Window 98se fixes, tweaks, and cures...

[cosmicB]

BlackIce firewall just popped up a warning: "Unknown application detected.. SNOWBEHIND.EXE...

"Hmm?.. wonders I...

So I surf, "showbehind.exe".. and I finds this: http://www.auditmypc.com/process/showbehind.asp .


Well.. I ain't got any money... so they can't ever get any of what I don't got... Or Hell!.. they can half of what I don't got.. I need my half to not buy anything with...
So it obvious that I really don't need advert trojans in my PC, slowing it down even slower than it already is... thht on that!


So now I gotta do to a major "clean that critter out my machine".. and its babies...

Dam!.. Now I gotta do a Full manual-regedit, search and destroy, fer "that little spider's web in the corner"...
Then I gotta run a Find, search and destroy, for its little poopies... It gives me the same feelings as when I stepped in a reddish Stinky! dogshit...

Now I gotta run all my cleaners... Sort of like scraping the poo off'n yewr shu on the grass, and in puddles.. but you know it never really works.. the smell seems to follow you... Eventually you just gotta git yoyrn hans dirdy...
Then I must surf those related sites to find what other names they got into the machine.. and then do the dern registry and find, searches and destroys, for them too.. oh Sigh... As if I didn't have anything to do with my time!..
HeY!.. It's easier than formating-C... and that 20-hour reload...

Just one little mistaker in downloading something what is dirdy.. and now I gotta do three hours of serious cleanup, for to maintain this antique PC running at peak... I hates it when this happens... I bet you do too...
This crap gamey politics is gonna get the Internet legislated and hellishly regulated.. and we'll all have-to pay per email, to pay for the whole package of legislating and policing, and courtzing... It's the Internet-turds who are taking us into that nightmare... Maybe it's time we figured a way to flush them from the system.. so we won't hafta pay per email... good plan, huh..? Just quit giving them your money.. they'll understand that, when they're feeding from them green-bags at the curb.. and grazing in parks, and in farmer's fields and orchards, in the moonlight...

All the Internet gorillas should wake up sum.. before they've pulled the Internet and all of us into their internet-hell, and us any closer to their lives... thht on that!..

[cosmicB]

Check out "F-Prot AVS...

http://www.f-prot.com/


For a couple months some one has been getting into my PC somehow, and messing things up... Occasionally I'd find Norton AVS security options all shut off.. and things like viruses, but not viruses...

So I decided it's time to unload Norton for the last time, and snap the useless CD in half.. and try new AVS's to find one that actually works with the 313 thousand malwares out there, and growing daily, maybe hourly...

I tried four different AVS's... they all caused problems in the PC...
Then I stumbled upon "F Protect"... After the install it did a one-hour scan of the whole hard disk, and found two back-door bugs, that the other five softwares didn't/couldn't...

Now for the wet-test.. in the websites that I know are dirty and nasty...
Or maybe it's not such a good idea, cuz it just might mean I'll be formating-C again... User's choice... No sense in touching the red hot stove if you don't need to... It would be lie getting put in the big prison to serve your one week drunk driving conviction.. and while there, you yells out from your cage, "Convict are mindless monkeys"... See you at your funeral...

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I liked F-prot, but I do all my updating manually, and F-prot's updater brought up a popup every five minutes, and the company wouldn't tell me how to defeat that constant updater attempt, so I dumped F-prot, and got a refund...

[cosmicB]

It's wise to be prepared, should you one day happen link to, and/or open a serious virus email, into your computer...

Proper preparations in place could mean the difference between having your hard-drive so messed up that it has to go to the expert$...
Or, you having to format-C, and losing all what's in your computer..
Or, you barely managing to rescue your prized files ands pix..
Or, if you're lucky, and prepared.. you might manage to repair the damage the intruder caused... That is what I'm striving for... To be ready and skilled enough to dissect an attack, given that there have been so many successful attacks to my computers, by those who didn't agree with something I published.. and felt the urge and need to run me through a 20-hour systems reload... I must have formatted-C 150 times by now...


In my ongoing research to find new tools that will enable me to better deal with computer viruses and bully hack-attacks, I recently stumbled upon these three interesting useful softwares.. which make readable copies of the registry, and allow the user to change things in a bug infected registry, by comparing two registry backups.. a good one, and an infected one...

http://www.majorgeeks.com/RegShot_d965.html

http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4861

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=1267


Along with those three softwares in your PC first aid kit, you should have an installed copy of "Eraser".. which can sometimes rescue a PC from a serious attack... And have a fresh copy of your registry export on the desktop, not in a file... Sometimes an attack will lock you out of opening your files...
Caution!.. Eraser is not a toy.. best used only as a last resort emergency tool, when all else has failed, when you find your last option is to format-C... Set Eraser for one-pass, and pray it does enough for you to get your files and pix to floppys... After you have reloaded a fresh operating system, AVS scan those floppies to clean out the bugs before you open them...

