Derek891

It wasn't too long ago that the Ubuntu forums were hacked, the end of July I think. Something like 1.8 million accounts compromised and the forum shut down for almost two weeks. A black eye for Canonical, raising the question that maybe their version of Linux isn't as secure as they claim it to be.

Do you want to know what the real irony is Nergal? My other machine is a 3-4 year old HP Mini 210, with WinXP, and a whopping 1GB of memory. It can be a slug sometimes when I open an application. But it has never failed me, or given me the kind of problems that this new machine has. The price of progress I suppose. And with support of XP ending in April 2014, I really dread the thought of upgrading to Win 8 on that machine.

Hello and welcome to the forum. You mention "it seems to freeze with the google search ad". I downloaded CCleaner v 4.05.4250 directly from Piriform and don't recall seeing any such ad during the install. (dvdbane just beat me to it) Don't depend on other sites to get Piriform software, they can add items you don't need or don't want.

I think the term unlucky is inadequate in my case. Perhaps the word cursed is more appropriate.

Microsoft can count me out. After the problems I've had with Windows 8, I will not be upgrading. And here's 3 reasons why: 1.) I've had a recurring problem with Windows Update failing to work. I keep fixing it, and it keeps breaking. 2.) The Back button in I.E. 10 randomly stops working. At first I blamed it on the website servers, but then a Google search revealed other people are experiencing the same problem, and it's connected to I.E. 10. 3.) I've saved the worst for last. Several times, my mouse pointer has frozen and fails to respond. The first time it happened, this machine was four days old. After fiddling around for several minutes, I walked away. For six hours. And when I came back and tried it, it was still unresponsive. So I took a deep breath, held down the power button, and did a forced shutdown. With disastrous results. Windows failed to start, and after trying the startup repair utility in Recovery, and having that fail to work, I ended up using the only restore point available to rescue Windows. Twice since then, I've had the mouse pointer freeze, and after walking away for a few minutes, I've come back to find it working again. (For the record, HP's hardware testing software finds nothing wrong with the touchpad, or any of the other hardware.) If this were Windows 3.0, or 95, or even 98SE, I would accept these problems as being part of a new and evolving technology. But Microsoft Windows is 7 or 8 generations beyond that time, and you would think that by now, they would have figured out how to get Windows Update, or the back button, or the mouse pointer to work in a flawless manner. I would suggest that they spend a lot more time and money on quality assurance if they expect consumers to pay the prices they are asking for.

At the worst, the only thing you did by disabling an item in system startup is that you prevented an application from starting along with Windows. Your computer would still start. And this is easily remedied by re-enabling the item. (You ARE talking about the startup manager settings within Windows (also accessed using CCleaner) and NOT the BIOS settings, right? Because that's an entirely different thing.) Usually beep codes related to system RAM mean one of four things: 1.) RAM is not installed 2.) RAM is not fully seated in the slot 3.) The wrong type of RAM is installed 4.) RAM has failed. Follow mta's advice, clean the contacts on the RAM itself and use canned air to blow any dust out of the slot. Handle the RAM module by the edges only, try not to touch the chips themselves. Then re-install the RAM making sure it is seated properly. If you still have problems, there is the possibility your RAM has failed. Also, I remember years ago that Dell used fasteners that were unique to Dell. This was to keep people from opening the case, changing components like RAM or hard drives, and using components that were not certified by Dell. I don't know what is used nowadays, just take a good look at the screw heads before proceeding. Follow up: I went to Dells' support website. 2 beeps= No RAM detected: 4 beeps= Memory has failed. Follow mta's advice, get things cleaned up and re-install the RAM module. Sounds like a bad connection is the cause.

