Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Choices

Apparently, I have made a good second choice in anti-virus software for Laurae’s computer. My first decision, to use McAfee, was a disaster. Bloated software that did a gazillion things was not what was needed and the performance really suffered. I tried a dozen little tweaks to improve how it worked, but in the end I had to admit that none of those were going to help.

And getting rid of the software was no picnic either. Laurae tried every phone number on the McAfee site after her e-mail was ignored. (“We’ll get back to you within 24 hours”…not!) It took her at least an hour to cancel the sale and get her money back.

After removing the software, the computer ran fine again but I needed to find some kind of anti-virus software for it. I searched through download.com and found Zone Alarm, a program that I had used a long time ago as a firewall. (It was free at the time) It was only $20, a third of what McAfee wanted and so far it’s doing a great job. The computer runs as fast as it ever has.

Speaking of things technical; I just received a note from Amazon.com and they tell me that they are pretty sure that the original shipment is lost in the mail. (Gee! You think so?) And they are shipping my order again… So my web page development for the Plant Barn is still on hold. But, I’m tracking this order on-line from the very day it leaves the Amazon warehouse. Not that it will stop the order from being lost again; I’m doing it just because it’s such a cool thing to do.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:31 AM

    Thanks for the tip. I will look at Zone Alarm for my home PC. I have McAfee and the last update slowed my machine to a crawl and now it tries to "help me with my searching google by rating everything on the page....HELP....get this thing off me! I am ready to get rid of it and find something else.

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  2. I find it amazing that so many software companies won't spend the time and money to let "real" users test their software on "real" computers. I shouldn't be surprised though...that was a common complaint of mine when we were developing our estimating software. I was supposed to test it and I always had the latest and greatest computer, while the estimators were stuck with whatever the managers allowed them to have. And since most managers were technophobic, the computers were less than current.

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  3. Anonymous2:56 PM

    Well I was on Amazon and they have this "come on" the golden box of deals. I happen to look in there today for me and Zone Alarm was in there for $7.99. I hardly ever look at the deals, but for some reason today, I did. Anyway, I ordered it and with my free shipping (I am a Prime customer) it is a deal. Have to wait 2 days to get it however.

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  4. Darn!

    I just looked at my "Golden Box" and it was in there.

    I've never looked in there before...I guess I had better do it more often.

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