Frag On Sight Computer Problems Resource

[ChemicalWarrior]

Welcome to the official FOS Computer Resource Foki! Anyone can edit this thread and they are open to add there own ideas and links. The only thing I ask is that the current layout be maintained, if you do not know how to do something then simply post what you wish to be added to the Foki and I will add it in for you! HUGE thanks go out to Soul for this!


Safe browsing
It should be well known by now, but there are those still out there that don't practice this. Lets solve that! When you are surfing the web you will most likely come by a site that are a bit shady, installing malicious software such as viruses and spyware. In order to avoid this issue you should use a Internet browser than will prevent such risks. This means not using Internet Explorer, instead you should use one of the few free, but very high quality browsers out there, two that come right to mind are Firefox and Opera.

Firefox is a great browser for the person looking to maintain a similar interface to IE, but getting the protection that Firefox offers. Firefox also has the great advantage of an amazing varied and large amount of extensions. These extensions can add and change many things about Firefox, such as interface, features, media capabilities, and a wealth of other things. Its also my browser of choice. If you wish to try out and hopefully choose Firefox as your browser, than visit: http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

Opera is the other option. Using its own unique, but still familiar interface, Opera offers a lot to the user. It has many of the features in Firefox, but Opera comes with even more by default. Opera also has all of the security advantages of Firefox. Opera is a great browser, but it has a few downfalls. Some sites do not work in Opera without a few issues, though this is a very small issue, as more and more sites work great with Opera each day. One more is a lack of plug ins/extensions compared to Firefox, but this should be an issue of the past as Opera moves to a more plug in friendly browser. If you wish to try out Opera then check it out at: http://www.opera.com/

Overall the key thing to get from this section is that you should not use Internet Explorer, both Firefox and Opera offer more features, and are easily more secure for you.



Anti-Virus
You need an anti-virus program. Its that simple. Some people think that you can be safe without this, that's simply not true. You would have to disconnect your computer completely from the Internet to not get a virus without a anti-virus program. Then there's another issue of the vast majority of anti-virus programs costing money, well let's solve that!

AVG offers both a free and cost based anti-virus program. I suggest the free version for the average user, once again this is my anti-virus as choice, its free, and it works very well. Its fairly straight forward, updates often, and is easy to use. In my extended experience with free AVG it works great. I've never had virus issues since I've been using it, and its never given me any issues. I highly recommend it. You can download the free version at AVG at: http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

Anti-Spyware: Along with anti-virus you should also get a program that will prevent spyware from attacking your computer. Spyware are put on your computer from a wide variety of ways, net browsing, chat programs, and other things. So you should keep yourself safe, and I have a few recommendations for this too. :)

Ad-aware SE Personal is a great and free anti-spyware program from Lavasoft. This is the baby brother of a cost based program, but this one is great also and does nearly all you'll ever need in a anti-spyware program. I personally use this program. I run it on a regular basis to prevent any spyware on my computer. Anyone looking to get a good and free anti-spyware program should check out this program, you can grab it from:

Firewall: A Firewall is a program/application that prevents access to ports in which data travels through to reach your computer. When ports are open there are more ways to get access to your computer making it more vulnerable to attack.

Most consumer routers these days come with a software firewall included. These offer good protection and generally allow easy control of allowing and closing ports to your computer. I suggest that even if you're computer is the only one using the Internet that you have a router with a included firewall just for security reasons.

There are also personal firewalls that you can install on your computer if you wish to not buy a router with a firewall or simply want to have even more protection. I've have recently given a look at two free firewalls from companies that also offer cost based firewalls, these two are Sygate's Personal Firewall and ZoneAlarm's.

Both of these offer you good control over the firewall. You can check them out at: http://smb.sygate.com/firewall/perso...e-download.htm (Sygate) and http://www.zonelabs.com/store/conten...btop nav_zass (ZoneAlarm)

Windows XP with Service Pack 2 comes with its own firewall. This gets the job done, but its not the most advanced software firewall out there. I suggest looking into a more high end system if you wish to use a software firewall. Sadly my knowledge of software firewalls is fairly limited and at this time I can not recommend one with any confidence.

