paca

4 pages of jokes, arguments, apple v the world and we finally have a victim

I am guessing XP

Probably just years of crap built up in the startup programs and services.

at 8 years old a quick fix is remove any unused startup items, regclean and add some more memory as it probably has 256. You really need 512 or a gig. This usually fixes enough to run for another couple years.

Let me know if you need me to look at it. I can remote onto a PC over broadband to make it easy but there is the trust issue.

cheers

Hello.Kitty

lol - yes, hook, line and sinker!

It's a good ole' beast and has served us well, but we've really put it through its paces in the past and it's pretty obvious that it's just chocca full of junk, but considering that Mr Kitty and I fail miserably to file away the increasingly huge pile taking over our dining room table, the likelihood of us sifting through nearly 10 years of files and photos is pretty remote... although He-who's-rarely-obeyed has promised he'd look into it while I'm away over the summer... although I think his PS3 will get more attention!

I think we beefed up the memory (mainly to play WoW - now abandonned) already, but hey, it's obviously not enough now.

Maybe we should just get a new one... but I'm loathe to buy anything gadgetty here because after-sales is laughable.

I'll have a chat to Mr Kitty and maybe give you a buzz. You'll get paid in cake, mind!

paca

yep cake works. Just let me know and I will pm my number to you.

another question.... do you backup? if not get yourself a usb drive or memory stick and backup tomorrow

Hello.Kitty

ach, we've got an external hard-drive and one of those passport things running too. We had everything backed up on a Maxtor external hard-drive, but my son dropped it (not even from a great height - he was only about 1!) and it can't read a bloomin' thing any more. Took it to a specialist place and they said it's know to be a bit fragile and that there wasn't really any guarantee they could retrieve any info... bloomin' useless bit of kit!

I was actually wondering about remote back-up, like on the Intarwebz, but what is actually best or more reliable? We've got so many memories in digital format now, it's just getting silly! I guess it's also about future-proofing. My parents have "load" of stuff back-up on floppies, because at one point they were never going to go out of circulation... and now look. Also, Zip disks! OMG! I've got most of my degree on Zip disk!

paca

CD's next to RIP

I used to sell online backup so don't know whats a good deal at the moment.... my remote backup is at the parents house over VPN.

before moving I got rid of my last form of old technology.... photographs... scanned them in!!!!

norsk

the answer to backing up pictures and videos is having multiple copies, and also i recommend signing up to www.flickr.com if you haven't already. you can get a free account which allows you a small amount of upload every month, but pay $25 a year for a pro account and you can upload as much as you want in full resolution.

although they guarantee your data i would keep an extra backup just to be sure. i've got almost 10,000 images on flickr so far and it grows every month.

Hello.Kitty

that's interesting. can you keep it private though?

paca

yes, you can select and control privacy... ie. allow family to view but not public

I was just going to reply sugesting flickr for images and youtube for video's

you can use google account for the document backup or storage

in fact thanks to norsk... I have been putting off/forgot upgrading the flickr and uploading all my scans in....

paca

also you can sign up and test it for free.... like norsk said the free account limits you to size of pic and number of pics per month but at least you can see it in action before you buy

norsk

i accept payment in cake as well...

there's 3 levels of privacy; public, family and friends. you can set each picture/video to be visible to only one or multiple levels.

Hello.Kitty

Hmm... thanks guys.

It's a funny one really, isn't it - we have so much digital "stuff" floating around all over the place (I already have a Photobox account, and then of course Facebook) there are probably multiple copes around, just no real system to archive or keep track of the lot.... or maybe that's just me.

I really must use the Facebook download feature and grab all my updates and whatnot. I've been thinking for a while to format it and have it printed in book form because it really is the diary I never managed to keep up with (whereas I'm quite prolific on FB) and it's tracked some of the most momentous moments of my life. {jots down yet another project on her To Do list!]

nottmbantam

There's so much 'cloud' back up space and storage stuff available these days, really no need to store anything to hard drives etc, but somehow, I still feel a bit more secure when I've got it somewhere physical. A lot of it is free as well, although in smaller amounts. Paying to upgrade isn't huge bucks either.

weasel central

Install a very small free program called CCleaner or similar.
Run the cleaner which will delete all temporary files, don't worry they are not needed, run the registry cleaner, then look at the start up files and delete from the list anything that you don't normally use. (the programs will still be there but won't boot on start up).

Another good program by the same company is called defraggler also free, this will defragment all your files, if you haven't done this in a while, it might take a few hours.

and voila your computer will be faster. Thats about all you can do without hardware upgrades, which really aren't cost effective on an 8 year old computer.

paca

another program that fixes problems is

http://www.soluto.com/

I used it a few times when it first came out to test it, they have just updated it.

Hello.Kitty

we've got Ashampoo already - Mr Kitty isn't quite as clueless as I may seem - but the Windows defrag keeps on having a bit of a fit, and refuses to do anything past the initial scan, so I might download the defraggler programme you mentioned.

Or... Paca, I might get you in for a bit of a challenge!