Thank you for offering to help Alan. I appreciate it, just as I've appreciated it in the past. I did get my contacts back this morning, the problem was on my ISP's server and not on my machine. But the other problems were on my machine, and added to the other problems I've had in the past, it has caused me to reconsider what I'm going to do about it. And the real question is this: Does this machine exist to serve me, or do I exist to serve this machine? I'm going to take a few days to think about it, but I think Windows 8 and I are going to part ways. I've given it a fair trial period, almost four months, but I've grown tired of dealing with it's problems. Fourteen years ago, I saw the problems I had with Win98SE as a challenge. Now, I look at it as a nuisance and a waste of my time. At this point in my life, all I want is an operating system that works, without issues or problems. And the people at Microsoft either don't seem to understand that, or they just don't care. I'll post back, using the Lounge, and let you and everyone else know what I decide. Until then, take care.

Better late than never. Here's Number 29:

That sounds great Hazelnut. Wonderful. Really. Provided you don't go to your ISP's website, and receive the message "We are currently experiencing issues with our email service for some of our customers. We are diligently working to recover any of your email folders that cannot be seen at this time." And then you access your account and find out they're referring to you. Inbox-EMPTY. Send-EMPTY. But wait....here's the real kicker....wait for it: Your CONTACTS are EMPTY! Now don't think I'm upset. Really. I'm not. Really. There were only 180 or so names, addresses, email addresses, dozens of birthdays and anniversaries, all entered by a person who types with two fingers on two left hands. And now I will take a deep breath, slowly count to 10, get up, and BASH my HEAD into the nearest wall. Edit: I apologize for venting like that, but that wasn't the only problem I've had today. This morning, right after startup, I tried to update Norton, and that crashed. I copied the error code, went to their website, found the patch for the problem, downloaded and applied it. Then I checked Windows Update, and after spinning it's wheels for a good 3-4 minutes, that crashed! So I had to run the troubleshooter to fix that. Then I became just a little paranoid about what was going on, so I ran a full system scan with Norton, and came up with nothing. I then went to check my emails and thought it odd that two had disappeared from my inbox. I checked the trash, nothing there, so I logged out. At this point, there were no messages about the problem. It was only after I logged in later in the day that I found the above message. And it was at this point I discovered that my contacts were missing. And six and a half hours later, they're still missing. And guess what day it is? Friday the Thirteenth.

I have two other machines that I use on a day to day basis. It has Win98SE installed and is not connected to the net. I use it to run Photoshop and use the scanner and printer I bought back then. HP has newer drivers for the printer, but newer drivers for the scanner are not available. Add to that the masochistic pleasure I got from dealing with Win98SE, and it's a match made in heaven. Edit: Actually, part of the pain was self-inflicted. It was my first computer, I didn't know any better, so I followed Microsoft's guidelines for 98SE and installed 32MB of memory. What a mistake! All you had to do was look at it the wrong way, or sneeze, and you had a BSOD staring you in the face. I ended up installing 256MB of memory, all the problems went away, and I actually began to enjoy using that machine.

I'm refurbishing my old P3 desktop and came across a website that has new IDE drives at very reasonable prices and with 1 year warranties. Anyone who is pursuing a similar project might want to look here: http://www.goharddri...tegory-s/23.htm I've already ordered the 120GB Maxtor for $19.95 US. Hopefully it will last as long as my original 20GB Maxtor, which is 14 years old and still working well (I have just jinxed myself by saying that ). The only problem is, it's getting a little short on capacity, that's all.

