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Q&A Questions: Haven't Felt Like It Lately....

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by joseph moore

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So, here I am, at work, bored. I work 2-10PM normally, to support our Asian offices, and to clean up any stuff left over from the folks in the morning. So, that is why I have been so active in the Q&A formus over the past 3 years.
But in the past few months, I just haven't felt the need to post answers. Guess I was tired of seeing the same questions over and over again (IE content advisor, lost Admin password, networking Win98 and WinXP, etc.)
But here I am, feeling the need to answer, and I've already taken care of 3 questions today! I guess I can feel the quickening rush from an answer well-written!
So, this really isn't a Discussion. I'm just ramblin' along tonight! Though I would say hello, in between questions.

32 replies

by oz_media

I recently posted a discussion regarding some ideas for people in Q&A having the coutesy to at least rate a question and close it whether unanswered or not.

http://tinyurl.com/2uokh

Your comments would be well qualified.

Just hanging out myself and decided to pop in and see what's been going on today.

Have a good one,
OM.

by thechas

Joesph,

I almost always find your posts of value if not enlightening.

I appreciate the effort you put in to keep us aware of virus and related issues.

Like you, I have periods of boredom with the same old questions.

What I do, is skip over some of the standard "repetitive" questions.
That way I can concentrate on the questions that peak my interest. Or, where the answers are wrong or elusive.

Take care, and keep up the good work.

Chas

by joseph moore

I appreciate the kind words. Life's just been tough lately. I'm getting divorced, which is sad, so my mind has not been on answering "I can't print" questions overly much. It hasn't seemed important enough, or rewarding enough.
But at least I feel good today, so let's capitalize on it!
And all this without any alcohol!

by guruofdos

And it isn't nice, whatever the reasons. Even a mutually agreed decision to go your separate ways becomes a nightmare when lawyers smell a nice fat fee!

Sorry to hear you're going through that. I just hope that when you emerge from the other side, things pan out ok for you. Keep smiling and just remember it DOES get better...eventually. Even Mrs Guru will tell you that, and she's an expert...I'm hubby #4!!!

Chin up old buddy :-)

Guru

by joseph moore

Chas, I admit, with my lack of output the past few months, I would have expected you to pass me up on the Top 5 list.

by thechas

Joseph,

Even with both you and Max spending less time in the Q&A forum, I haven't been able to answer as many questions as you would think.

First the volume of questions is down by at least 1/3.

Next, we have several new peers who are actively participating in the forum.

Sorry to hear of your personal problem.

I often wonder what my wife and I have done right to be approaching our 28th anniversary.

Well, we did make sure I would never forget the date of our wedding. It's the day after my birthday!

May is going to be extra busy for me. My daughter is graduating from high school and getting ready for college.
(Don't know what happened there either. She is 10th in her class.)

Anyhow, I hope things start to improve for you. So far, all of my "transitions" have ended up being positive.

Chas

by maxwell edison

.
I went from answering a dozen or more questions every day to answering none. I'd guess that I haven't answered a dozen in the past year.

Later...

by guruofdos

I just can't be arsed to do anything anymore!!

I checked my home email account yesterday for the first time in six weeks and had two sensible communications out of 1500 or so. The rest were all spam or junk. As for even logging in to TR for a daily dose of 'debate', that too has lost it's attraction and today is the first time I have even entered the site in I don't know how long.

I just get up in the morning, survive another day and repeat the process 24 hours later.

Of course, this will all change again....and perhaps I'll get all 'inspired' again and attack the forums with my usual mix of dubious humour and enthusiasm....but right now....

I'm just not in the darn mood!!!

Guru :-)

p.s. Max, Jules and all the other regulars...I'm not being antisocial....honestly! I love and miss you all....I just can't be doing with computers in my off-time right now!!!

by guruofdos

In case you wondered about the lack of Guru Meditations recently....I just came out of hospital a couple of weeks ago, following a bout of pleurisy, pneumonia and a suspected heart attack....and I thought I just had a touch of flu!!