Learn how to boot a PC into safe-mode.. sometimes that helps a bit.. Enough to clear out your treasures...
To get SafeMode up, turn PC off... Restart.. When manufacturer's screen pops up, press down the Ctrl key, and hold it till the next screen comes up... Choose SafeMode, and get your treasures to floppies.. then try to repair the troubles...

Do not do anything else, nor apply a registry restore, till you've completed copying your treasures to floppies...

Do not apply a CMDiskCleaner registry restore from SafeMode...

*AVS scan those floppies before opening them again...

If you don't have the system CD's.. this basic PC first aid kit could one day save you a two-hundred dollar repair bill...

[cosmicB]

If you are having silly problems with SeaMonkey or FireFox.. it's probably because your PC is holding old Mozilla files and oboslete configurations.. which need be flushed out of the system... You need to go to the Mozilla download site, and download a fresh new copy of your preferred browser...

Now save all your browser files in word files... Save a copy of your Bookmarks in a WORD FILE!.. that's crucial.. because if you delete everything related to the browser, that file will suddenly vanish.. but as a word file it stays... Might be best to first save all your personal emails, bookmarks, downloaded pix, and word files, to CD or floppies... BUT.. you can't wash viruses out of CD's, so it's best to use only floppies...
Even better is to save copies of your treasures onto floppies, on a weekly basis.. especially your hard to find pix...

There should be a "multi-save".. You set it to save in the floppy and HD on one click...

Then uninstall SeaMonkey or FireFox.. and do a FIND Search, and uninstall and delete everything you find for SeaMonkey, FireFox, Netscape, and Mozilla...
Now go to RUN, type regedit, and go to Find, and remove everything called mozilla, firefox, netscape, and seamonkey... Then to Start>Find, and do the search there too... That should remove all the old stuff, and all the repeating glitches...

Reboot the computer... Run your cleaners...

Install the new browser download, reboot, and reset your prefs...

You might have some trouble copying your word file of bookmarks into the bookmark file, depending upon what's working in your computer... As a last resort you will probably need to visit each bookmark, and save them one by one as bookmarks, but at least you've still got them...

Now you've got the latest version of your fav browser, fresh and clean, and void of all the grief...

I don't use the auto updaters.. Every couple weeks, I update my browser and softwares, by downloading a new version when I'm leaving the computer for a while...
When I return I uninstall the browser partially, and reinstall...

Be sure to go through every page of preferences... Know what you are doing when making changes in settings... You can read about it in the Mozilla forums...

[cosmicB]

My eyes are extremely sensitive to bright light.. so I read and write in candle light, or equivalent... I almost have night-vision, with these ten bits of glass deep in each eye, from a lab explosion...

I prefer to sit at the computer at night, with the lights off... but this often causes a problem in seeing the keys, and in me making too many typing errors, given that I've got my screen brightness as low as it can go, and a gel filter over the screen.. and I'm wearing sunglass tinted reading glasses...

So yesterday I purchased an illuminated keyboard... It's like a breath of fresh air in a steel mill... I got me an "IllumFX NexXTech"... I wish I had done this years ago... It's a soft pastel blue light, very flat board, and the keys are set with a perfect tension for easy quiet typing.. and it even has sound controls...

[cosmicB]

I'm reading about lots of serious problems caused by removing and/or installing connectors to the tower, without first shutting Off computers...

It's OK to plugin USB plugs into the tower while the computer is running.. but it's a bad thing to plug or unplug any other things when the computer is running... Cross-pin sparks can destroy transistors in the tower.. then your PC is history.. and/or very expensive to repair...

Always shut the PC Off before changing hardware cords... And protect the back of the tower from kids and critters accidentally pulling wires off the tower...

Caution!.. Pet rabbits, and some dogs, love to chew on cords.. and have been known to chew through ac cords, and kill themselves, and computers, and even start house fires... If you have a cord chewer critter, coat the cords with cayenne paste, made by boiling down an ounce of cayenne spice in water.. and if you have one of those mace-defenders, spray a little of that into the mix too... One taste of that, and they will never bite another electrical cord ever again...

[cosmicB]

Seamonkey 1.1 has some new features...



http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

[cosmicB]

If your are using CM DiskCleaner as a registry cleaner.. be sure you know what it is deleting... I just discovered that CM-DC will remove critical registry entries that kill Seamonkey and thumb previews, forcing you to do an uninstall and regedit cleanup, and reinstall, for Seamonkey to work again.. and it also damages PhotoPlus8, and makes F-Prot not load properly... Exclude those registry entries from deletion... The software writer is working to resolve this glitch... Still CM-DC is the best registry cleaner I've found.. it just has a few temporary bugs, or it's just a little too powerful for W98... The Safest cleaner I found is EasyCleaner...

