_8042Warrior

@Starbuck Honestly, a large chuck of free AV is terrible. Avast and AVG are god awful. For the good stuff out there...great, use that. But consider this: Viruses - Most designed to eat resources, although some are stealthy, Get unallowed levels of access to your computer and files, and perform actions that are far outside the norm. AV does all these things and then some. It can perform whatever actions it wants on what ever files it "thinks" are dangerous, including deleting it, and even blacklisting it from your PC. That is why I say they are viruses themselves. They sure act like it, even if good in nature. And as you say, most users are dumb as a brick, so how will they be able to take those files off a black-list without knowing how to use their machine's AV? False positives up the yahoo, all for "protection", that stems from completely exaggerated paranoia. About the torrent thing, I shoulda prefixed that with MOST, because you are right there, a lot of people will do anything for free, even risk infections (which is why I use demonoid, 99% clean there). As for your last stament, I 100% disagree. Why should you want people to live in ignorance? "Most people" as you put it, should stop being lazy and learn. Humanity as a whole is suffering a severe decline in intelligence for exact attitudes like that. Ignorance may indeed be bliss, but it causes far more problems than it fixes. So no, that is not how it should be. @Nev I just think promoting some use of the brain is a good idea mate. Relying on other people to do it for you (in this case the other people being AV programmes), you end up either getting screwed over, or becoming a cross-eyed little nitwit who has to scream for help every 5 seconds. In the case a users AV is unable to sucessfully kill a virus (or even detect it for that matter), what then? Spend tons of money taking it to a tech for cleaning? Sit and suffer while it pilfers data on your computer, or acts as a bot-net for someone else? What good does that do? Do some research (heaven forbid), and learn how to kill it with google. Learn to use your computer. Thats all I am saying.

As stated, Comodo DOES come with an antivirus program. I just choose not to use it. I do not believe in AV, as it is, by definition, a virus itself. They eat resources, are a pain to uninstall in a lot of cases, and can be hijacked by sophisticated viruses (McAffe comes to mind...). Plus, they cost an obscene amount of money. The best way to avoid viruses is to be smart while browsing the internet. Most "Cracks" for programs, aren't. Any porn sites that ask you to download stupid ActiveX objects to "view their movies" or "video.exe" are also viruses. Avoid these. They are just installers that melt as soon as you click them, and they end up infecting you. Most of these are quite easy to kill manually, a few aren't. One %TEMP% exe, and another usually placed in your system root. Delete these files after killing their processes, and done. If you are frequently torrent, pay close attention to the number of seeds and comments. If its a virus, someone will expose it for being such, and people will stop spreading it around. Just use your judgement, and pay attention. Antivirus is not the final answer to computer security. It takes some software, yes, but people who rely on it are often disappointed (I myself used to rely purely on software...stupid choice really) I do repeat, Comodo (even if you opt out of the Antivirus part of the three part internet security suite), does come with a cloud scanner. It will be protecting your computer from viruses, even if you think its not.

Drivers can be a little tough to get ahold of, espically for some Broadcom wireless cards. Depending on the version of Linux you are using, the drivers may already be installed, but you may have to do some tweaking. However, LiveCD's will always be slow, because everything has to be read off of the CD, which is acting as a harddrive. A straight install would be a better method yes. If you are planning on keeping your XP to give Linux a test run, the GRUB loader can help you. When you install Linux, the GRUB is installed, and you can choose which OS to boot from. It is far more flexible than the windows boot loader as well. Hope this helps

I am not sure exactly what you are trying to achieve, but I would assume wireless access. If you check the Device Manager, you could see if he still has his Ethernet drivers. If so, put a hard line into the router to his computer, and then access the internet that way to get his latest drivers. If that fails, you could research his computer model, download the drivers to your computer for ethernet/wireless, then install them off of a USB key. If it is a custom built computer, you could try to take a peek inside and research Part numbers/brands on google, with the term drivers. That may help you as well. This is the best help I can give with current information. If you are a little more specific, I can try to assist you further.

You could try PowerISO. I've had a lot of success using PowerISO over MagicISO.