Be warned....you can work too hard!

by leobloom

Perhaps I should get credit for your revival, as I asked one of those questions. And if I do say so myself, it is a well written question.

by oz_media

"Well, we did make sure I would never forget the date of our wedding"

You see the reason I am no longer married (OK one of the MANY reasons)is because even if we got married on Christmas day I'd still have fogotten about it(not Christmas and waiting up for Santa of course.)

I'm one of those guys who just does spontaneous suprises year round or special nights out etc. without a reason. When it came to the 'special' days I'm supposed to remember I would almost always forget. I felt that showing my love or showing that I was thinking of her year round would be sufficient, unfortunately, it all goes to waste when you forget that ONE special day.
(As it turned out, I was right. There was nothing special about that day after all.;-)

by tomsal

Hey Oz, just thought I'd let you know I've been down that path myself. I too am the spontaneous kind of person with regards to that stuff.

And I too forget her b-day....

of course...there was a death in my family the same day....(I kid you not) and apparently that didn't matter.

Amazing the moments some folks bare their TRUE colors right?

by oz_media

First of all I MUST say how nice it is to have you pop in again. I ws quite surprised to see you had posted when I checked in today.

As for your bouts of being an unhealthy Guru, be careful mate, you have a little Guru to guide yet, don't be checking out early.

I had a similar bout afer my divorce, funny how that happens huh? I thought I had flu, then I thought i had REALLY REALLY bad flu, then I was passing out and decided to go to the horsebrutal and found out (after a gazillion tests for TB, etc.) that I had some rare strain of flu that had become pneumonia. My lungs were almost 40% full of fuid, I couldn't even take the shallowest breath without an incessant coughing fit while obviously not being able to catch my breath again.

You HAVE to think of yourself sometimes, it isn't selfish as I once though but you've really only got YOU when all is said and done.

SO chin up, stop friggin' workin' so hard and get well.

Hope to see you about when you are caught up on life, love and rest.

by Jay Garmon

First, thanks for your continued community servcie in the Tech Q&A. Some of us haunting the TR HQ really appreciate it.

Second, we're gearing up a few focus groups around here, and your name was mentioned, but we can't seem to find an e-mail address in the Peer Directory for you. If you don't want to post it on the Forum, send it to enews4@cnet.com. I can monitor that mailbox.

Third, you mentioned that the same Tech Q&A questions keep coming up, over and over again. We're discussing building an FAQ-type area, where recurring Tech Q&A questions are answered and archived, to help address this issue. (Yes, this is tangentially related to why Geek Trivia has been in Classic Mode recently). If the FAQ gets the go ahead, I'd be interested in what Q&A topics you think belong on the list.

Thanks

--Jay

by thechas

Now that you have opened it up, I suspect that many of us will post a few ideas for the FAQ section.

Here are the ones that come to the top of my mind:

How to install a larger hard drive than the BIOS supports.
Please include the advantages of installing a PCI IDE controller card.
And include drive size limitations for the various versions of Windows.

Video drivers:
Include how to identify the video card, and links to driver sites.

RAM:
This could get complicated.
I can't recall the number of questions about why my new DIMM is not properly recognized by my motherboard.
Include advice about the minimum, recommended, optimum, and maximum amount of RAM for each version of Windows.

Monitor problems:
Far too many people ask for help repairing monitors.
This is potentially dangerous, and usually not worth the effort.
The FAQ needs to warn about the dangers and tell people how to verify if the monitor is bad.

If I think of more, I will add them.

Chas

by Jay Garmon

Thanks Chas. I should have stated this earlier, but everyone is welcome to submit FAQ suggestions. Your ideas are exactly the kind of thing we're looking for.

