FAQ Thread for the General PC Forum

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We have them in most of the other forums but not this one. I think it would be beneficial to have thread at the top of the forum listing which contains links to the useful PC maintenance utilities, free anti virus and firewall programs and links to any threads in this forum which answer those questions we see most often.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions on this?

[RobDog888]

I think its a great idea. Perhaps something similar to the AD forums FAQ. List all the popular antivirus products/sites (free/pay), Hardware troubleshooting tips, tips on maintenance (like how to defrag your pagefile, etc.).

[visualAd]

AD Forums?

I have been doing some more thinking on this. If we can gather a list of threads relating to different categories from this forum and link to them in an FAQ. Also I was thinking of creating a short tutorial on how to secure your PC - problem is I only run Windows 2000 and most people have XP - so if there are volunteers let me know.

[NoteMe]

Application Deployment



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[dee-u]

Ok, here is my contribution...

[NoteMe]

Here is a couple of good links I had bookmarked:

http://vbforums.com/showpost.php?p=1611292&postcount=30
http://vbforums.com/showpost.php?p=1705675&postcount=2



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[visualAd]

I have started creating the FAQ here: http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=368244

If anyone has any useful links then please post them here. If you have lots of links for the same subjects; e.g: Good Firefox extensions or a list of tips, create a new thread in this forum and I can then add a link to the main thread.

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P.s: all valid contributions will be rewarded

[si_the_geek]

I don't know if this is really relevant, but you can check your internet connection speed here:
http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/


Also, theres a couple of alterations needed on this line:

MS Office [FREE] - Microsoft Office is a powerful Office suit, fully integrated into Windows.

[tr333]

good browser for MacOSX: Camino. it is developed by the mozilla foundation like firefox and thunderbird. (OpenSource)

Office software for MacOSX: NeoOffice/J, a port of OpenOffice to the Mac platform. (OpenSource)

OpenSource AntiVirus for windows: ClamWin
OpenSource AntiVirus for OSX: ClamXav
(these are both based on the ClamAV scanning engine.)


Web development:
Dreamweaver (costs $$$)
Nvu (OpenSource)

Telnet: PuTTY (OpenSource)

Calendar: Sunbird (OpenSource)
sunbird uses the standard ical calendar format, so you can share calendar files between sunbird and Apple iCal.

[tr333]

MS Office [FREE] - Microsoft Office is a powerful Office suit, fully integrated into Windows.

MS-OFFICE is not free.

[visualAd]

MS-OFFICE is not free.

You mean you don't have a special agreement with MS??

Thanks for those links, I'll add them in later and make that correction Do you think it will be better to put the Mac OS ones under a different heading?

[tr333]

Do you think it will be better to put the Mac OS ones under a different heading?

probably, because they are OSX specific apps. unlike Nvu or sunbird. PuTTY is a windows only app, since almost all linux/bsd distributions (including OSX) come with OpenSSH.

[visualAd]

I am mad at myself for not even entertaining the idea of putting putty and NVU on the list. I use both so regularly I almost forgot they exist There is also a Free Windows SSH Server too (Mr Polite found this one for me ):

http://freesshd.com/

[visualAd]

Does anyone have any suggestions on which questions are asked most often here and any linksto threads where they are answered?

[RobDog888]

#1. Antivirus issues or which is best or which are free.

#2. Some kind of OS/Hardware troubleshooting issues.


MS Office Free Download from MS on any/all apps like Office Pro, One Note, Project, Visio, etc.

[tr333]

GUI FTP software:

Windows - Filezilla
Mac OS X - Fugu

Fugu also includes support for SSH tunnels and SCP.

[NoteMe]

GUI FTP software:

Windows - Filezilla
Mac OS X - Fugu

Fugu also includes support for SSH tunnels and SCP.

and don't forget the Fx extension:
http://fireftp.mozdev.org/


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[tr333]

this sticky should be renamed "suggestions for FAQ" or similar.

makes it much easier to know when people want something added.

[visualAd]

I'll ask a mod to move the FAQ from the test forum and I'll do a few finishing touches, then we can unstick this thread and rename it.

[tr333]

John Haller has created a Portable Apps Suite that contains all of his portable programs.

Firefox (Web Browser), Thunderbird (E-mail Client), OpenOffice.org (Office Suite), AbiWord (Word Processor), NVU (Web Development), Sunbird (Calendar), FileZilla (FTP), Gaim (Instant Messaging).

There is also a 'light' version that leaves out OpenOffice.org so the suite will fit on a 128MB USB drive.

http://johnhaller.com/jh/useful_stuf...le_apps_suite/

(I can't add this info to the FAQ thread since it is locked.)

[-TPM-]

I can see this getting WAY to messy if we're not carefull.

I don't think this is going to really be an FAQ. more a helpfull info section, with general maintenance, free utilities (I have a couple too add to this section), etc.

May I suggest instead of just 1 thread with all this we section it off.

[conipto]

As far as free Antivirus programs go, I kinda like Avast
http://avast.com/

It's easy to give to girlfriends and parents too, autoupdates, and all that jazz.

Bill

[dee-u]

This might be relevant in this thread also...

[tr333]

Another addition to the FAQ:

Go-oo - http://go-oo.org/

It's basically OpenOffice.org, but better.

[Lord Orwell]

does the general pc forum even have a moderator?

[stanav]

Ubuntu - free Linux based operating system.

http://www.ubuntu.com/