2/9/2010 10:42:00 AM Living to post again: I was a hero to my PC Journey vs. Destination
Here I sit on top of Little Devils Tower near Harney Peak in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Notice I'm on my netbook. I soon posted the photo taken online — and almost just as quickly had friends on Facebook telling me how jealous they were. (But hey, they didn't have to climb up through and over the rocks to get there, nor did they have to find out the geocache up there was not available — drat!) While I didn't have a Verizon signal to hook up to the Internet as I climbed up (and up and up) through the rocky spires, I was reasonably sure the air card would hook a signal on top — and it did. I hauled the netbook in a daypack on my back, padded between tennis shoes, a jacket and some munchies. Netbooks, laptops and air cards have certainly made some wild places more immediately accessible to the "folks back home" who like to travel along as well.
OK. So I'm an outdoorsy person. You know that. But... did you also know I spend one heck of a lot of time on the computer? It's true.
If I'm inside I'm probably on a computer, be it my Asus netbook, Toshiba laptop or even the still-working (amazingly so!) 10-year-old Compaq desktop model.
Yes, the last one has been through a few changes, including memory upgrades I did myself, a hard drive replacement, the addition of a second hard drive, a disk drive replacement and even an illegal operating system installation by a technician. (Nope, I never asked for the last thing mentioned, and I did finally rectify the situation with a full-fledged purchase of Windows XP. After all, you can only stand seeing that pop-up asking, "Is your version of Windows genuine?" only so many times.)
I love-love-love(!) the netbook. It was something of a spur-of-the-moment purchase before a Thanksgiving trip to South Dakota in 2008. I bought it on my way out of town - and was easily talked into an air card when I discovered it meant I could get online wherever there was a Verizon signal (my carrier of choice, just due to the fact the company had a signal in most all the Midwestern places I travel).
The purchase was justified, I felt, when I was able to search online and find a campsite open at Custer State Park - complete with shower facilities open.
I've also been able to log a geocache find from a far-flung geographic location, as well as posting pictures on our newspaper Web site, www.bluffcountrynews.com ... or on our newspaper's Facebook page.
Recent awards
For example, I updated the Bluff Country News Group Facebook page with our six awards while at the Minnesota Newspaper Association (MNA) convention banquet in Bloomington Jan. 28 - and further updated it with a photo of the winners later that same night. You're now seeing the photos in our papers, but you could have seen them smack-dabbity-right-away if you were a "fan" of Bluff Country Newspaper Group on Facebook.
On a side note, I know it's supposed to be a sin to be proud of things like newspaper awards, but I think I can say we're quite pleased with being able to serve readers with stories, photos and ads that reach to the heart of the community. And, yes, it's especially sweet to get a pat on the back for the efforts we put forth. Also... feel free to grab any of us and say "thanks" or "congratulations" when you see us out and about. Or post on our Facebook page. We enjoy chatting with you on the topics near and dear to our hearts - YOU!
Back to computers, I've now been taking my netbook to all sorts of meetings over the past year. It works very well to take notes in the Microsoft Works program on it. I save those notes as a Word document with a ".doc" extension. Heck, I could even save them as a ".docx"
Then I send them by Yahoo mail to other accounts as needed. Voila! It's so handy - and I'm happy to no longer get cramps in my hand from writing out notes on paper. (Although I still can when required, rest assured.)
The netbook did something else for me; it let me know what I'd want in a laptop. After keeping my eyes open forever, I found a deal too good to pass up. I saw the computer advertised and ordered it within 15 minutes. I'd played with the "build your own computer" feature on so many online sites, I knew just what I wanted when I saw it.
I've been very pleased with the laptop, too, although it's heavy enough that I'd never want to take it to meetings - well, unless I had some need to use the built-in Web cam to somehow broadcast live. Computers are so amazing these days - and I feel I only know enough to be dangerous!
Catching viruses
Recently, I've gotten into some virus and Trojan horse problems, so let me share info on free software that works great. I had not been happy with one of the big name anti-virus programs, so when my subscription was up, I went with the free AVG anti-virus. It surely seems to do the trick.
At the newspaper convention, I had a very scary experience as I was awaiting a Twin Cities backpacking friend, who was going to stop at the reception preceding the awards banquet. Before she got there, my netbook flashed up some screen that announced a virus or worm or something - and it had numbers that were growing exponentially (in red, of course) to show how the infection was spreading... Panic!!
But I did not click on that screen, although it quite likely offered a solution to the problem by clicking and buying some program. Errrr... some supposed program. It took all the will I had to click the screen - which didn't look quite right - off, and to click like crazy on my AVG.
Then I just turned the computer off. I've since learned if something like this happens, that's one of the best things you can do with your PC - just shut it down, unplug the cord, whatever. Turn it OFF. That way you may prevent the problem from having time to get installed.
Next, I learned about a free program that works against malicious software, called Malwarebytes. Again, the free version should be fine for most people and their personal PCs. Malwarebytes found nothing on my netbook, ironically. It found four things on my laptop and nine on the desktop computer. Mind you, this is after thinking an anti-virus was catching everything. It quarantined and deleted the items.
Live and learn. My boss (and many other newspaper, as well as other diehards) would say, "Go with a Mac." But as I always say, "If there's a problem with my PC, at least I know where to find solutions and what to do... not so with a Mac."
I hope my little adventure into the non-pretty side of PCs will help you get yours set up as secure as you can. Meanwhile, I'll keep updating and sending photos to our Web sites. You better get signed up today, be you a Mac or a PC.
Lisa Brainard is the news editor for the Republican-Leader and Chatfield News. She writes for the Phillips Bluff Country Publishing group of newspapers, which also includes the Spring Grove Herald, Bluff Country Reader, News-Record, and Spring Valley Tribune. She can be reached at: lbrainard@bluffcountrynews.com. She also photographs many scenic landscapes in her travels near and far, in addition to taking numerous newspaper photos.
