Advice on setting up this old/new computer for my Brother?

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RockingChair
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2011/01/21 14:27:47 (permalink)

Advice on setting up this old/new computer for my Brother?


   My brother is going to finally get internet soon, and he asked me to help him setup this computer he has.

Here's the thing, the computer he has is my old computer.

It's basically Window's XP w/1024 memory.  Nothing fancy, but what I am adding to it is a Tascam US-122L interface.

I purchased the US-122L a while back but It wasn't what I expected at the time so I never used it. It seems to be working fine, and sounds great. I use a Toneport KB37 on my PC, which I am more than happy with.

Anyway, This PC is going to have Music Creator 4, and the Tascam US-122L, and only 1024 MB's. Sorry we ain't rich, we just have what we have to work with.

I was thinking about VST's and such that are free, I added pretty much the standards or at least the best I could find, meaning "Dig, Red Skull, Big, Vogeno Freebies".

I've optimized this pc according to everything I've read about. "Honestly this freaking thing is ticking me off because it's running faster and better than my own PC, but I should say that is until you open more than one window".

Any advice or thoughts or what else I should add? For now all he will have is MC4/Tascam US-122L and the VST's I added and A Microphone I'm going to give him to use.

All he has for now is an acoustic guitar, and a very nice one I should add. I'm thinking a microphone might be all he needs, for now that is.

I'm setting this up on my internet connection right now to save time with all the updating and such, so that when he get's his internet connection he wont have to wait around for all the updating XP etc.... and stuff.

Lot's to think about with this setup, I know it takes money to make things work better, but it's been my experience it doesn't take money to make things work better sometimes. Only Knowledge.

That's why I am asking :

It seems to be working freaking awesome, not sure if I should pursue anymore tweaks, but keep in mind, my brother has never had high speed internet, so I kinda held back on the tweaks for basic browsing and such.


" Any thoughts on what I might have or could do to tweak this PC to make it better"?

Bobby

post edited by RockingChair - 2011/01/21 14:34:10

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10 Replies Related Threads

    RockingChair
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    Re:Advice on setting up this old/new computer for my Brother? 2011/01/21 14:32:21 (permalink)
    Dang, I hate TYPO erra's!

    #2
    mgh
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    Re:Advice on setting up this old/new computer for my Brother? 2011/01/21 14:33:44 (permalink)
    anti-virus - i'd recommend either ms security essentials or avast (both are free)
    wave editor/mp3 convertor - either audacity or wavosaur (both are free)
    firefox/chrome - faster and less security flaws than IE (both are free)

    free plugs -acmebargig amp sims, bootsies plugs (varietyofsound)...i guess the Strummie vst thread will sort you out there

    hardware -another 1 gb of ram will cost you about $20 (if that) and you may even be able to get it free with someone throwing away a pc or work upgrading, and will make a massive difference as to how much the pc can do before it starts to choke.

    Memorare debut album 'Philistine' available now http://blackwoodproductio...philistine-digipack-cd
    #3
    RockingChair
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    Re:Advice on setting up this old/new computer for my Brother? 2011/01/21 14:39:16 (permalink)

      Thanks MGH, I should have mentioned I've already got him covered on the Antivirus/Spyware stuff.  I went with Comodo Internet Securty, I know opinions vary on that.

    Honestly speaking, there is a new program you can d/l from source forge called Hazard Shield and that thing works great IMO. It's found some things others haven't, although it's still in beta, for a simple on demand scanner it's helped me out a lot so far.

    I'll keep that in mind about the Acmebargig, that's the first things I thought of for guitar.

    I've got to be careful with what I add plug in wise, because too many can make things confusing.

    My brother has no idea as to what you can do with recording and a PC yet, heck he's never even heard what I've done.

    It's going to be interesting to see how this all works out either way.