As an aside, towards the end of this month, some of what I've been working on in my Geek Trivia hiatus will begin to appear in the NetAdmin NetNote. You can sign up for that here.
http://nl.com.com/acct_mgmt.jsp?brand=techrepublic

I'd also advice you to get to know my new partner in crime, Jason Hiner. His TR record is available here.
https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5171-22-1031152.html

As always, watch out for extra spaces in the URLs, and keep fighting the good fight.

--Jay

by oz_media

How about the millions of questions regarding pop ups and ads. Perhaps a TOOL BOX of free software that is a must have to protect against unwanted ads and pop-ups.

AdAWARE
AVG Anti Virus
SpyBot
IE Spy Ad and similar useful IE safety tools.

I don't need 5 points for telling people over and over again to run AdAware, but you can hadly skip answering questions because they are simple resolutions, these issues are usually quite daunting to the people with the problem.

Man, if I could only get some residuals for recommending AdAware and AVG!

by joseph moore

Ok, I sent you an e-mail to the cnet address you posted. I would be more than happy to join any focus groups!

And I'm gonna think on what questions/answers should be in a FAQ. I'll post my thoughts by Sunday.

by thechas

First, just a silly idea. What are the top 20 or 30 questions asked?

A little data mining might get you a lot of good information.

Next:

Windows Installation:
How to.
Why a fresh install rather than an upgrade.
Backup and restore.
Application migration to a new PC.
Windows 2000 and XP, hard drive (Windows Installation) move to a new motherboard.

PC slowdowns.
(Yes, I know that TR has published a few articles on this topic.)

USB printers, access from DOS.

A common question with no good answer:
What is the proper IT staff to user ratio.
A few articles with links to resources would be very useful in these times of budget trimming and out-sourcing.

Chas

by thechas

Why they should only download a BIOS update from the system / motherboard manufacture.

Custom / pay BIOS suppliers.

Detailed CAUTION section.
(Why not to flash!)

Chas

by joseph moore

Jay, I sent an e-mail, but it bounced back (rejected since it sounded like spam to the SMTP server). How rude!
;-)
So, here you go. Not like this is a secret or anything!

omalakai{at}hushmail{dot}com

A Google search would pull it up, honestly!

by joseph moore

Ok, though on this for a while, and here is all I could come up with. I apologize that some of these are duplicates from others, but I didn't feel like parsing this list down!
-----
Spyware cleaner links for Ad-Aware, Spybot, Search&Destroy. Mention these are for spyware/malware removal and/or browser hijacking fixing.

Then state if those tools don't work, then get HijackThis (with a link). Also add a link to how to read the HijackThis log; plus a link to the Browser Helper Object (BHO) page.
Also mention that some spyware (the CoolWebSearch family) needs CWShredder to remove it (with a link).

Links to popup blockers (Google toolbar, MSN toolbar, etc.)

Links to online virus scans (Symantec, Panda, TrendMicro, Mcafee). Also link to the search pages of the antivirus vendors, so people can look up their own viruses.

Reset Windows Admin password with pay tools (Winternals ERD Commander). Mention that there are freeware tools to do this, but don't list them by name, since they are totally unsupported tools that cause more problems then they fix!

How to clear the CMOS password.

How to remove IE Content Advisor password.

How to network Win98 and WinXP (mapping a drive between them).

How to stop Exchange from being an open relay. Also, how to add an e-mail signature to all outbound e-mails in Exchange.

What Active Directory is for, how you install/uninstall it, and why you can't have it when you still have NT4 PDC around.

How to secure IIS webserver with the IIS Lockdown tool, and why you need to with IIS out of the box.

Links to vendor certification sites (Microsoft, Cisco, Checkpoint, etc) for cert info.

List all the places in Windows a program can be run from automatically (the different Run portions of the Registry, as a Service, as a Scheduled Task, the Startup folder, Autoexec.bat, etc.)

How to move/export e-mail from Outlook Express.

Differences between a hub, a switch, and a router, and why all are useful.

