When I began this thread I asked one question which I really wanted to know. “In what ways does avast help you while visiting web sites?”
No one knows or can possibly know everything when it comes to a computer & things related to it. Some of the people who are knowledgeable about many things will not know even something that’s simple for others. I see myself as knowing only a fraction of what can be known when it comes to the computer world, so never try to paint myself as an expert on anything. What ever a person learns comes by ‘Instruction, Observation, and Experience’ it can be good or bad in these three things.
One lesson I have learned by ‘Observation, and Experience’ is that it’s very difficult to communicate by typing words, you can,t hear the persons voice tone, or see the expressions in the face and many things are left unsaid . So I find it frustrating trying to communicate by typing.
One of my faults is that I am sort of a perfectionist in some areas, computers being one of them. I’ll always be learning, but never an expert. I started like you all did, knowing nothing. What I have learned I put in practice in the way I do things, which is different from they way each of you do things. I have learned by ‘Instruction, Observation, and Experience’ that backups are very important. All a person has to do is “Observe” the millions of post on the news groups and in forums like this one to see that if a person had a backup they could be free of the problem they are in. I have also “Observed” that even installing good software or an update can bring a PC down. I was at our computer club one day when the president of the club installed the latest critical updates from Microsoft before the class began. During the process the PC locked up and could not be booted, so everything had to be reinstalled…no backup! So I learned by “Observing and Experience’… make sure you have a backup! This has also happened to others when you look at the post in news groups.
Another thing I learned by ‘Instruction, Observation, and Experience’ is the importance of PC maintenance. I can remember reading in the first Norton Utility help section that they recommend you defrag the free space before you install software to keep files installed in a contiguous order. Read also the people who are really into games will defrag before and after they install some of the games they play. They know that if the files are not fragmented in hundreds of places on their hard drives the games will work better, just like any program will….less head seeks to find the file! I do ‘Observe” PC’s at homes where the PC is slow as can be because the files needed are in hundreds of places on the hard drive…they didn’t know about PC maintenance at all, or if the did they didn’t do it as often as they should.
I had posted the way I set up a PC and the detail I go through by always backing up and defraging before each install of some of the software that gets installed when I do a persons PC. Then I was called paranoid for this. So I came back and removed the part of the post of what I do. Shgoh didn’t know why I really did all this extra work so he saw it as on the paranoid side. The main reason I do the constant backups is that once I start I don’t ever want to have to start all over from the beginning if something should happen. The reason for the frequent defrags is to keep the files in as a contiguous order as possible.
As I said above I removed all what I said on what I do when setting up a PC and only left the part about defraging. I removed it because I was looked at as being paranoid, it was kind of a jab at me, and hurt. But he didn’t know the reason why I did these things.
The part of my post I did leave seems to have cause more of the poking at me, I should have removed it all or just tried to explain why I do things like I do. Also the link I gave to the interview doesn’t work so try this one of these if you want to hear it.
http://www.techtalkradio.com/software/raxco.htm
http://www.techtalkradio.com/real/raxco.ram
PS: I can say I have learned some more lessons by all this.
J