PC Memoirs

I found another interesting program for your PC. This time it’s Wondershare Time Freeze, a free system protection tool. According to its developers, it’s enjoyed great popularity since its release in March.

Wondershare Time Freeze can protect safe from viruses, spyware, trojans and other malicious threats. It puts your system under protection and creates a virtual environment on which you run applications and surf the internet. All traces and malicious threats disappear after reboot. It’s compatible with Windows 7 / XP / Vista / 2000.

From the Wondershare Web site:

• Prevents threats of any viruses, malware, spyware and Trojans.
• Eliminates cost for regular system maintenance.
• Surf internet safely, and play around with computer with NO trace left.
• Protect your privacy effectively.
• Reboot to restore your system to its original state.

Key features:

Read the rest »

After the recent negative headlines that Facebook received, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit the whole issue of social networking: is it good or bad?

Some people love Facebook and some despise it. I am somewhere inbetween, as I recognise the good things and positive potential of Facebook and similar sites, but on the other hand, I think people spend too much time and energy on this type of networking. There are many reasons for hating Facebook, which I’ll attempt to list.

But first, let’s list all the good things about Facebook:

• Facebook is great for finding long lost friends and high school friends (provided they are Facebook users too).
• It’s great for keeping in touch with friends and relatives that may live far away.
• You can follow your favourite celebrities and sportists and read their updates.
• You can hear important news – for example something you wouldn’t hear on the news or read in the newspapers – something that interests you.
• It reduces the costs of communication – you don’t have to spend money on long distance phone calls. Just write a short message or comment. The recipient will most certainly see the message within a few hours, if not within minutes.
• It’s fun – you can read funny posts and news from friends, see what they are up to and play Facebook games.
• Facebook is also great for sharing photos and videos.

Read the rest »

I just read an article in a newspaper that mentioned some funny domain names on the Internet. Then I remembered – I have heard a fair share of weird and funny Web addresses in my 12 years online (yes, I entered the virtual world in 1998). Some are well known, such as expertsexchange.com, and others not so much (and for a good reason).

So I thought, why not list some of these names for our amusement. Most of the names you will see in the following list look innocent at first, but if you read it differently, it may sound both funny and often naughty! Please be aware that some of the domain names don’t exist any more, as the owners have identified the unfortunate word associations and corrected their mistake.

Here is my selection of BAD DOMAIN NAMES (I’m sure there are plenty more):

Australian ISP Web One – www.webone.com

Mole Station Nursery in Australia – www.molestationnursery.com.au

British company selling drapes La Drape – www.ladrape.co.uk

British firm Les Bocages – www.lesbocages.co.uk

Read the rest »

My friend Mitch came by today with a really bad computer problem. His Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop wouldn’t start and the screen was completely blank. I suggested that we try to load it in Safe Mode, but that didn’t help. When I pressed F8, the screen was still blank. All I could see was the Dell logo, then everything disappeared. Nothing I tried worked. I could get into BIOS, but none of the options solved the problem (for example Load defaults).

After a while and several attempts to load Windows Vista, I got to the Windows Repair and Recovery options menu. The repair option failed, and diagnostic tests showed that the hard drive had some errors, so there was no way that Windows would start normally. However, Mitch had hundreds of photos on the disk and no backup. Obviously he wanted to recover those.

The next time I loaded the recovery options menu, I opened the Command Prompt and found the directory I was looking for under C:\Users\Mitch. If you are not sure how to find your directory, start by typing C: and then DIR to display the contents. If you recognize the folder, you can open it to display the contents by typing CD nameOfDirectory and then DIR. To go up a level, type CD..

Read the rest »

Is your computer’s CPU working at 100% all the time? Is the PC slow or non-responsive? There is a good chance that one of your computer’s hardware components is faulty, but if you have no reason to suspect the hardware, it’s more likely that this is a software problem. I’ve seen cases where the CPU or the fan was at fault, but I’ll discuss that in a minute.

First, you should make sure that you check the following:

1. Registry – Problems in the registry could cause the CPU to work overtime. There are many reasons why this happens, but I won’t get into that – you need a solution. So, to fix the registry, use a registry diagnostic and repair program, such as CCleaner, Registry Mechanic or any of the programs I recommended in my top 10 list.

2. Viruses and Spyware – If your PC is infected with malware, this could also cause your CPU usage to be at 100%. Make sure you have a good virus and spyware cleaning program and scan your hard drive. If you don’t want to pay for software, use Avast, AVG or AntiVir (See Resources for links).

Read the rest »