Virus

I have not been on the net for the last few days. I’ve been trying to avoid the April 1^st Conficker virus that was supposed to bring the internet to its knees. I have been trying to backfill my backlog of blog posts. It has been quite annoying.

 

As a precaution I have updated my Norton virus protection and done of full virus scan. I try to do this a couple of times every week. Usually all the scan finds is a few low risk tracking cookies but nothing bad… until this evening when Norton picked up a virus. I am not sure whether this is the Cornflicker virus but I have gotten rid of it. The virus must have been picked up on Monday or Tuesday, as Monday morning was the last time that Norton performed a full system scan of my machine and I had not logged onto the internet on Wednesday or Thursday. Thankfully I have gotten rid of it before it could affect my machine.

 

I really wonder why these people want to cause other people pain by sending out viruses. I suppose it is greed as the Conficker virus was supposed to send banking details and passwords to cyber criminals in places like Romania, just like Romanian criminals were responsible for the recent ATM skimming in Melbourne over the last couple of weeks. (Isn’t it funny how lots of these high-tech cyber criminals come from former-Communist countries?)

 

I suppose this shows why you have to remain ever vigilant and keep your virus program updated.

Computer Update

Well I’ve got a printer again. I did not go out and waste my money on a new printer, but got my old computer fixed so that I can still use my old, perfectly good printer. It only cost $100 to fix my old computer at MetroPC in Elizabeth Street Melbourne. All that needed to be done was to have a new power supply installed. Still, after playing around on the old PC I can really tell just how different it is to my new Core 2 Quad machine. The Pentium 4 computer is so slow and it takes ages just to get the thing started up. I suppose that in the month that I’ve had the new machine I’ve gotten used to everything loading up within the blink of an eye.

Anyway, now that I’ve got the printer/scanner working I will try to get some comics scans up on the blog.

To Go Broadband Or Not!

We have made the decision to go broadband. It probably won’t be for a little while, but we will eventually do it. There are a few things that we have to do first, before we go broadband. Firstly we need to get a modem and it has to be one that is not only compatible with Windows Vista, but one that is supported by Primus AOL.

I’d really like to get a Netcomm modem. We used to have an old Netcomm dial up modem when we got our first computer and found it to be very good. Netcomm have a very good reputation, so I’d like to stick with them.

Now to see which modems are compatible with Primus AOL. The Netcomm NB1200 is compatible, and is a cheap modem, available in Office Works in Elsternwick for less than $30. Unfortunately because this is an old modem it is not Vista compatible. Doh!!! I am still wondering why we upgraded to Vista!

The Netcomm NB5 modem is another one that is compatible with Primus AOL. It costs $97 at Office Works, so it’s not that expensive. However there are two versions of the NB5, the NB5Plus4 and the NB5Plus4W. These can be either revision 1 or revision 2 versions, with only the revision 2 version being compatible with Vista. Revision 1 units will not work with Vista as they have an older chipset in them which is not compatible with Vista. Revision 2 units will work fine with the drivers listed above as they have a different version of the chipset in them. So hopefully if and when I go to Office Works to buy the Netcomm NB4 modem it will be a revision 2 version. (My luck they will only have revision 1!)

The next thing I have to do is settle on an internet plan. I will stick with Primus AOL, despite all the grief they have given me over the years. The Primus phone plan we are on is just too good to get rid of. I like the ADSL+2 Starter plan where I get 2GB of downloads for $35. (This is just $5 a month more than the current dial up plan I am on!) One thing that I like is that there is no excess data charge as the download speed is reduced if monthly data allowance is exceeded. There are other plans that charge you extra if you go over your download limit. We were once stung by this type of thing a long time ago (12 years) when we first got dial up.

Before we get broadband I will still have to do a little bit more investigation.

I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For!

The other day I posted that I thought that I had found the solution to my printer problem. Unfortunately that was not true as Canon have not released a driver for the MPC400 multifunction printer that is compatible with Vista. I don’t think that there is anything that is compatible with Vista. We had the option of getting XP with our computer but thought that Vista would be the way of the future but even though it was released 18 or so months ago, there are a lot of compatibility issues with Vista. I could load the old version of XP that we have, but printers are very cheap now that I may as well just buy a new one. It was difficult finding ink for the old printer (which is why we stocked up on ink), so maybe it’s for the best. We will be fixing (if it can be fixed) our old computer, so the printer can still be used with that one.

Thankyou

Now that I have finally reconnected to the internet (no thanks to AOL), there are a few people that I would like to thank. Firstly, I’d like to thank the City Library here in Melbourne, for allowing me to use their computers whilst mine was out of commission. It is good to have a library where you can access a computer without any fuss. I’d also like to thank Harvey Norman, who are normally rip-off merchants. I purchased a couple of cheap USB flash drives. These 1GB Verbatim drives are only $8 which is pretty good value. I’d also like to finally thank Dell Australia. Ordering the new computer was very simple and it arrived very promptly. We got a lot of free bonus upgrades such as a larger than normal hard drive and a 22’ monitor, as well as a 2 year complete care warranty. We also received a 15 month subscription to the Norton antivirus. We were also able to afford a lot of extra stuff such as the Belkin surge protector, which cost us $50 from Dell. The price of this item in Harvey Norman is $130, so we got a bargain. So to all of those people, thankyou.

I think I’ve found the solution!

I think I have found the solution to my printer problem. Well, I hope that I have anyway. I originally thought that the problem was that my Canon MPC400 was incompatible with Windows Vista. I have loaded the printer’s latest driver to the computer and it seems OK. The problem I think is with the USB connection. We had this problem too when we first connected the printer to the old computer. The USB connection just doesn’t seem to work with it.

The solution seems to be to buy a USB to Parallel Printer cable. I have seen a Belkin brand one of these in Office Works for $60 and the same product in Harvey Norman for $50. You could almost buy a new printer for that amount. Instead I will be looking to buying a cheaper generic brand one. You can get them from Ebay for less than $10.

Arrrggghhh!!!!

I am so frustrated. It seems that every time I solve one computer problem something else comes up. At the moment I am finding it impossible to get my printer to work with my new computer. My printer, a Canon MPC400, does not seem to be compatible with Windows Vista. I don’t want to have to get a new printer, as even though the one I have is 4 years old, it is still very good. I wonder what I am going to do.

Finally I’m Back

This evening I finally got my computer hooked up to the internet, no thanks to AOL. I’ve had a bit of a blog backlog but have now gotten everything that I wanted to say published. Hopefully now I will be able to update this thing on a regular basis.

More Frustration!!!

I went to work to download the AOL 9.0 program from www.oldversion.com. Fortunately the work internet uses a higher speed server than the City Library does, but it still would take 30 minutes to download the whole thing. (5 minutes my ass!) Anyway, I thought that everything would finally work out, when after 99% of the program had been downloaded onto my USB 512MB drive I received a message saying that my drive was full. It just does not seem to be my week! Perhaps this is a sign that I should just forget AOL. It just is so frustrating. Anyway I now have a bigger 1GB USB drive that should fit the whole thing in. I can only wonder what obstacle will present itself tomorrow.

It’ll Only Take Five Minutes!!! The AOL Saga Continues!!!

“It’ll only take five minutes.” That’s what I was told by the AOL technician when he told me I had to download the AOL 9.0 program. With this news I went and booked half an hour on the computer at the City Library. Unfortunately their computer server was very slow and it would have taken me three hours to download the 186 MB file. This is just so frustrating.