Doing a search with keywords “ad-aware” and “spybot”, returned these gems:
It goes on for about 8 pages.
The theme is always the same. Computer behaves strangely lately, so ignorant person makes a post in GQ. Then, at least 20 people will reply, all of them saying the same thing: “Use spybot and ad-aware”.
No wonder why I don’t get any replies in my technical questions such as “What is a hydrostatic transmission drive” or “How do APCs brake”.
Maybe mods should gather all that advice on removing spyware and put it on a sticky. If somebody comes up with a new problem, this should be added to the sticky. If it is an old problem already covered, the thread should be deleted.
Well, I don’t know if the people involved are all that ignorant or pit-worthy, but I’ve also recently thought that a sticky would be a good idea. There’s a never-ending stream of these threads, and it’s pretty much always the same answer. If a mod agrees it’s a good idea, I’d be willing to put an FAQ together to save them the bother. OTOH I can see how a pile of stickies for recurring GQ questions would quickly get out of hand, so who knows.
We here at the SDMB are sorry that we’ve been spending so much time addressing the spyware problem, and ignoring your interesting questions. If I may attmpet redress:
What is a hydrostatic transmission drive?
This is an alternate term for the ‘Dynaflow’ transmission found in '50’s-era Buicks.
How do APCs brake?
Mostly by running into walls or other barriers. Occasionally the recoil of the turret-mounted guns may be used to aid deceleration.
If I want to know how to remove “OMG!1CoolsearchB4R” from explorer, I simply do a search in google, 9 times out of ten, someone has had the same problem. Some peoples kids.
Do you have any links explaining how it works? It seems that the same system is used for accelerating and braking in most heavy earth-moving machinery. I also think that APCs have hydrostatic transmissions too.
Well, I had a computer problem, used Adaware, Spybot AND Spy Sweeper and coudn’t solve it. I found out from an answer to a question a different poster asked that CW Shredder would get rid of it. Sure I could do a Google search but what if I don’t know the name of my specific spyware (I didn’t)? I would get 10,000,000 options for spy/adware. Where am I supposed to start? I wouldn’t have started a new post about it but it was very helpful to have this specific problem solved.
Different spyware is killed by different programs and new ones pop up all the time. What’s the big deal with sharing information to save some people some time?
Excellent idea Dog80
No trouble, Dog80. First, due to a design error in the 1950s Style Buick Cars, the spyware automatically downloads to your hydrostatic transmission drive. Once the spies are firmly entrenched in suburban middle America, they infiltrate your daily life. Yes, your neighbor or your mechanic or even your barber might be a wire-tapping pinko for the Red Menace. If you suspect your hydrostatic transmission drive of being infiltrated by Commies, contact Senator McCarthy immediately and download Spybot and Ad-aware.
Maybe because it is much harder to do a google search for those types of questions. Your questions are easily answered by typing in “How do hydrostatic transmissions work”, etc into Google. Simple. Some questions are not so easily researched without hours and hours of research- and sometimes that research is not possible without certain background knowledge. Thus a perfect question for the forum.
Try googling “Hydrostatic Drive”. What you will get is lots of web pages of agricultural and earth-moving machines manufacturers, that simply state that their products have a “hydrostatic drive”. There is no mention about how this system works.
Yup. I tried googling “How do hydrostatic transmissions work” and got a total of 3 hits. Two to lawn tractor message board, and one other that looked less promising. Tech stuff like you were looking for can be very hard to find.
Yeah, you gotta go through the links at the garden tractor site: http://simpletractors.com/service/hydros/hydraulic_systems.htm
I’m surprised that Dog80 couldn’t even follow simple instructions. If there’s one thing that we (you) should have learned from Cecil it’s that you occasionally gotta do some work when looking for something.
To be sure, I’ve posted my fair share of questions that haven’t gotten answered due to the spyware glut (I’m surprised my own recent spyware-related question didn’t make the list), so I’m all for remedying the situation, but I also understand that not everyone has the wherewithal to figure that stuff out. And of you’ve got spyware clogging your system, it could be impractical to search the forums. That said, if there’s one thing that we should have learned from Cecil it’s that you occasionally gotta do some work when looking for something.
The last thread I recall on this subject (or rather, “why do complete fuck-offs clog the board with stupid questions that five minutes of Google would solve?”) had the good answer, "because the range of knowledge here is so varied that in most cases someone will come along and add some extraneous information that turns out to be/lead to more interesting things than the OP.
I’ve been meaning to put up a sticky with the title:
Have a Computer Question ? Read This First.
Then in that thread, I’d like to explain Spybot, Adaware, LSPFix, hosts file, Zone Alarm, etc.
In that sticky, members may come in and post solutions to other common computer problems.
Point being, check the sticky first. IF the sticky doesn’t solve your problem, THEN start a thread in GQ. But there really needs to be reasonable effort from the user to try and fix his/her problem first, before starting a thread in GQ.
I’d really appreciate if members can help with this.
It didn’t sound harsh at all. If I’d actually cared about the answer to the question, I’d’ve dug around in the lawn tractor site, or more likely, come up with a better search string. Nothing harsh about that, it’s just what you’ve got to do if you want to find the answer for yourself.
Sometimes it’s easier just to ask in GQ, especially when the only search terms you can think of are million hit wonders like spyware, or crash, but even seemingly simple searches like “hydrostatic” can get tough if there’s lots of related, but useless, content, or if, God forbid, you want information about something few other people care about.
Just for luck (this is the pit after all) ->
In very high-powered vehicle applications, an all-mechanical drive system is bulky, inefficient and prone to failure. Basically there are two widely-used drive systems for these applications, which include railroad locomotives, construction machinery and large military vehicles: diesel (or gas-) electric, or hydraulic (also known as hydrostatic). In the former, the prime mover (usually a diesel engine) turns a generator that produces DC (sometimes AC) power for large electric motors driving each wheel or axle. In the latter, the prime mover drives a high-speed pump circulating hydraulic fluid under pressure. The circulating fluid in turn drives a hydraulic motor (basically a centrifugal ‘pump’ that is rotated by the fluid rather than vice-versa) at each wheel or axle.
Or… If your Microsoft system is still under warranty, and you are willing to wait on the phone for about an hour or so for a fine technicion from India or the Phillipines whose name is eerily American sounding to help you out, then do just that.
I have issues with that “one answer cures all” line that is stuck at the top of GQ. Because I had that same problem, with CoolWebSearch, and it did not completely work. The thick accented tech with the American sounding name guided me into my registry, after we updated Adaware and used it, where he instructed me to remove certain files not found by Adaware. I was just a few months late of warranty, which I believe last three years, so I paid 30 bucks.
No Problem. I’d also like to send a shoult out to my dog, Dog80, for being the guy who finally got those spyware questions relegated to their own little area of the board (also a shout out to Xash for putting the thing up).
