My screen blinks

[Loose rivets]

I'm getting a new symptom. My screen blinks, one or two times in an evening. There is no disruption of the synch to the monitor, it's just as though the screen refreshes.

I sweep about once a week with Adaware, and it is finding 30-40 hot items each time. Could this be linked?

While pruning, I sometimes notice the hour-glass active for no known reason. The up/down symbol top right of the screen shows active. If I look at task manager, it always stops, as though it knows it's being looked at!!

I'm using sbcglobal's system, with wireless box (not yet used as wireless) The system given with the kit does not seem to offer any protection from current problems.

[DBTL]

CRT or LCD display?

[frostbite]

I find those 30-40 items quite alarming.

In the last couple of years, Adaware has found nothing beyond a regular couple of dozen 'insignificants', and also in that period I have bee running Avast coupled with ZoneAlarm. (both free)

It could be a video lead problem, but I would also look at those intrusions.

[Loose rivets]

It's a CRT, but I'm fairly confident that the video subsystem is okay. The wallpaper stays stable I think and the shortcut symbols blink. It's so quick I'm not sure, but I think the shortcut artwork goes transparent, like shutting down etc. But it's less than a second.

My son complained that I left masses of stuff lying in the background (on his computer) until he ran adaware...and the only site I used was pprune.

While with Earthlink on a dial up, I got almost nothing...ever. Now with SBC / Yahoo I get weighed down with stuff until I'm slower than dial up. Run Adaware, and I'm back to normal.

In the days of DOS I was a total geek, but now I just want the darn thing to work without hours of fiddling. I guess that I'll have to invest some time into just what SBC provides in the way of protection. I'll look at the sites mentioned as well thanks.

The HP computer was good value, a refubished deal. The disc however, is cluttered with stuff HP ‘give' you. I have no Windows disc per se. The backup that they tell you to make would just be more of the same ol sameo I guess. I would so like a version of Windows that was striped to the core. It always seemed to me that an operating system that you add wanted things to, would be so simple. I'm not quite brave enough yet to go to the alternative systems however. R

[DBTL]

Blinking screen is a normal feature of an aging CRT monitor. Your high voltage CRT parts are currently planning for a departure, in 6-12 months your screen will likely be all black. Luckily I see many usable CRTs around you in my crystal ball. Unfortunately, I predict further infections of your system as well. Have you patched your OS vulnerabilites?

[Loose rivets]

I'm ageing...and I blink, but I anticipate being around for while yet. :)

I ran SBC's ad buster and got 22 items. I got rid of them and then ran Adaware. It showed 30 mission crittical items.

The only time that the computer goes quiet, is when the modem is turned off. I had assumed that not having a browser running would stop contact with the outside world. What goes on when just linked to the ISP alone?

[Saab Dastard]

I had assumed that not having a browser running would stop contact with the outside world. What goes on when just linked to the ISP alone?

Please tell me this is a wind-up :eek:

[747-436]

Have you got Security Software? I have McAfee Internet Security Suite and haven;t had any spy ware in my system for ages. Try downloading the HiJackthis Analyzer. It will detect anything in your system that looks suspicious. Be very careful using this as it doesn't differentaite between good and bad things on your PC. Running it on my PC brings up 40 results so you need to know what you are looking for otherwise you could be deleting things that are supposed to be on your computer!!
My Sony E220 17" CRT Monitor 'blinks' from time to time with associated noise, it has been doing that for quite a few months on and off. I have had it since 2000 so would hope it still has a few years yet. Still working as new though!

[DBTL]

Well, the word "modem" gave me the clue. I suggest you take the box to a local shop and have them install the patches & antivir through their broadband.
cheers,
DBTL

[Loose rivets]

The case for the defense in my lack of knowledge.

Mmmm....well, I guess that I am going to have to invest some time into learning about Windows. Believe me, I don't want to, I think it's an abhorrence.

My lamentable lack of knowledge about the modern technologies comes from becoming jaded in the extreme. It wasn't always so.