A firewall is a must have, and I highly suggest that if you are not already behind a router that you buy one and use its firewall, this will give you a great advantage in security.

Prevention Conclusion: One point I really want to stress is that prevention is key to your computers well being. Be a smart user and get the applications you need early on and use them. There's no point in downloading an anti-spyware program if you never plan to run it. These tools will make your life easier though, and will make running a clean and powerful system no longer a chore, but a joy. I also want to mention that all programs in this guide have been used by me, and I have personal experience with each one and I can strongly back their recommendation.



Maintaining a Clean System
Now that we have all the programs that are needed to have a easy and safe computing experience then we can talk about maintaining a clean system.

The above programs are basically is all you need, there's very little you should have to do now other than running the above programs on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. This way your anti-virus programs can check to see if anything got past them and your anti-spyware programs can get rid of any spyware that has made its way onto your system.

One point I would like to point out is the fact of installing and uninstalling programs. When you install a program make sure the directory it is installed to makes since, also make sure you make note of where they are going. Many programs have small micro programs that are installed, take note of these so you can make uninstallation easier.

Also, when you uninstall a program make sure its directory is completely gone. Many programs out there are extremely bad these days at leaving their host directory, this causes a very unorganized system. So once you have unstalled you should go back and make sure they are completely gone. This will make your life easier when you have to go searching through your program directories.


Free Applications and Media Software
This section of the guide is here to serve as a reference to great free programs that offer equal or better features to the user.


Text Editor and Word Processor

To the rescue in this category is Open Office.org. OOo is a great program that offers all the features of Office XP and other Microsoft office products into one free package. OOo also has the ability to open and save in many of the custom file formats that MS Office saves in, such as .doc which is used by Microsoft Works. OOo was used to write this guide, and has been used to write all of my school reports for the last 2 years. I have never run into an issue of saving in a .doc at my home and opening it perfectly at school and vice versa. Overall I think OOo is even of higher quality than its Microsoft counterparts.



Media
In this category are my suggestions for free media players, audio editors, and photo editors.

In the first area will be that of an all around video and audio player, this belongs to Media Player Classic. MPC combined with the K-Lite Codec Packs gives the user to play an amazingly large amount of audio and video files. I have yet to run across a video format that did not play in MPC, nor have I found a audio file that wouldn't play. I use it everyday in playing media files, I highly recommend it. MPC can be found at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/

The second area of a dedicated audio player and music database handler will be shared between Winamp and Foobar 2000.

Winamp has been around for a very long time, and I'm sure many people can offer their experiences with it. Its my audio player of choice, supporting a wide range of plug ins and other add ons. By default it can already play a extremely wide range of audio files and also rip from CD into those formats, but even plug ins it can play nearly every audio file format out there. Winamp also allows you to play many web video and audio broadcasts and if wanted it can also play video files. Overall a very good program, just make sure you get the package you want and to delete some of the extras that come with it Get Winamp at: http://www.winamp.com/

Foobar 2000 is a very small but very good audio player. It also has many plug ins and can play an extremely wide arrange of audio files. By default its very boring and does have a rather steep learning curve, which has turned me away from it. But many people swear by it. It does not play video files. Try Foobar 2000 at: http://www.foobar2000.org/

Audio Editor: The program I point people to for their audio editing needs is Audacity. Audacity allows the easy editing, be it cutting, adding, or some cool effects to your audio files. It also allows you to covert many audio file types, but this will require codec's from audio rippers such as LAME. I use Audacity to edit many of my song files and combine them together into a single long file or cut transitions between songs for gap-less audio on my MP3 player. You can grab Audacity at: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Photo Editor: For this I choose Picasa. Picasa is a free program that allows you to easily organize your photo's and also do some basic and some advanced editing of them. Its very easy to use and it comes highly recommended for those times when you just need to make a few changes and not spend long amounts of time changing things on a photo. You can find Picasa at: http://picasa.google.com/