If you are looking for decent security software, I would seriously recommend Comodo Firewall with Defense+. I have been using it for about 3 years now, even in leiu of AV (sounds stupid, but hear me out), and I haven't been infected once. Comodo is an excellent, industry grade firewall (for FREE mind you), that is easy to manage and configure. Comodo requires a proactive attitude towards computer security however. It has frequent pop ups (non intrusive however) until you get it configured. For example, if there is a game you play (lets say Borderlands), the first time you run it, Comodo will ask you a few questions about it. Namely, Borderlands will try to connect to the internet. You have to set the option to Allow, then check the Remember my Answer box. You may have to select the More Options button first (it tries to apply the KISS policy at first for rookie users, but you should go with advanced so you gain more control). After that, you won't hear from it again, unless the game tries to do something suspicious (IE. it tries to modify your registry). And, if a strange connection tries to hit you from the internet, it will tell you, "Hey, this IP address and this Port are trying to connect to you. Do you want to allow this?". It gives you options as well to always block, allow or deny. And itll always block it. A lot of firewalls now do this, but thats not the impressive part. There is another side to the Comodo coin, called Defense+. This is an extremely powerful piece of software that watches your computer closely. It detects any suspicious actions by all programs, and asks you what to do. For example, say if you torrent a piece of software, but it turns out to be fake. You install it, the installer melts (deletes it self) and you think its broken. In fact, you have just been infected. The GREAT thing is, Comodo will SEE this, and find that program that was installed (if it tries to internet connect, or copy itself, or whatever its doing) and ask you what to do with it. It'll even tell you the path name of the program, so you can find and delete it! And, even if you don't download antivirus, Comodo has a built in Cloud scanner that finds fishy programs running on your computer. Comodo gives you complete peace of mind over what is happening on your machine (at least it does for me). I've never once been infected because of it. If it finds something fishy, and I agree, I delete whatever I don't like. Sadly, there is no security program that replaces your own mind. YOU need to be proactive as well. If you see a fishy process running in your Task Manager, kill it. Find out where it came from, and delete it. Pay attention to what you install, and watch what it does when you run the program. Memorize how your computer operates, it will save you so much trouble. But again, I seriously stand by Comodo.

So now, the UK is planning on passing a law that prevents Tier 5 work visas from becoming routes to citizenship :(. UK Permanent Residency In June the UK government announced plans to shut down the pathway from work visas to permanent residency. This means 2011 could be your last chance to apply for a work permit with the right to obtain residency and citizenship. This is probably the most depressing news I've ever had... On the upshot, I have been hired by the Atos IT company, but I need a few months to get referred to overseas...I sincerely hope this doesn't get passed...

Hi all, My name is Chris, and I have a big problem. I am from the United States, but I have for a few years now been trying to get myself into the UK (specifically the Cardiff, Wales area in Britain). I am 22 years of age, born 19/4/1989. I am a pretty good computer tech by anyone who has cared to ask me for help, experienced across multiple areas, but mainly networking/local computer repair for both Linux and Windows. I am by no means a master in my field, nor a recognized authority. I am however a hard worker and a great learner. I have been trying to find good information on immigration across the internet, but I keep hitting the same issues. I am not rich, I have no employment sponsors, and am an orphan with no family ties, either in the States or the UK. My goal is to live and work as a citizen of the UK, but gaining permanent residency seems to be impossible from where I currently stand. I have many friends in the UK who are family to me, and the idea of inter-country adoption came up, but sadly, as I am over 18 years of age, the courts in the UK would not approve (from the information I could find). So my question is this: How do I proceed? I really want to get into the UK asap, but with under 5K USD (3.1K BPS) it just doesn't seem like it can happen for me :( Is there anyone here who can advise me on what to do? I figured the best people to ask would be people who live within the UK. I do work for a Fortune 500 company known as Siemens as an IT Specialist, but sadly, its only temporary as this company has recently switched their IT company to Atos (outsourcing basically), and that could leave me without a job. I thought being employed here could help me move, as I could get the company to sponsor me, but that no longer seems like a viable option either. Thank you, Chris