When I owned a computer company, I spent hours telling folk not to install Windows. I have to say that I also said that it would never catch on for serious users. By an obscure routing of logic, it hasn't. So many people are hungering for an alternative. For me, so far nothing else fits the bill.

My 386 and 486 systems were fine tuned to run AutoCAD, and it made me more money than I had ever dreamed of. Flights to Comdex and nifty cars were all things that flying had not produced. At one venue in Las Vegas, a crowd had gathered round a stand and a man was saying that he had the fasted PC in the world. An ice-cap on a 386 running at 50 megs. Wow. I watched the regeneration of an AutoCAD drawing that I knew well. Mine was substantially faster. It was a great selling point for future advertising.

Then came the time that my customers started saying things like, "Leave it, my kid will fix it when he gets home from school." Time to get out, so I sold the company.

I can recall being so enthusiastic about the subject that I would read tech stuff in the cruise. (It was so absorbing that I had to stop doing it on safety grounds. Not like reading the Sun.) I guess that folk that are experts now, just love the technology, but I don't. It's as analogous to going into a woodwork shop, and spending 7 hours sharpening things, learning how all the new toys work and then spending 1 hour cutting wood. It makes no sense, unless you love doing it.

The point of all this is that operating systems needed to be pure. Some of the first flight simulators did not have an operating system. I watched a man on telly, saying that "there was not time for the system to access an operating system". Now, computers seem to be developed to pull a great lumbering mass of crap uphill. What's left over can do something useful.

I have no idea what the vast majority of the stuff on my disc is all about, but to filter it would take hours of reading up, and then starting all over when I clipped something vital.

I just want a core operating system, and then add stuff as I need it. I would have thought that Bill Gates would have made even more by this discrete packaging of product.

We all feel the same about people that infect, and / or suck data out of our computers. It should be made a very serious crime, because science and industry have never had a more important tool. But how much time should be spent in battle?

[Saab Dastard]

LR -

:D :D :D

LOL

:D :D :D

Welcome to the 21st century! Top marks for romance, nul points for reality.

Like everything that needs to be learnt - driving a car, flying an aeroplane etc. - you have to put in some effort to get from "I'll never be able to do this" to "what was all the fuss about"?

Computers ain't no different - doesn't matter whether it's a PC, a MAC, a Linux box, a UNIX box, a mainframe. The principles remain the same, the requirements are the same, the challenges are the same.

There were hackers and phreakers long before the PC and windows. If you want the benefits of accessing the global internet, you have to live with the problems - and if that means getting your head around security, then so be it.

If you want the convenience of driving, you've got to commit to learning how, getting your licence, paying insurance, paying for maintenance. Or hire a chauffeur.

I forecast a couple of years ago that it would not be long before private individuals would have to take out liability insurance of some kind to protect themselves from litigation when their unprotected PC was used as a zombie in an attack on some corporate sytem.

Already I have seen the first cases of individuals being held accountable for the use their PCs were put to - and ignorance was not considered a defense.

To operate a computer connected to the internet will soon require a license showing some degree of computer competence - the insurers are going to want some way of mitigating their risk, just like with drivers.

The point is fast approaching when the developed world becomes so reliant on the internet for communications, commerce, banking, etc. etc. that it would be simply catastrophic to have significant outage or attacks - what a target for terrorists and criminals. Every weak link is a potential target. That's you, that is! :eek:

SD

[Loose rivets]

That's you, that is!:sad:

Well, I agree that I look a little like this when I'm using Windows!



The car analogy is okay, but the fundamental principal of the need to delve into the inner workings just to use it, does stretch it a little. Some drivers, me included, can do almost any job on most cars. Most people just expect them to work. They achieve basic driving skills and hopefully stay out of trouble. If it's a good car it will only need routine maintenance, not a rebuild every few miles.

I don't believe that one should have to do more with windows than a little housekeeping. Fat chance with software that tries to be all things to all men.