some random question for my new computer

[Kali]

What do you think about those pop-up blocker/accelerator programs that servers offer? (I have very slow dial up - max is 24 kbps) Do they work?

This is a (the?)low-end compaq from a big retailer and came with all sorts of crap already on it. Spybot already pulled the 30-odd games that were for sale but had 60 minutes of play time - rather to the irritation of my son - I tried to put them back but couldn't make it work (got error messages that the short cut was not available or somehting like that. No big deal, just a little puzzling.

Got rid of all the AOL crap but am curious what else I should dump, which leads to a related question: How do you do screen captures? I was thinking of posting the list of installed programs but can't figure out how to "copy" the list.

This thing came with a cd/dvd player, but I have a sony dvd+-R all type blah blah that I want to install. When should I do this? I also want to do recovery disks, but it tells me I will need 16 cds, so I figure dvd's would be better, but not sure? I think the program will only let me do this action one time.

Finaly and possibly related to that, is when I click on "my computer" it says there are two hard drives, the regular C and one listed as a D that seems to contain the recovery info and is almost full when I look - is that correct - are there really two drives? (the cd/dvd is E) Can someone explain that to a non-techy? or does it really matter?

Feel free to pick and choose. If someone can exlain the screen capture to me then I can post the list of programs that I want advice on removing (I'm lazy, ok? I don't want to type the list)

Thanks in advance!

[unhappycamper]

1. Either Shift-PrtScrn or Ctrl-PrtScrn should

do the screen capture for you. Try one, then open M$ Paint & paste in the contents of the clipboard. Once you get the image in paint, save it to a file.

To show the picture, you'll need to put it in photobucket, shutterfly or some hosting service. Here's a primer on posting pics.

[Kali]

2. oooo thanks

I feel pretty stupid that I never noticed that key before. on the other hand I DO have a photo bucket account and know how to post pix already.

[BlueJazz]

3. Your hard-disk is "Partitioned" Which means ......

(I won't use tech terms) ..it's sectored or imagine a 12 lp record....each song is on a part of the disk
by itself. EX: song one is your "C:" drive
song two is your "D:" drive ..it's the same thing. You only have one hard-disk but to the computer you have 2 separate "spaces" .

Mine is "cut" into 6 spaces even though I have one hard-disk.

To REALLY get rid of all the AOL crap, you should do a Registry-edit..but I'm hesitant to go into that. :)

[democracyindanger]

4. And actually, partitioning

is a must-do for me when I get new computers. Both for organizational and performance results. I highly recommend creating a seperate partition for virtual memory, too.

Install the Sony drive now, before you add more hardware or software that may create conflicts down the road. And get in the habit of creating restore points with XP whenever you add new stuff.

When dealing with bloatware, I generally uninstall anything that self-identifies as a 'trial.'

[BlueJazz]

6. You know....As a Tech, I have mine into 6 partitions. the first 2 are...

..identical XP operating Systems. (or dual-booting into XP)

It's really convenient to be able to "Fix" anything in the other XP if it gets screwed up.
...which has happened twice.

[RoyGBiv]

5. Accelerators ...

"Programs," that is a purely software solution that doesn't rely on any technology being used by the ISP, don't work very well. In simplified form, they do speed up some things because what they basically do is use caching on your machine to serve you parts of web pages that you visit often. They do this more efficiently that a web browser does. What you need is an accelerator offered by your ISP. (And this may be what you're talking about, but I wanted to make the distinction because you can find 3rd-party accelerator software that doesn't interact with the ISP.)

Besides the software, dialup providers like Netzero provide an accelerator service. This also uses local caching, but they have also implemented changes in the way their system works that speeds up the process of collecting information from the web and sending it to you. Part of the bottleneck with a dialup is caused by the fact that when you hit a website, you're communicating directly with it on a very slow connection, and it takes longer for that remote site to get information back from you that it needs to know what to send you. We're talking fractions of seconds here, but over hundreds of exchanges of information between you and the remote system, it does add up. The accelerator throws in a middle-man. You're connected to the accelerator via your ISP, which is close and doesn't take as much time to communicate with you, and the accelerator then does the communication with the rest of the web. It stores the information it receives to be sent to you and does so as you are able to take it. Again, we're talking about fractions of a second, but it does add up. The accelerator "server" also compresses things and has other tricks it plays that makes the effective speed you experience better.

Do note that no matter what you do, your actual speed will never go above what your connection allows. This is effective or perceived speed, and in that, you will notice a difference. But with this in mind be aware that some kinds of content are able to be accelerated while others are not.

Accelerated Items:

HTML/Plain test web pages
GIF/JPEG images
Text or HTML based e-mail

NOT Accelerated:

Streaming video/audio
Downloads of any kind
E-mail attachments
Secure webpages (a secure page requires a direct link to your computer)

So, basically, it'll make web browsing seem faster. Your experience at DU will seem faster. Downloading anything will not be faster.

[Kali]

7. pretty good explanation - thanks I really appreciate that

Yes mine is from ISP and I noticed that it does seem to make images look kind of funny - lower quality, so that must be another way its "saving" time.

[RoyGBiv]

8. Yes ...

They compress anything that can be compressed. Compression degrades an image.

Glad things seem to be working out a little better for you now. :hi: