Moody Tuesday brings computer woes

It never fails. Bright and early on a post-holiday Tuesday morning, when I wanted nothing to do with anything even remotely resembling work, the meltdowns started lining up outside the hallowed halls of the world-famous Granese Institute of Technology.

For being a secret organization, quite a few people knew how to find us that day, and they were all armed with personal and business computing crises that required immediate solution. Naturally, each one was more important than all the rest, and each one had to be handled instantly.

People who work at supporting computer users know that everybody’s computer is the most important business tool or personal productivity device in the world, at least to them. When multiple maladies line up, the only fair thing to do is to take them in the order they arrive. That way, at least one person will be pleased. For users, it pays to call in advance and get your system to your favorite repair facility as quickly as possible when digital disaster strikes.

Fixing the blue screen of death  

Back at the Institute, it was an ugly crowd indeed. We had an arcane BSOD, (blue screen of death, a Windows failure) tons of spyware and viruses, all sorts of lost data, and assorted security issues. In the interest of fairness I played Euchre on Pogo for 10 minutes, then grabbed the computer that arrived first and connected it to a handy bank of human input devices and monitors.

It was clear that no work was going to get done today at someone’s store. The dreaded BSOD was laughing, taunting, and leering back at us with its unintelligible strings of numbers and advice to contact authorized service personnel. Who was I going to call, Bill Gates?

We did a bit of prodding and determined that the system had failed because of bad spots on the hard drive. An associate blamed a vibrating fan. I thought it might have been caused by overheating. Human error can also play a part. In any case, we needed to get it fixed right away.

A job for the experts

When you start facing inexplicable errors and potential data loss, seek out the services of a non-secret computer service organization in your area. When important information is at stake, do not attempt to fix it yourself if you do not possess the requisite skills.

What we normally choose to do in a situation like this is remove the drive from the host computer and place it in another system. Built specially for this process, that computer has inputs to allow other drives to be connected easily. It also contains our secret weapon for drive repair.

That, as you may have guessed, is Norton SystemWorks. While there are plenty of drive repair utilities on the market, in my experience this package, particularly the Norton Utilities module, is the best for accomplishing such tasks. If you want to be a hero, just resurrect a blown drive with a Norton Utilities session and watch the way users look at you in appreciative awe.

Once the drive is in the testing machine, we usually scan it for viruses first. When that has been managed, we turn to the Norton Utilities and run the time-honored Disk Doctor application. If Norton Disk Doctor can’t get your drive going, at least long enough to get your data off, you may be facing serious, even insoluble, recovery problems.

In addition to detecting and repairing disk issues that may cause those maddening blue screens, the standard and premier editions of Norton SystemWorks incorporate Norton AntiVirus to keep systems free from the plague of infestations that haunt the Internet. They can use existing resources to return the system to a prior state and can even fix software installations that have gone bad.  For a first line of defense, Norton SystemWorks has always been my choice.

Adding parental control

While I’m on the Norton bandwagon, I’d like to talk about a question that I get all the time from parents concerned about their children and the Internet. You probably already know that there are some truly shocking things to be seen and heard, either intentionally or accidentally, while surfing the World Wide Web. Chalk it up as the downside of the Information Age.

Generally, parents either find young users wandering into unsavory websites or want to prevent them from doing so before it inevitably occurs. Think back to when you were a kid and had that innate ability to unfailingly uncover the wrong thing at the wrong time. Now enhance that ability with the power of the Internet and think about the consequences.

There are plenty of programs available that allow parents to control the Internet activities of their youthful charges. Users of Norton Internet Security and the new Norton 360 packages can download parental control modules for their programs to allow them to strictly manage the sites that their children access.

The Norton Add On Pack is a no-charge enhancement that adds the parental control function, along with other powerful security modules, to your existing protection. The controls are easy to set up and hard to defeat, even with younger users who may be far more adept at Information Age issues than their parents.

In its simplest form, the process entails creating two accounts, one for adults and one for children, each with password protection. The adult user fills out a simple form determining which websites to block – for example, sites featuring firearms, violence and adult content. When the children log onto the Internet, they can still access appropriate resources, but are prevented from connecting to prohibited material. Adults who know the password can log into their account and have full access, if desired.

Even the most ardent technophobes should be able to install these protections. If difficulties arise, plenty of support is available on the company’s website at www.symantec.com . This kind of software should be installed on any computer with Internet access that can be used by children.

After a couple more Euchre breaks and a few system tweaks, everything was back to normal. The BSOD had been banished. A dead server was miraculously revived by cycling its uninterruptible power supply, and a suddenly slow computer had gone through virtual detox and regained its former zip. By mid-afternoon we were back to the fun stuff, playing excitedly with a deluxe new 32-inch monitor with wireless connection before reluctantly turning it over to its new owner.

In case you were wondering, I have no personal or professional association with Symantec, the publishers of the Norton products. I simply find those products useful and reliable tools to help keep things running smoothly. Preventive maintenance is always easier than emergency damage control. Keeping after your systems can go a long way toward avoiding time and money wasting repairs. If you have a maintenance tip or trick that you want to share, e-mail me at granese {at} juno.com.