Several weeks ago I wrote about how we planned our summer vacation online.  I wrote about how I Googled for information about where we were going.  This year it was St. Augustine, Florida.  Well the trip has been over for several weeks; we are back and had a great time.

On returning, I was going to write a column about using online mapping programs.  However, Jessie P. (yes the same one from last week) told me that she thought I would mention her favorite online travel planner, “Trip Advisor” (www.tripadvisor.com).  I hadn’t intended on it, but after her urging I looked around the site. I felt that I should tell you about it and skip the maps for now.

Trip Advisor has a lot of information for travelers.  The really interesting part is that it is given by other travelers…not by the tourist department or the hotels and attractions themselves.  So I would think that would lend more credibility to the information given.

It appears to have information for most anywhere around the world.  I checked out the St. Augustine information and found several hotels that were priced lower than the best deal I had found at another online site.  I would like to have known about Trip Advisor before our trip as I found a little better price for the hotel where we actually stayed.  As usual that makes me a day late and a dollar short.  Oh well, there is always next year.

Tourists like you and I write reviews about the hotels.  It did make me laugh a little when I read reviews about the hotel we stayed in.  A couple of people complained about the Comfort Inn regarding the service and conditions; we found both to be exceptional.  To me, that just makes it more “real” since you can’t make everyone happy all of the time.

There were other areas of Trip Advisor where you could check out Flights, Attractions, Deals, Maps, etc.  Of course my favorite thing to investigate was Dining.  The site rated the restaurants in the area from #1 - #87 (why 87?).  The ratings came from other travel guides and actual diners.  I discovered that the place everyone in the local area advised us to eat, and we didn’t, was rated #3. The highest rated restaurant we did eat in turned out to be #16.

Oh well, we really enjoyed it will have to revisit St. Augustine another time.  There are 85 more places to eat that I haven’t tried yet!

Jessie P. wanted to know if she needed to go buy anti-virus software or if there were free application(s) that could be obtained online for a new computer.  There are the two big names, McAfee and Norton, which are both excellent packages.  However, the more experience I have with their newer versions the “bloated” they seem to be getting.

By “bloated” I mean they can noticeably slow down your computer.  They are very secure but sometimes I believe they are just too complex for most users.  Also, some commercial programs have a tendency to overprotect you by not allowing some programs to work properly.

Before I get started I have a warning for you…there is no perfect product today for total virus, spyware and or malware protection.  You still have to be smart.

Be smart by not opening any email attachments even from friends/relatives unless you are expecting something.  Also don’t open email from anyone you don’t know.  Next, stay away from sites that promote illegal or questionable activities (they may be going to get you too).  Regularly update your spyware, antivirus etc. software.  If you are on a high-speed, fulltime connection make sure you are running a firewall, which may already be in your router.  Software firewalls are usually very bloated.  Always update your Windows’ files; regularly, automatically is best.

And now one that will make me some enemies…make sure you don’t give users full rights to your computer if you aren’t sure of their intentions.  For instance, many times teenagers, who are usually advanced users, tend to go places they should avoid and download all types of apps which can be stuffed full of cyber-gremlins which may be destructive or unsecure for your system.

These are just a few ideas, look around the net for more.

Now onto the freebies!

For virus protection go to Avast.com and download “Avast! 4 Home Edition”.  This is highly rated antivirus software that I have used successfully for several years.

Go to microsoft.com and search for “Windows Defender“.  WD detects and removes known spyware from your computer.  The software is automatically updated when you update windows so you don’t have to worry about that too much.

Last, but not least there is Ad-Aware SE Personal edition (lavasoftusa.com).  Ad-Aware will help guard against spyware getting into your system.

All of these are good and will run quietly in the background; however, I suggest you run them yourself from your Start Menus just to be on guard.  Also, as I have said here earlier and about a million other times, update, update, update.  OK, 1,000,003.

Well, my world did a little flip-flop this week.  I was going to write a column about my return from vacation and the mapping system I used to get there, do a little traveling around and return home.  However, the Wednesday after returning home I ended up at Rockingham Memorial Hospital for a three day visit.

I won’t get into all the details but let’s just say that I woke up very early in the morning with a horrific, intense stomach pain which didn’t quit for many hours.  Now, I have never had a baby, but let me tell you, if this pain was anything like that, earth’s population would be greatly diminished if it were left up to me. 

Now the point of the column.  I found out that I needed to have a laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Wow!  Big words!  So, after returning home I wanted to find all the information about the surgery that I could.  What I did was go to Google.com and type “laproscopic gal bladder removal” and hit enter.  It immediately came back and wrote, “Did you mean: laparoscopic gall bladder removal?” It caught my two misspelled words.  I clicked that link.

That link showed me that there were approximately 479,000 links to that subject.  Me, being kind of simple minded, clicked on the first of those links.  That link took me to FamilyDoctor.org and I immediately noticed that “gall bladder” was actually “gallbladder”.  I went and checked a couple of the other sites too and they all agreed, so, HA HA Google didn’t catch all my errors!

I then found that it is actually called “laparoscopic cholecystectomy” as I stated before.  Well I got to read more about gallbladder removal than I had ever known and probably more than I want to know.  I saw pictures of ugly little gallbladders and incisions (just like mine).  I really appreciate modern medicine.

So, as usual, using the internet you can find more information than you can imagine on any subject.  Just give it a try.

Enough of my adventures.  But, before I go, I really want to thank the nurses in 500, East for the great help and care they provided me last week.  And the doctors of Harrisonburg Surgical Associates for the great job they did.  Now if I could just get rid of the slight pains that don’t allow me to sit at my computer for more than 20 minutes before taking a break, that would be great!

I received an email from S. Smith recently and she said, “I bought an external hard drive for backing up my files.  I have finally gotten around to plugging it in and using it (much easier than I supposed).  Now I need to know which files to backup.”  She wondered about which programs, documents, folders, etc. to backup.

First off, with the prices of portable/external hard drives dropping so significantly you can’t afford not to get one if you need to backup data.  I just checked at TigerDirect.com and found a respectable 120GB external hard drive for $39.99.  That is really a deal.  I only have 100GB of storage on my home computer and that is made up of three separate drives; a 60GB, 25GB and a 15GB drive.

So the storage space is there and available.  Then the reader asked what files or programs should be backed up and the easiest way to do the backups.
 
Well for a simple backup you should select any files that you have created.  These would most likely be anything in your “My Documents” folder.  These would be files like your tax returns, letters you have written, communications for your scout troop, documents for your office and especially all of your family, vacation photos, etc.

All of your programs should have an installation CD(s) which you will use to reinstall the software whenever you need to in the future.  If you just backup your programs’ file folders they will not run when you restore them, or at least the larger more advanced programs won’t.  When a program is installed it creates files many places throughout your computer along with making edits to your computer’s registry.  If you don’t know what the registry is that’s OK as you probably shouldn’t be messing with it anyway, but it is important to making your computer and all software work. 

Now backups can be done by taking all of your files and compressing them into one large file.  I don’t care for that since if you need just one of the files it can be very complicated to retrieve it.  With so much storage space available today I just like to copy all of the files I need to save to another drive.

I have found an extremely good program made by Microsoft called, “SyncToy”.  It will walk you through the setup to back up exactly what files you need.  It can be downloaded for free from the MS website.  I started to type the URL here but it is over 100 characters long so just Google for it using, “Microsoft Synctoy” and it will be the first page that comes up.