"Joke or not what the taxes need spent on instead of endless wars is fixing the crumbling infrastructure like streets/roadways, water supply and lines, sewers, electrical grid, bridges, etc., because so much of the U.S. is effectively deteriorating into being like a 3rd world country - one only needs take a short walk or drive to see allot of it". - Andavari Believe me Andavari, I was only joking about using Linux and not paying taxes. After all, if all of us adopted Linux, the good people at Piriform would be out of a job. And I wouldn't wish that on anybody. And if we all stopped paying taxes, this country would be going down the toilet even faster than it is already. I'm retired now, but for 33 years I was in construction and built a lot of what you refer to as infrastructure. As a matter of fact, depending on where you live, you might be using a road that I helped build on your way to and from work every day. Imagine how I feel watching it all crumble and turn to s***. "Derek891, I have used TOR and Tails, found them slow but OK. Might just because this 'net hookup is slow. Anyway, i would never trust TOR for anything too important, as there have been instances reported where the endpoint operator was not trustworthy. Don't know for sure that is true, but it is plausible." - ISO-later I absolutely agree. Tor is far from perfect, and I myself would wary of sending any sort of confidential information using it. I also agree that the problem is the exit nodes and whether the people running those particular servers are trustworthy or not. But the upside of using it does not lie in data security: it lies in anonymity. Here's an example: Let's say you open your browser (Firefox, Chrome, I.E., or whatever) and access the main page of this forum. Then you select to go to the Lounge. Someone who intercepts the string of data packets you sent at that point in time could learn the following: The webpage you're currently on, the webpage you're asking to see, your I.P. address, and the I.P. address of Piriform's server. Now do the same thing with either the Tor browser or Tails using a path through the Tor network. And someone intercepts the data packets at the exit node (intercepting packets inside the network is useless because they are encrypted upon entry and decrypted leaving the exit node). Three items would remain the same and one important item changes: Instead of seeing your I.P. address, they see the I.P. address of the Tor server used as the exit node. So they know the information you've asked for, and they know who you're asking, but they don't know who you are. The very definition of anonymity. Nowadays Tor can be scrutinized by using traffic analysis combined with powerful computers. If someone has the capability of monitoring every way in and out of the Tor network, they can correlate who sent "x" amount of packets into the network and who received "x" amount of packets from the network, giving them a pretty good idea of who the sender and receiver are. And that is the reason you have the Tor button in the browser: every time you push it, you're restarting the browser, establishing a different path through Tor, and most importantly, a different exit point. This makes traffic analysis very, very difficult. Think of it as the game "whack-a-mole"; if the mole pops out of the same hole every time, he gets whacked in short order. But if he pops out of a different hole every time, the chances of getting whacked are reduced dramatically.

I apologize hazelnut. But the last sentence was meant as a joke.

Does anyone on the forum use the Tor browser for Windows or use Tails OS(Linux)? I came across several articles that described a recent surge of activity on the network was not the result of new (human) users but was a planned attack using botnets to flood the network. The prime suspect: the U.S. government. (Don't you just love seeing your tax dollars used for such a noble cause?) http://www.dslreport...o-BotNet-125676 http://threatpost.co...-communications https://www.eff.org/...are-immediately The third article mentions this: If you are using software based on Firefox major version 21 or earlier, Thunderbird 17.06 or earlier, or SeaMonkey 2.18 or earlier, please update your software immediately. Tor Browser Bundle users who have not updated to the most recent version are also at risk, and so we've provided a screenshot tutorial for how to update the Tor Browser Bundle below. I also came across a good article on wired.com concerning our friends at the NSA: http://www.wired.com...and-stole-keys/ "These methods, part of a highly secret program codenamed Bullrun, have included pressuring vendors to install backdoors in their products to allow intelligence agencies to access data, and obtaining encryption keys by pressuring vendors to hand them over or hacking into systems and stealing them." At the bottom of that story is a link to a good article with advice for more secure internet use and communications: http://www.theguardi...re-surveillance I think people in our country, and all over the world, are becoming more and more suspicious of corporate giants like Microsoft and Google, as well as our own government. The article in wired.com implies that backdoors into operating systems and networks don't occur by accident. They are deliberately designed into the system under pressure from or at the request of the U.S. government. Perhaps it's time to throw the fear of God into them: Switch to Linux and stop paying your taxes.

I downloaded Speccy yesterday and ran it for the first time. All the other temp readings seem normal, but CPU temps are not realistic. I looked for another utility program to make a comparison, and ended up installing AMD's Overdrive software. At this moment, I'm running I.E., Speccy, AMD Overdrive, and scanning with Norton A/V to load the processor. Speccy is reporting a temp range from 111-114 C, while AMD Overdrive is showing 59-63 C. System specs follow: Windows 8 v 6.2.9200 (64 bit) Speccy v 1.22.537 (64 bit) HP Envy DV7-7333CL laptop BIOS Insyde v F.22 12/19/2012 (Current) AMD A10-4600M processor 4 Core Operating Frequency 1400-2300 MHz Radeon HD 7660G Integrated Graphics Memory 8 Gb DDR3 @ 800 MHz If the developers are already aware of this and are working on it, then one of the moderators could post a reply confirming this and that will be the end of this thread. If not, I can supply more detailed system specs via Speccy, post screenshots of my findings, or run Speccy in debug mode to supply the developers with more data.

