wellies

A program called 'Eraser' (free) says it removes mft leftovers. Note the top tick box. http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u78/Mart44/marts-graphics/eraser.gif I have tried it and found that after free space was erased, the Firefox URL bar and other toolbar fonts were using Courier. A bit worrying but this sorted itself out after a re-start of the computer. Nothing else untoward noticed. I first tried Eraser when someone on another forum asked if emptying Sandboxie's sandbox really deleted the files/malware within it (see the Sandboxie page). I'm not sure if it would do what to want. I'd thought I'd mention the program so that it could be commented on by others.

The 2009 version of Norton actually is pretty light and doesn't slow the computer down at all. Memory usage sometimes peaks briefly at around 16MB and will then settle down to around 5MB. I think this might be to do with when 'pulse' updates are taking place. Memory usage when just monitoring the system is around 8MB. Although not free, it can be obtained inexpensively. I recently bought Norton Internet Security 2009 with licences for 3 computers. The cost was £34-45, which I thought was quite reasonable for a 3 licence security suite. The reason I changed from using the very excellent Comodo and avast! combination was because I finally got fed up with being asked if I wanted to give something or other permission to run. What I really wanted was a program that would decide for me whether computer activity was OK or not and sit there quietly doing its job. NIS 2009 filled the requirement. It is wonderfully quiet! Since NIS 2009 included an AV side, avast! had to go as well. I now hope that NIS 2009 is as good at it seems to be. It's hard to get used to this program when you've been used to Comodo throwing up an alert or two every now and then. Anyhow, I still use Sandboxie, so the AV monitoring side of NIS 2009 will only be called on to do its job if that fails, which I think is unlikely. I use NIS 2009 and MalwareBytes' Anti-malware to scan e-mail file attachments and downloads saved to the Desktop ...just before opening them sandboxed. Safe or what! :)

Some things are just 'the last straw'. I remember getting another car because a brake light bulb went in the car I'd had for a few years. :) Regarding BIOS updates, I once had trouble with this (chose the wrong file I think) and ended up not being able to boot the computer. I found someone on the Internet offering ready-flashed chips for a price and sorted it out that way. A good job I had a spare computer. I hope you and your new computer will spend many happy years together james1411. :)

Thanks everyone - A few post have been made. I'm a bit prone to going over the top in the length of some :). They can tend to have a few typos and grammatical errors, so might have subsequent edits too. I never see errors until I leave the post and then come back 10 minutes later for another read. (Did I really write that?!! :)).

It seems 1024x600 must be the native resolution of your monitor. Maybe the message is saying how the situation is. A larger resolution monitor is needed to display or run the program.

No, you'd need to back up your bookmarks to somewhere outside of the Profiles folder so that they can be imported into a new Profile. Bookmarks can be backed up to a 'bookmarks.html' file for this purpose but read on... Firefox 3.0 doesn't actually use 'bookmarks.html' for the working bookmarks file. Bookmarks found in this file are imported into file called 'places.sqlite'. Once the bookmarks have been imported into 'places.sqlite', Firefox has no further need of 'bookmarks.html. If you have 'bookmarks.html' in the Firefox 3.0 Profiles folder, it can be deleted without causing a loss of bookmarks. 'Places.sqlite' contains not only bookmarks but also browsing history. Since the introduction of 'places.sqlite' in Firefox 3.0, the 'Backup' option should probably be chosen to keep a copy of bookmarks and history instead of using the 'Export HTML' option. Both options are found in 'Bookmarks > Organise Bookmarks'. The 'Backup' option produces a backup file called 'bookmarks(date).json'. This can be be used for importing bookmarks and history into a new Firefox 3.0 Profile. It's best not to just delete a Profile in Windows Explorer. Firefox would create another one on opening but a better practice would be to let the 'Profile Manager' create a new additional Profile You can have as many Profiles as you like). Once the new Profile is working and customised to requirements, remove the faulty (or old) Profile using the Profile Manager. Firefox will keep better track of what's going on if you use the program to handle Profiles. Information here on how to create a new additional Profile. Creating an additional one is a good because if you find it doesn't cure a problem, it is possible to remove it and revert back to using the original Profile. Can't do that if the original Profile has been removed. The newly created additional Profile can be deleted in the Profile Manager if it proves not to cure the trouble. Regarding the problem itself, it may be that a new Profile will cure it. It can be worth quickly creating and trying an additional Profile for test purposes for nearly any Firefox problem. Most Firefox faults originate from there. However, one possibility is that the sites have changed and it's therefore not Firefox at fault at all. A site might stipulate that passwords are not saved for security reasons. I have a Yahoo Mail account where the password isn't remembered permanently. One of the two methods written about in the article Goku linked to in post #16 should help with that ...although if a site has disabled the saving of passwords/usernames for security reasons, it could be best to leave it like that.

