on your webhost). Wordpress is very easy. Others may not be (Gallery is not too bad, but it's not for newbs).
Awesome. So like I could go to CompuServe and they'd hook me up with something, right? I would kind of like to have two halves to my mythical site: One for something nice like the wedding pictures, and one for goofy stuff, like for hosting pictures I photoshopped and stuff like that. Like justy a database or something. I assume I can make some pages on my purchased space public, and some not?
I have no idea of CompuServe offers hosting - usually your ISP offers you a tiny amount of web space, but most people don't use it. Unless you are a guru, that would probably be difficult to use, and if you are a guru it's probably not large enough. If you just want (or mostly want) photo galleries, I strongly suggest http://gallery.menalto.com/ - I use that software on my server, and it's really nice IMO. They have links to "certified" web hosts that make it easy to use (the top one even provides a discount and a "one-click" install kind of thing). You could probably hack out a few static pages if you had other needs, using a free editor. If your web pages are going to change often, and consist of a lot more than just photos, you need a different kind of CMS. Absolutely. That can be controlled at the file level (ie, make the files unreadable by the web server), web server level (block some pages, or make them password protected), or at the web application level (many many CMS packages provide user accounts and control access based on those).
Have you ever heard of BigSoccer member JMarquez? Do a search, he had a pretty nice wedding site going until his World Rivalries brethren figured out the password. In all seriousness his site was a well organized wedding site. You might want to hit him up for some ideas.
Here's another couple of questions for the floor: Can I switch between screen resolution settings frequently without doing damage to the computer? The way it changes makes me jumpy, because it looks too much like a computer crash for my taste. And can I trust a banana suit that's for sale on Ebay, or should I buy direct? Thanks.
I'm assuming you're running windows. If not, this may not be correct. Changing screen resolutions should never damage your compter as long as you are using the display properties dialog (that is, not doing anything funky like changing it with another program).