Hello again Hinata. I spent some time yesterday on AMD's website to learn more about using the Catalyst Control Center. I'd like to ask you one more question. When you set up your second monitor, did you use the display settings in the Windows Control Panel to do it, or did you use the AMD Catalyst Control Center to do it? And if you did, did you enable the advanced settings in the Catalyst Control Center, or did you use the standard settings? You can select the advanced settings by clicking the Preferences tab on the right side when you first start the Catalyst Control Panel. (I forgot to mention this in my previous post because when I first got my machine, I enabled the advanced settings and never changed them.) I think using the Catalyst Control Panel to set the resolution on your second monitor is important, because that way you would be choosing a resolution setting that is compatible with the Radeon HD 7340 graphics card. After that, go back to the Windows Control Panel and check to see if Windows has copied the same resolution setting. If not, enter it yourself. Also, make sure your monitor supports the same setting. When you're all done, run Speccy to see if the unsafe message goes away. By the way, is your computer one of the Zotac mini cubes? I did a Google search on the Radeon 7340 and found it was the only desktop machine that used it for graphics. I almost bought one a couple of years ago but ended up buying a HP Mini 210 instead.

Hello again Hinata. It looks like no one else is coming to the rescue, so we'll have to muddle through this on our own. I have a HP Envy DV7 laptop with an AMD A10-4600M processor with Radeon HD 7660G graphics, so it looks like we have similar machines. I right clicked on my desktop and opened the AMD Vision Engine Control Center. Then I clicked the Desktop Management tab on the left side and opened Desktop Properties. In the settings box, there are only three screen resolutions available: 1600x900, 1280x768, and 1024x768. 1440x900 is not an option. I then went to the Windows Control Panel, and under Appearance and Personalization, I clicked Adjust screen resolution. Then I went through the steps to add a second monitor, and enabled Extended Mode. I then selected the second screen and found that you can enable 11 different screen resolutions for the second monitor, one of them being 1440x900. So here is the question that needs to be answered: Does your AMD Radeon 7340 support 1440x900 resolution? It seems that Windows allows you to select a screen resolution for your second monitor that might or might not be supported by your AMD graphics card. Here's what I suggest: Go back to the Windows Control Panel and select a resolution that is supported by your AMD graphics card. Then run Speccy again to see if the result changes. I hope this helps you. If not, you'll have to wait for someone with some real knowledge to offer their advice.

I have over a dozen Linux ISO images stored on a 16GB USB stick. Like you, I ran a md5 checksum on every file after I downloaded it to my hard drive and again after it was copied to the USB stick. Every file was a match. But one image remains unbootable, in spite of the fact that I tried four different programs to create a bootable image. I think you may have just explained what is wrong, I'm off to investigate. Thanks Alan, you are a true detective.

Have you ever used Linux Mint 15? There's a small white shield on the taskbar. If there's a green checkmark on the shield, the system software is up to date. If there's a red "X", you can click the shield and the update process starts. It's not automatic, it doesn't harass you with warnings, and it doesn't take over the system while you're in the middle of doing something more important. It only reminds you. Simple and unobtrusive. I like it.

Hello Hinata. I have no experience running multiple monitors, but one thing caught my eye immediately. You have them set at two different resolutions, 1600x900 and 1440x900. Could that be the reason? Does the second monitor support 1440x900 resolution? Maybe another forum member with more knowledge about running multiple monitors could comment on this.