Links to penetration/vulnerability tools for testing your own security. Don't link to wacky (but very interesting!) freeware tools. Try and stick with professional things like Nessus (which is free, but not wacky!), eEye Retina, and the one from ISS (I forget its name right now).

My favorite one to answer: Technet article 180094, "How to Write an LMHOSTS File for Domain Validation and Other Name Resolution Issues." Amazing how useful this one stil is!

Links to bootdisk.com for bootdisks (obviously).

by Jay Garmon

You and some of the usual suspects will be seeing something from us in the next week or so.

--Jay

by oz_media

TINY URL !!!

No more pesky little spaces, I can't take credit for it though, that was Chas's find.

by thechas

Sorry Oz,

I can't take credit for another peers efforts.

I first noticed TinyURL links in posts from D Klippert, and decided to check it out.

I think that Max and I started making use of TinyURL at about the same time.

Chas

by joseph moore

Thanks. I appreciate it.
I know things will be better. I am moving into my own place July 1st, a one-bedroom apartment that will be all mine. Pick up some new furniture, a really expensive expresso maker (that grinds the beans before it makes the coffee), my own TiVo, and maybe a new George Forman grill.
And just live for a while, responsible only to myself, doing things I want to do, and not feeling pressured or obligated.
Just live for a while. That will be great!
And probably answer questions some. ;-)

by don_c

for the advice on AdAware it was one of the best tools i have install on my pc's in a long while and I keep a fresh copy of it on CD-RW so when I work on a customers

Now in Q&A if you ask a question and have two answers that help you out and you rate both answers acceptable who gets the points or how are they given I know most regulars don't care about the points but when both answers help then cedit should be give to both

by thechas

Don,

From the Help, Tech Points link on the TR site, here is the official answer to your question about awarding Tech Points:

"If you rate an answer Acceptable, the question will be closed. The points will be divided evenly among all answers rated Acceptable. That means you can accept more than one answer."

If for any reason you desire to award additional Tech Points to a specific peer, just post a new question.
Title it points for (peer name).
In the body of the question provide a brief explanation of what the points are for.

That's it.

To protect yourself, read the license agreement closely on all software that you take to customer sites.
Make sure that you follow the terms of the license.

In addition to protecting yourself, following the license terms will help keep free-ware available to us all.

Chas

by don_c

Thanks for the advice I will read the license agreement carefuly. I just figure it was ok to do that since it was a free download. and yes i should read the help section before asking (Brain fart)

by oz_media

Seeing as I haven't actually read the licence myself, I figure I'm allowed to recommend it right?

I would say their main interest is to have it downloaded to each computer for the purpose of gathering email addresses and geographical information. They ask a few basic questions before you download and then add your email to their database by sending out the activation code by email. SO the important issue would be to get the activation code sent to each users email and have them register with Grisoft. I came to this realization after reusing my code a few times, now i just get it online for clients as needed.

by oz_media

Man, do I ever need help.

I just gave you my response on AVG AntiVirus :-P

That just shows you how often I recommend them, they are just one big blur, AdAware and AVG.

But I guess the same thing goes for Lavasfost's AdAware. I would always download directly to the client machine, the stuff's free and up to date if downloaded fresh, NO need to burn it unless the client doesn't have an internet connection..... in which case they probably wouldn't need it I guess. Like I said, 'man do I ever need help'

by joseph moore

Ok, maybe this will help also. I did a DIR listing of my whole IT saved links folder in IE. This only lists the names of the saved URLs, not the URLs themselves, but a good majority do give you enough info to find the pages.
The page is here:
http://tinyurl.com/2hu66
These are the pages I have saved over the past few years, helping folks out, researching problems, etc.
The majority of links are MS Technet page links, but there are some other stuff in there too.
Maybe some of the links there will also be useful for a FAQ.
This is my bag of tricks, ya'all. Hope it helps!

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