PC Memoirs

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

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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..

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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).

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There will be a time when you may have to find product key of your installed Windows of Microsoft Office software. This could happen if you have to reinstall your operating system, and you don’t have the original installation CD, or the sticker on your desktop PC is unreadable. You may be able to find an OEM installation CD on the Internet or in a computer store, but you need the right key to complete the installation.

What you need is a program that can access the registry, find this key and show it to you.

Complete keyfinder is one of the tools that can do this. It’s a free program which lets you access this information, and if you register it, it can even show you the product key of any external drive attached to the computer. Thanks to Computer Aid for publishing a post about this wonderful program.

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If you are selling your old laptop and your user account is active, you will probably want to delete all your private files, Internet browsing history and everything else that can be traced back to you. The easiest way is to format your hard drive, but this may not be possible if you don’t have the Windows XP installation CD to reinstall the operating system. In this case, it’s better to delete your user account and create a new one for the future user. When you delete your account, you will delete all its associated files.

If you are the admin user, you cannot delete your own account. You will have to create a new admin account through which you’ll be able to delete your admin account.

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