I came across one of the more unusual sites on the Web. I think it's a spoof, but you never know: http://www.rentagerman.de/ At first, it looks legitimate, but after reading the "customer review" I believe it's a joke of some kind. After all, do people in London, or all of England for that matter, actually use the word "gobsmacked"?

I came across a blog yesterday claiming SourceForge has changed hands and the new owners are quickly destroying their once stellar reputation: http://www.gluster.o...rge-has-fallen/ I have used SourceForge in the past and have never had any problems, but let it be known that most of my downloads involved Linux OS's and applications. Does anyone on the forum use SourceForge for Windows based software, and if so, had any problems with their software after installing it? Years ago, in the Win98SE timeframe, I used Tucows and fell into a similar trap, getting unexpected software and browser add-ons along with their software. And a couple of years ago, CNET added a new toolbar to Internet Explorer when I downloaded and installed AVG anti-virus on a friend's machine. I went through hell trying to get rid of it. It would be a real disappointment to me if SourceForge joins the club.

Hello Northerner. I think Alan_B touched on a possibility other than a keylogger. Do you use a Wi-Fi router or a hard wired router? I ask because there is software called a "packet sniffer" that can collect all the data packets that are sent and received by a Wi-Fi router. Then another piece of software can be used to "crack" the encryption that is used. From what I understand, WEP encryption is easily cracked and can be done quickly. WPA encryption requires more expertise on the part of the hacker, more sophisticated software, and more time, but can be done. Because Wi-Fi signals travel a very limited distance, only someone living very close to you can do this. It might be a good idea to change or upgrade your router's encryption settings, especially if you are using WEP. It would also be a good idea to change your router's PIN code, since this is used as a key in some forms of encryption. This is only a temporary solution, because a determined hacker would crack the new encryption after collecting a new batch of packets to analyze. Of course, using a hardwired connection would eliminate the security problems of Wi-Fi entirely. Good luck. And remember, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that people aren't watching you. edited out some keylogger advice as under forum rules malware removal advice is not allowed on forum~hazelnut

Hello Kevin and welcome to the forum. I agree with Dennis, it sounds like you have some serious issues. But before anyone can even begin to offer any advice, you need to supply a little more information that just saying "I have a problem with Windows". Start with the following: 1.) What version of Windows do you have? XP, Vista, 7, or 8 ? 32 bit or 64 bit? 2.) Can you still start Windows? Or are you posting from another computer? 3.) Do you have anti-virus software installed? Are you still able to update it? When was the last time you ran a full system scan? Now might be a good time, provided you still can. It might also be a good idea to install a malware scanner like Malwarebytes and run it, provided you still can. http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/ 4.) Did you recently install any new software? If so, from where? From a software vendor's website, or from some pop-up ad advising you to do so? If you answered yes to the last question, here's some advice: DON'T DO IT! EVER! It's the biggest scam on the internet. 5.) Do you have recovery software available? If so, where? Your installation disks? A recovery partition on your hard drive? A recovery set you created from the hard drive? Now might be a good time to do so, if you still can. 6.) Do you truly believe you have missing .dll files? I'm going to offer one piece of advice here, but this applies ONLY IF YOU HAVE Windows Vista, 7, or 8. Open an elevated command prompt (right click and run as administrator) and enter "sfc /scannow" (No quotation marks, and leave a space between sfc and the slash mark). This will start the system file check. BE PATIENT! This will take a long time to run. When it is done, you will be prompted to restart Windows. This will only analyze and repair the system files installed with Windows, I'm not sure about any .dll's installed by other software. They may or may not be checked. I hope this helps you. This past week I spent two days trying to figure out what went wrong with my brother's machine. It constantly shut down for no reason, then restarted, went through the start-up repair routine, booted back into Windows, then 10 to 15 minutes later began the process all over again. This made troubleshooting almost impossible. I finally gave up and did a clean install to get his system back and regain my sanity.

I know this thread is several days old, but I found a story that implies Ballmer's retirement wasn't exactly planned nor voluntary: http://slashdot.org/...mer-out-report/ It seems a major investor wasn't pleased with his past performance or his future plans, and helped grease the skids for his departure.