Thank you very much to all contributors to thwe previous thread.

I've now pulled it all together and passed it over to TMF


The Fool.com. board has a useful FAQ section:
http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=15107767

Now, anything they can do, we can do better!! So, this is the UK sooper-dooper “Help with this Blasted Computer” tips section. It's compiled totally from suggestions offered by many Fools, so it's all good stuff, but please do bear in mind that sites change or fall by the wayside, such is the nature of the internet. So, no guarantees, do your own research, look both ways before crossing the road, etc!!!

Useful utilities:

Useful series of articles previously published in the Daily Telegraph.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected?ac=004507019425357&rtmo=0xxGibrq&atmo=0xxGibrq&pg=/etc/iecon.html

If you don't have a Windows or other boot disc, you can download one from here. (And try not to lose it again!!!)
http://www.bootdisk.com/ and also
http://startdisk.com/

Improved clipboard functionality – might have helped when drafting this list?? One Fool in particular (hokusai2908) speaks very highly of this
http://www.thornsoft.com/

Information re the 'dreaded' cookies.
http://www.cookiecentral.com/html
http://www.howstuffworks.com/cookie.htm

Drivers available, for Windows, not your local mini-cab firm!
http://www.driverzone.com/index.html
http://www.windrivers.com/
http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/
http://www.compgeeks.com/cgi-bin/driver_disp.asp
http://www.xargle.demon.co.uk/dover/links.html
www.drivers.com

Oft recommended on this board. Leak test your PC and get information about firewalls.
http://grc.com/

Editing your registry. Not for the inexperienced or the faint of heart.
http://www.regedit.com/

Popular utility for compressing/decompressing files.
http://www.winzip.com/

A PC firewall, free to personal users. Again, oft recommended by those on this board who know about these things.
http://www.zonelabs.com/

All about partitioning your Hard Disk. The programme, Partition Magic, is oft recommended by posters on this board.
http://www.powerquest.com/products/index.html
http://www.smartcomputing.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles%2F2000%2Fs1109%2F33s09%2F33s09%2Easp&guid=d6hy3xt0&searchtype=0&WordList=PowerQuest

All about firewire high speed connections for your PC
http://www.michael-amorose.com/firewire/
http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/1394/




Web Page Design. Not something that I've done myself, so I can't tell you a lot about these links, but they've all come from posts to the “Building your Web Page” board.

http://www.bignosebird.com/
http://www.mcfedries.com/books/cightml/
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/
http://www.irfanview.com/
http://www.opera.com/
http://www.mcfedries.com/
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/
http://www.trainingtools.com/
http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/
http://www.wsabstract.com/
http://www.coolhomepages.com/
http://www.idocs.com/tags/


General

Comprehensive site with tips about using Excel
http://www.cpearson.com/excel.htm

Learn about Computers
http://www.smartcomputing.com/
http://www.mcfedries.com/

I quote 'We provide easy, plain-English information on computers that other sites just assume you already know'
(http://www.pcmech.com/about.htm).

Learn Visual basic
http://maths.sci.shu.ac.uk/units/vpl/notes/appendix.html
http://www.vbsquare.com
http://rookscape.com/vbgaming/
http://members.dencity.com/dx4vb/tutorials/ddrawadvanced.html

Networking
http://www.wown.com

Windows Help (95, 98, ME, 2000 etc)
http://windows-help.net

To identify file extensions
http://extsearch.com/


Internet, etc.

Bits and pieces about cable modems
http://www.broadband-help.com/home.asp
http://www.ntl.co.uk/cablemodems/default.asp
http://www.cable-modems.org/
http://www.howstuffworks.com/cable-modem.htm
http://cable-dsl.home.att.net/

Useful sites for finding your perfect ISP
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/
http://www.net4nowt.com/

A list of web based email providers
http://www.hotmail.com
http://www.netaddress.com
http://mail.yahoo.com
http://www.postmaster.co.uk
http://www.talk21.com

Store your bookmarks from Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator offline. Save a lot of hassle in the event of system failure.

http://www.mybookmarks.com


Hardware howdos

I've used this myself. It's part of a series dealing with replacing your Hard Disk. This particular thread describes how to copy completely from one HD to another. It's good.
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/guides/hdinstall/

?Self-explanatory?
http://www.howcomputerswork.net/

Modems
http://modemhelp.org
http://bandwidthplace.com

For copying music tracks from LP to CDR
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~abcomp/lp-cdr.htm
http://www.cdrwcentral.com/index2.html

Burning Audio cdr's
http://hjem.get2net.dk/perjak/BurningLove.html#14
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~abcomp/lp-cdr.htm

About motherboards
http://support.intel.com/support/motherboards/
http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/guides/motherboard/

Can't remember what this is about!!!
http://www.offtek.co.uk/faq.html

Motherboards, BIOS guides, general Hardware, etc.
http://home.hccnet.nl/a.s.kerkmeester/flash.htm
http://eddie.cis.uoguelph.ca/~joel/bootblock.html
http://www.gw.total-web.net/~dperr/pc_hdwe.htm
http://www.tomshardware.com
http://www.motherboards.org/spot.html
http://www.ping.be/bios
http://www.dansdata.com/

Cable pin outs
http://ic.doma.kiev.ua/hwb/menu_Connector.html

All kinds of info – mainly hardware related
http://www.pcin.net/help/articles/index.shtml

Some useful threads from the HWTBC board, which is always a mine of information.

OK, I'm blowing my own trumpet here, but this is one of mine!!!!!
http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=6230768

To do with something called 'Javascript'??
http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=6572855

About CD Writers
http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=6565880

Changing the Hard Drive
http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=6477139

DLL Archives – whatever they are!!!
http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=6549409

Hacking & Firewalls
http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=6574005

Hints for tidying your Favourites folder
http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=6545728

Hard Disk partitioning
http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=6532374

Space Bar Problems
http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=6540629

Networking
http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=6581063

How to publish web pages
http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=6419665


Finally and rather tongue in cheek, as one Fool (PeteF1) put it, if all else fails read the instructions
http://www.microsoft.com/

http://search.support.microsoft.com/kb/c.asp?fr=0&SD=GN&LN=EN-US



Keep the Foolish faith

Geoff