Well it seems that with all our help you should be able to sort out your machine! I know a huge fuss is made over hackers getting into computer systems, but now you see why they do it. The internet is dominated by a computer program/s and a company that has put out a flawed product and expects everyone to suck the big one themselves if something is wrong with it. I have always used programs that have nothing to do with the big corporate softeware giants and have never had spyware, virus or other problems (touch wood ;-)) that sound as bad as yours...as for my wifes advice 'format c' and use firefox!!! Get someone in who knows what they are doing to fix the problems by reformatting your hard drive, don't let them install any unecessary programs...like IE. Use firefox and get the same person to set it up so you don't pick up extra junk, use the firewall, adblock etc. Finally, be very careful on which links you choose to look at, there are so many bogus ones out there. As for people complaining about ads...what ads? I don't see them...Yay for firefox!!! Wazzimodo

Ellie if you only have anti virus you are at risk. I would suggest you get Malwarebytes and SUPERantispyware, both of which are free. These require you to manually update and run scans but they only need doing every one to 3 weeks depending on how conscientious/nervous you are. I never leave my external hard drive connected to the computer. This is both for safety and economy. Connected it is open to attack and also runs all the time. If you have a factory built computer your power supply might be taxed to a degree unless your external drive is self powered. Most today are not self powered I believe. You wrote: If I can't bring my computer up ( that is called a crash or a blue screen) I install my recovery discs first. The CD drive works even if the computer has crashed. There is no real answer to this untill the catastrophic event occurs. You might get clues for days before the event to warn you. There would also be valuable clues in the event of a blue screen of death from the error message displayed. (BSOD) I assume you mean Best Buy replaced a defective hard drive with a new one? What was written on the labels of the disks from BB? That would be a clue as to what they are for. As I noted before recovery disks allow you to take your computer back to the new state it was in when purchased, a backup created on your external drive will return the computer to the state at the time of that backup. Any work saved in between would be lost. You can store your data on the computer itself and back it up to the external drive for protection. Always a good plan to have data you do not wish to lose saved in 2 locations Outlook is generally a part of Microsoft Office although I understand it can be bought as a stand alone program - quite expensive too. One would presume Cobian Backup came with your Go_Flex drive. It is good that you ask these questions but be sure to allow yourself to enjoy the benefit these things can bring you. A computer is only as good as the person sat in front of the keyboard. Urlee and Cat_ky I have no issues with anyone owning more than one computer, I have 6 and all working yet I live alone. But to purchase another computer "just in case" seems rather more than odd to me and a complete waste of money for an item that keeps becoming out of date with alarming regularity. Don expressed it very wisely I think.

Hi samtom, If you are being redirected to sites that you are not intentionally clicking on, that is a strong possibility that it is due to the Redirect virus. Please follow the advice of zep516 above and have a professional that is trained to remove malware help you. This virus changes registry values and DOES NOT specifically target Google. Google just happens to be the Search Engine of choice by more people than any other search engine, though it does target Firefox. You can join LandzDown and the trained team of experts will be more then happy to help you. I have provided the link below. Once you are infection free, you really need to think about updating IE6 to at least IE8. IE6 is so very outdated and is prone to infection. Here is a link that might be useful: LandzDown Forum

Sensational post, Len - just the sort of thing I'm looking for :) To answer your questions/observations: Q0. first up where in qld is alabama? if i might ask. A. Its a little known suburb of Rocky :) OK, I tried to change my preferences, and was rewarded with an error from the web server. C'est la Vie. Q1. plant data base, i reckon a good data base is going to take a lot of room on a web site that is if you are going to list the many plants that we can grow here in the sunshine state. so adding plants growths in stages will make that so much larger. for the main i think viewers will be looking for identifiacation and planting and care help. A. I agree that the majority of users will want the text relating to plant culture, but I also envisage providing *links* from the main database entry to allow them to view photos of the plant at different stages of its life. Personally, I find it frustrating trying to envisage the 'true' size of many plants from the label, and the '12-month' estimate is something I think many people would value (granted, conditions and growth rates vary enormously, but I think you know where I'm going with this). Q2.. sounds like a lot of work to manage A2. I absolutely agree, and its part of my reluctance to make this available to the outside world. There are a broad range of issues relating to security that I havent even touched on, but that goes with the territory. Removing the need to maintain all but the most basic membership data (name, username, location and email address) will minimise my concerns in this area, but I dont want to spend my days weeding out SPAM etc - hopefully, we are dealing with a better class of people :) Q3.. for me gardeners are well serviced with forums not long ago an aussie garden forum dissapeared due to lack of interest if i can put it that way. you are in a native plants forum here and it isn't over patronised a good crowd here though. A3. My broader aim is to help gardeners in their attempt to fuse natives with exotics - correct plant choice, companion planting and so on. This wont amuse the local provenance diehards, but it may just lessen the resistance to something with the word 'Native' in the masthead, and we might see more lillipillies and Austormyrtus alongside Gardenias and Camellias throughout Oz. I cant predict whether the site will have a longterm future - I can only put it out there and hope that people like yourself are prepared to give it a go. Q4.. faq's yes they are always handy for all gardeners but they need to be relevent to the point answers and the search engine for the faq's need to lead people to the answer they may be looking for many search engines like this for me just don't hit the mark unless you type in exactly the topic line as the author of the faq's has put it. A4. The whole search engine thing is a big topic - you can customise Google to have it restrict its search to your site, and I'm confident that...