I feel like I have been resurrected. I bought a new computer on Sunday, nothing fancy, it's an HP with 4 GB Ram and a 1TB hard drive and an AMD processor. It was on sale at Staples for $329.00, the regular price was $429.00. Many thanks to the BITOG'ers who replied to my earlier post about the root kit that got on my old computer.
This one here is super nice, it is really fast, and very easily runs all the programs I use. I only do internet and email, and I play chess and a few other traditional games and old-school 80's video games online, and I use Itunes. I had tried to get away from Itunes, but I just can't find an alternative that I like. I tried Songbird and Media Monkey, even put them on this new computer, they just didn't do the trick for me..
I had trouble with Itunes on this computer, I downloaded both the full and stripped down verisons of Itunes and it worked fine either way, except for one thing: it can be super slow to import a CD into the library. I am talking about a half hour to import a standard 12 or 13 song store-bought pre-recorded CD. I have spent the last few days since Sunday reading and researching online about the slow import problem all over the internet, there are thousands of others with the same problem. Some formats will import super fast, like a burned CD in MP3 format, and I bought the new Shinedown album today from the Itunes store (an outstanding record, by the way if you like good rock music, best new album I have heard in probably the last 2 years)..The Shinedown album imported in just over a minute. Some other cd's will import faster than others, so I just decided to live with it if they are slow. It's an Apple problem, not a problem here on my end. Maybe Apple will fix it with an update some time soon, but I expect they are busy and more concerned with Ipads, Iphones and all of that right now. They did not write Itunes for Windows, anyway.
Anyway I am back online now, it is good to not be trying to research the Itunes problem now. This new computer has the Norton Internet Security program on it, I added MWB and Hitman Pro, both have free trials of the full paid version right now, and I have had no trouble with any of it. When my free introductory Norton subscription ends in May I am buying the paid Norton version, it has already kept me off of malicious websites just since I bought this new computer. It even alerted me to the same malicious website where I picked up that root kit, it was Brothersoft.com, where I went to download the Izarc zip file application, when I was doing the stripped Itunes version of Itunes on my old computer. I am running the full version of Itunes now, it is not causing any resource, memory or other problems. I can even be listening to my Itunes library and surf the net at the same time without the song skipping. I had a real bad problem with that on my old XP machine.
It is good to be done trying to solve the Itunes problem and reading about antivirus comparisons. I know some don't like Norton, some do, but it is the only AV I have seen work and provide actual tangible results. It doesn't slow the computer down at all, either, I am amazed at the speed of this new HP. I found that the Revo Uninstaller Pro made it super easy to get rid of the bloat ware that came with the new computer, it also helped me with the Itunes problems. Revo has a free trial of the Pro version now too.
Anyway I am back online normally now..Just need to finish my Itunes play lists and build my Internet bookmarks list again.
One other thing - many thanks to those who suggested I run Chrome on this new computer. Chrome is awesome! I really like its features much better than IE, and it is said to be more secure, it is a lot easier and faster to navigate the web with Chrome..
Thanks again for all of the help I have received here..I find more reliable info on computers and pretty much anything else I need here on BITOG than I ever do on 90% of Google searches.
This one here is super nice, it is really fast, and very easily runs all the programs I use. I only do internet and email, and I play chess and a few other traditional games and old-school 80's video games online, and I use Itunes. I had tried to get away from Itunes, but I just can't find an alternative that I like. I tried Songbird and Media Monkey, even put them on this new computer, they just didn't do the trick for me..
I had trouble with Itunes on this computer, I downloaded both the full and stripped down verisons of Itunes and it worked fine either way, except for one thing: it can be super slow to import a CD into the library. I am talking about a half hour to import a standard 12 or 13 song store-bought pre-recorded CD. I have spent the last few days since Sunday reading and researching online about the slow import problem all over the internet, there are thousands of others with the same problem. Some formats will import super fast, like a burned CD in MP3 format, and I bought the new Shinedown album today from the Itunes store (an outstanding record, by the way if you like good rock music, best new album I have heard in probably the last 2 years)..The Shinedown album imported in just over a minute. Some other cd's will import faster than others, so I just decided to live with it if they are slow. It's an Apple problem, not a problem here on my end. Maybe Apple will fix it with an update some time soon, but I expect they are busy and more concerned with Ipads, Iphones and all of that right now. They did not write Itunes for Windows, anyway.
Anyway I am back online now, it is good to not be trying to research the Itunes problem now. This new computer has the Norton Internet Security program on it, I added MWB and Hitman Pro, both have free trials of the full paid version right now, and I have had no trouble with any of it. When my free introductory Norton subscription ends in May I am buying the paid Norton version, it has already kept me off of malicious websites just since I bought this new computer. It even alerted me to the same malicious website where I picked up that root kit, it was Brothersoft.com, where I went to download the Izarc zip file application, when I was doing the stripped Itunes version of Itunes on my old computer. I am running the full version of Itunes now, it is not causing any resource, memory or other problems. I can even be listening to my Itunes library and surf the net at the same time without the song skipping. I had a real bad problem with that on my old XP machine.
It is good to be done trying to solve the Itunes problem and reading about antivirus comparisons. I know some don't like Norton, some do, but it is the only AV I have seen work and provide actual tangible results. It doesn't slow the computer down at all, either, I am amazed at the speed of this new HP. I found that the Revo Uninstaller Pro made it super easy to get rid of the bloat ware that came with the new computer, it also helped me with the Itunes problems. Revo has a free trial of the Pro version now too.
Anyway I am back online normally now..Just need to finish my Itunes play lists and build my Internet bookmarks list again.
One other thing - many thanks to those who suggested I run Chrome on this new computer. Chrome is awesome! I really like its features much better than IE, and it is said to be more secure, it is a lot easier and faster to navigate the web with Chrome..
Thanks again for all of the help I have received here..I find more reliable info on computers and pretty much anything else I need here on BITOG than I ever do on 90% of Google searches.