Cloud computing could be the way things will go. The connection becomes all-important then though. It would leave you a bit in the lurch when it didn't work as advertised by the service provider. It doesn't always around here. I'm on a 20MB cable connection but don't always get that speed. It depends on what time of day it is and how many people are using the system. If everyone started relying more on cloud computing, the network might have trouble coping. I know it would be up to the cable company to keep up with demands but would/could they?

I loaded the beta version and now RC1 on a spare partition on a dual-boot with XP. The computer is about 7 years old and contains.. GeForce FX 5200 graphics card. 3Ghz hyper-threading processor. 1.5GB of RAM. Not bad but by no means top specification now. Both releases of Windows 7 have run pretty well on it. If I had Vista and a newer computer, I probably wouldn't upgrade to Windows 7 when the final version is released but since this is an older computer running XP, I'll consider getting a new one when Windows 7 is fully available. The time will be about right for a new computer by then. I'll want to have my own Windows 7 installation disk rather than get a computer with Windows 7 already installed and a recovery disk.

I've been made aware by reading various articles that 'safe surfing habits' can't necessarily be relied on these days to keep out of malware trouble. This is now reinforced by the avast! information page. Thanks for highlighting it. It's good that avast! detects the Iframe threat before is can lead to an infection of the computer. NIS 2009 has much the same capability with its 'Browser Protection'. That is likely to be good enough but I still prefer to isolate the computer from Internet browsing ...just in case. I never miss a chance to promote the use of sandboxing the browser because I feel it's such a good security layer. Even if some unknown malware did remain undetected by the AV program, it wouldn't get out of the sandbox to do damage. A sandbox doesn't restrict browsing but keeps all data contained in a safe area. Any malware (known or unknown) is isolated from the computer system, so can't infect it. I don't feel comfortable browsing outside of the sandbox now. It gives me a feeling of added security to use it. When I used avast! I had an instance where it blocked access to a website. I just happened to have made the mistake of opening the browser un-sandboxed at the time, so I was very glad avast! protected me. I hope it's OK to link to Sandboxie. It is free but occasionally throws up a nag screen after 30 days. This doesn't prevent free usage though. A few extra features are activated when bought.

A monitor has what's known as a 'native resolution'. It is best to keep the computer's resolution setting at the native resolution of the monitor. If it's set to anything different, clarity will suffer and proportions may not be correct (circles might look oval instead of round for example). You also wouldn't be able to fit so much into into the screen area if the computer's resolution slider was set lower than the native resolution of the monitor. So, it would be best to set the computer's resolution setting to 1680 x 1050 pixels in Display Properties and increase font sizes in other ways. I just happen to have a monitor with a native resolution of 1680 x 1050 pixels and find the best thing to do is set Windows font sizes using the font settings in 'Advanced Appearance'. Right-click on the Desktop and go to: 'Properties' > Appearance > Advanced'. Where it says 'Item' click the down arrow. Choose 'Icon' and set it to '11'. Then choose 'Menu' and set that to '11' as well. There are other parts of Windows font sizes that can be set in that area but those are the two that will make the main difference. When done, click OK and OK again. You should be able to see a difference in the Desktop icon font sizes, Windows Explorer font sizes and the Toolbar Menu font size. Browser font sizes can be set within the browser itself. IE8 remembers zoom levels in each tab while the browser is open. When closed and opened again, it remembers the last zoom level set and applies this to all sites and tabs (until altered by the user again). Firefox is a bit better in this respect and remembers zoom levels 'per site' even after the browser is closed and re-opened. Firefox remembering 'per site' zoom levels is a useful feature considering the varied text sizes encountered on the Internet. For instance, it sets and remembers the zoom setting for a particular site but doesn't apply it to other sites. Each site visited can be user set and Firefox remembers it. Firefox also has the advantage of being able to zoom text only while keeping image sizes un-zoomed. Un-zoomed images are clearer because enlarging involves anti-aliasing, which blurs them slightly. ______________

Just saying hello before passing 'Go'. I've been around computers for a while. Still no expert but have an interest in them. I was a TV and video recorder engineer for 33 years in what seems another life. Gave that up some time ago. Now a sort of active lay-about. :) Usually known as mart... here and there around the Internet. Wellies is an old nickname my fellow engineers gave me. Thought I'd revive it for here. I'm not a prolific poster in forums normally but I read them quite a lot. Hope you'll put up with the posts I do make. Thanks and all the best to everyone.