[cosmicB]

CAUTION: PhotoPlus8's latest update seriously wrecks Photplus8 in W98se... If you have that update installed, best to eliminate it till they get it right...

If you installed that update, and PP8 doesn't function anymore, you need to use the CD to uninstall PP8, then do a find and regedit search & destroy for serif and photoplus before reinstalling...

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If you are running IrfanView.. they have a slightly updated download, with cleaner features... IrfanView pix viewer is the best pix viewer on the planet.. and Irfan is forever striving to make it even better...

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If you are running WinWall, and need to refresh the pix file quick.. Go to list options> select> all> remove all... Then to search, and back to options to save it as a file...

[cosmicB]

I recently got me an old iMac sitting beside this PC... I use the Mac just for opening suspect-emails when I really really want to see what's in that suspicious email... Most malwares are created on PC, therefore they don't do anything to harm a Mac...

A couple days ago I used the Mac to open two very interesting, but suspicious emails... One had the PC killer "natas" virus in it... The Mac popped up, "The system doesn't know what to do with this program"...
And the other email had the "Slammer" evirus in it, sent to me by an America Intel dude, who pretended to send it from Spain... Using the Mac saved me from having to format the PC twice last week...

If you ever get the op to buy a cheapy old iMac for about a fifty-bucks or less.. it's a good plan to go for... Make sure it shuts-down and restarts properly... Make sure the thing works on the Internet, before you purchase it... Make sure the CD works too... Ask for all their peripheral hardwares, and many OS CD's, and emergency CD's, and their old floppys IF they'll give them up...

[cosmicB]

I'm searching Google for things like: "what's new for windows 98se", "new registry tweaks for windows 98se", "faster windows 98", "windows 98se registry tweaks"...

Create a few phrases on your own, and find something good...
Try other search engines... Try your searches with and without quotes...
Change your phrases a little.. jumble them up a little... Try searches with quotes, and without quotes...

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ALWAYS make a fresh registry backup BEFORE installing a new software...
If it creates any troubles, you will have the simple option of restoring the registry, back to what it was before you changed anything... Then run all your PC cleaners... Then reboot...

Always run your freshly updated AVS and a freshly updated Spybot immediately after any new install... Then run EasyCleaner Start cleaner to determine if anything bad got in, and is waiting for the reboot, to engage...

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[cosmicB]

To maintain my SeaMonkey browser in a pristine state, at the end of the day I go to the edit tab, and click preferences>advanced>cache>clear cache...
Then to privacy & security, and click cookies>cookie manager>unclick "don't allow">remove all.. after I have set all the site meters into the banned cookies list...

This little cleanup ensures my privacy is that much better...

Should SeaMonkey ever so much as flicker or twitch wrong, I uninstall it, reboot, and reinstall it fresh from a new fresh download, or from the download I've saved in a file, and reboot... It takes only a couple minutes... This trick maintains softwares in a clean functional gremlin-free state...

[cosmicB]

DIGITAL PIX...


Lots of fun to be had in this website...

http://www.digitalimagery.uk.com/index.php?option=com_imagebrowse&color=511

[cosmicB]

Oh how easy it is, when you've got PowerDefrag...

I made a super silly-mistake in making my C-partition too-small, when I last installed a fresh W98se system... The latest installs of state of the art new photo editors use up way too-much of C... I was getting pop-ups, "You have run out of disk space in C drive"... Big Oops!..

So I ran "Uninstaller's" QuickClean, and SpaceMaker, and PowerClean, and Remove, for everything I figured I could do without... I stripped out 175 megs...
But in this drastic cleanup, I must have deleted a few registry keys that I really shouldn't have... another Big Oops!.. Two wrongs sure don't make a right...

I'm thinkin', I hope I haven't wrecked the operating system irreparably".. that's a ten hour reload, and another ten hour tweaking... "God Save me from myself!"..

So I run PowerDefrag Registry Restore.. and everything is working back to normal... oh sigh... That was a close one...

I know I need to repair this partition-error by formatting-C, and running through that 20 to 25 hour systems reload.. but I'll wait till this PC catches an OS killer bug... So for now, I'll make a floppy-copy of all my notes and pix-treasures.. and every day save my new work to floppyies.. then when the hacker virus shid does hit my fan, all I'll need do is click "format-C".. then load a clean install, with a BIG C-Partition... I've got all my favorite downloads on CD.. that should shave at least five-hours off the reload..
But EasyCleaner and CMDiskCleaner don't function after loading them from a pirated CD...

____________________________


It's SUPER CRITICAL IMPORTANT that you have, and maintain, FRESH Registry Backups.. and know how to use them to restore messes... It can save you hours and "tons" of grief and dollars...

Everyones base priority, in working with a PC, should be to study about making clean registry backups, and knowing how to restore the registry... The rest should be smooth-sailing...

[cosmicB]

AVS softwares suitable for w98se...


http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=70783