PC Memoirs

One of the most important tasks for all PC users should be to regularly back up data in their computer. By not planning ahead for a disaster such as hardware failure, virus attack or an own mistake, they risk losing important files and information forever.

I’ve seen such disasters happen: One day my 80GB hard drive, made by Hitachi, just started making noise and it died. I lost many songs, movies and programs. Another time my laptop wouldn’t recover from a Blue Screen of Death and I almost lost everything. A dangerous virus can also wipe out your operating system, damage boot records and again, you can lose your data. However, you could produce the same result by making a mistake yourself, for example by formatting the wrong drive or partition.

I’m sure many PC users don’t back up regularly, but would find it very annoying if they lost everything from their hard drive. Therefore you must use some software to back up data. There are programs that let you copy all data from your hard drive and store it safely somewhere else. Some programs use external devices such as CDs, DVDs and flash drives, and others reserve space on the hard drive for recovery. It’s better if you use external storage, which won’t be connected to the PC all the time.

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If your download speed is extremely slow, there are a few things you can try to figure out why this is the case and maybe even fix the problem.

First of all, test your connection with another PC or notebook to see if the problem is in the PC or on the phone line. If you have more than 1 PC on the network, make sure other PCs are not downloading big files. Better yet, turn them all off.

If every PC downloads slowly and the problem is not in one PC only, try one or all of the following:

• Upgrade your modem’s firmware.
• Test the phone line and the download speed with another modem.
• Complain to your ISP and they might be able to test your phone line.

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If you are ever in need of translating phrases, blocks of text, complete documents or even Web pages, it might be handy to know where you can go for help.

I guess anyone can find a dictionary and look up a word in French, Italian or Spanish, but what if you need to translate more than just words? What if you want to know how to ask for directions in German or how to order steak in French? Or if you read something you don’t understand? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just copy the text and let some program translate it into your language? You would need a program that can translate every word and build complete and correct sentences in a foreign language.

I found several Web sites that offer free translations between major languages, and some of them even up to 75 different languages. I tested the translators with the languages I speak fluently and with some basic French and Spanish phrases.

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My PC was attacked again. Somehow this program called System Security 4.51 installed itself in my PC and displayed a message saying it found over 30 infections in the system. Of course, the viruses were fake. This program only wants you to believe there are threats on your hard drive, so you can go ahead and buy their antivirus software to remove them.

I tried to close the program, but it only minimized itself into the taskbar. It wasn’t listed in the programs list, so I could not remove it (Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs). I tried to open the Task Manager by pressing CTRL ALT and DEL, but as soon as it showed up the window disappeared. If that had worked, I thought I could find the process that starts System Security 4.51 and close it. Now this looked like a more serious issue.

I tried to run msconfig and regedit to find the process or files connected to this program, but as soon as I typed in the name and clicked on OK, the program displayed another message in the taskbar, saying that application was infected! It blocked other applications as well, so that I couldn’t run my antivirus and antispyware software.

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If you want to ensure that only you can access a certain file, and users you allow access to the file, then the easiest way to do so is to zip (compress) a file with Winzip/Winrar or Windows’ own compression tool.

All you need to do is download Winzip or Winrar, install the program and select the file you want to protect. Depending on whether you want to use Windows or a third party tool to protect the files, follow one of the three instructions below. The process is very similar and the result is always the same – you ‘package’ the file and add a password to it, so that only users who know the password can open the file.

Windows’ Compression Tool:

• Right click on the file, select Send to and then in the new menu select Compressed (Zipped) Folder. A new folder/file with the same name will be created, but with a .zip extension.
• Next, right click on the new file and select Explore. Under File, select Add Password, enter something that you can remember and confirm it. Now only you will be able to open the folder and access the document (and users who receive your password).
• If you want to add another file (for example Doc2) to the compressed folder (the new file you created), simply right click on Doc2, select Copy, then right click on the new folder and select Paste. Repeat this step if you have more files to add to the new, protected folder.

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