Ridgerunner Consulting

Many of my clients use AVG, a free antivirus published by Grisoft. If you've been getting notices that your copy is out of date, please go here:

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5#avg-anti-virus-free and download this file:
download this file:

avg75free_432a904.exe

Choose "Save" and choose the desktop as the place to save it to.

When it's done downloading, it'll ask you again if you want to run it, say yes.

Grisoft also offers one of the best antispyware options around, AVG Anti-Spy. The 30-day free trial can be downloaded from http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5#avg-anti-spyware-free
The free trial runs on a schedule and downloads its own updates, but only for 30 days. It's great for cleaning up problems with your computer, though.

Microsoft is taking some small steps to protect Windows-using consumers from ad- & spy-ware with Windows Defender, a light always-on system protector. Go here to download:

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

http://www.tigerdirect.com/static/html/10-tips-healthy-PC-article.html from www.TigerDirect.com, a great source for computers, parts and accessories.

As long as I'm making recommendations...

Please don't buy Dell printers - you have to buy the ink through Dell and it's very expensive. I know the offers they show you while you pick out a computer are tempting, but they're not worth it!

Thank you.

Nice list of things in your house that should have surge protectors at minimum by the folks at the surge protector/battery back up company APC.

APC - Are You Protected? Common devices in the home typically at risk

Please don't buy a Vista computer yet. I got to play with a brand new Toshiba Satellite with an Intel Core processor and 1gb of RAM this week. It was pokey. In addition, Vista was annoying as this Mac commercial cutely demonstrates.

It's still possible to find WinXP computers (my friend David Castro at TigerDirect will be happy to help you - 888-358-4437). You can get a great deal on a WinXP computer and be confident that Microsoft will support it for the next seven years (until 2014). I wouldn't advise planning to keep your computer seven years - five is a more reasonable estimate for the life of hardware.

So, if you have to buy a computer right now, buy XP. Don't bother getting hardware that supposedly will allow you to upgrade to Vista - the hardware will change rapidly in the next two years because what's out there right now can't quite handle Vista.

I worked on a laptop recently that was built at the very start of the WinXP era. It's struggling. XP's hardware requirements have increased since it came out. I could only upgrade the laptop's RAM slightly, from 256mb to 384, which helped, but XP is still struggling on that computer.

In this post about the origin of the name "Ridgerunner Consulting," I posted a link to the book's amazon.com page. I got an email yesterday from Kevin Coolidge, owner of From My Shelf bookstore in Wellsboro

Heidi

I found your website through WNBT and I see you got your idea for Ridgerunner Consulting from Jim's book. We sell Flatlanders & Ridgerunners here at From My Shelf Books. Actually, we helped get it back into print. Instead of a link to Amazon, how about a link to a local ridgerunner's store?

Kevin Coolidge
From My Shelf Books
www.wellsborobookstore.com

So, here ya go, Kevin.

Kevin & Kasey's store can also be found on Facebook (or Kasey Cox's profile) and their blog is at
http://frommyshelf.blogspot.com/.

As long as I am linking to Wellsboro business friends... here's Wild Asaph Outfitters. Liz & Jennie are real outdoor pros. You should go talk to them.