    Thanks,

    Bobby


    #4
    Fog
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    Re:Advice on setting up this old/new computer for my Brother? 2011/01/21 14:55:23 (permalink)
    open office / ccleaner  / irfanview to name a few thing

    all off www.filehippo.com

    tal is a good lot of vst's
    http://kunz.corrupt.ch/?Products

    but kvr has shedloads

    if you could boost the mem to 1.5 -2gb you'd notice a bit of difference though IMHO

    #5
    Tap
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    Re:Advice on setting up this old/new computer for my Brother? 2011/01/21 15:54:43 (permalink)
    +1 Firefox, Openoffice, CCleaner.  Add Spybot as well!

    MC4 - M-Audio FW410 / Behringer UCA202 - Fender Strat / Jazzmaster / DuoSonic / Washburn / Peavy Foundation M-Audio Radium 49 Roland Juno 106 / JazzChorus / Seymore Duncan Convertible - HP A1230N ( AMD Athalon 3800+ 2G Ram + 200G HD )

    http://soundclick.com/cut2thechaise

    #6
    marcos69
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    Re:Advice on setting up this old/new computer for my Brother? 2011/01/21 16:36:11 (permalink)
    Something to convert waves to mp3s?

    Mark Wessels

    At CD Baby

    At Soundclick
    #7
    RockingChair
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    Re:Advice on setting up this old/new computer for my Brother? 2011/01/21 22:39:32 (permalink)
     Thanks to everyone for the helpful replies. I am terrible at explanations on things, I should have listed most everything I have installed so far.

    I'm going to list them here, and the title's will have a link if you haven't heard of this stuff before, maybe it will help someone else.

    The goal for me with this computer is to make it to where all my brother has to do is leave the computer on overnight to have it take care of maintenance. More or less it will stay on all the time, but go into sleep mode when not in use until somebody moves the mouse or hits the keyboard. Very simple to do. Maintenance will be done automatically overnight with the programs I have installed. But I have installed some other things I think will be useful.

    Here's what I've installed so far w/Links in the names , BTW All these PRGS are FREEWARE :

    Firefox  - Very configurable web browser.

    Comodo Free Internet Security Suite - A great Firewall/Virus/Spyware security suite. I should mention even thought the Sand box feature is nice, I keep it turned off because it's more trouble for me than it is useful. Nice to have the option though.

    Thunderbird - A great email client.

    Format Factory - I never heard of this until the other day, but it claims to be able to convert video to any format, pictures to any format, and audio to any format. From the reviews I've read it sounds like a great program.

    CCleaner - This is a must for every PC IMO. I have it setup by command line to run every night automatically and clean this PC I'm working on every day.

    Speccy - This saved me some time trying to figure out what the specs were on this PC. Very useful.

    Auslogics Disk Defrag - I have this setup to run every night on schedule.

    Emsisoft Emergency Kit - An Excellent tool kit to scan for viruses and more. THIS DOES NOT PROVIDE REAL TIME PROTECTION, it is a scanner and remove the virus/spyware program only. So if you already have real time protection it shouldn't cause problems. In the past I've used Malware Bytes - Mbam but this prgs. scanner always finds stuff in my experience that other things miss. And it's not always a false positive. But I'll leave that for another discussion. I think this is a must have for any online PC. JMO.

    PDF-Xchange - Best of the PDF file viewers IMO, very low on resources. I like it better than Fox-it reader. JMO.

    Wise Registry Cleaner Free - This seems like a great registry cleaner, the main thing I like about it is you can schedule it to run, so I have it setup to run daily on this PC. Seems safe so far.

    Picpick - I haven't used this much, but from what little I have I can see it's great for screen capturing and more.

    Photoscape - Great for making your own Animated Gifs, editing photo's and more. I just started using this one a short while ago, I don't do much with photo's but I can see the potential with this program, I think it's a must have. JMO.

    Wavasaur - I like this better than Audacity, I guess it's a matter of personal opinion when it comes to audio editors. This isn't for me because I have Sound Forge commercial. But for a freebie I think this will be useful for my brother. The one thing that stood out with this audio editor was the small size of the program, and I really liked the volume editing options adding nodes and such when working with audio files. JMO. I know there's others, it's all a matter of choice I guess. I considered installing Audacity along with this, but it would take up more space on this weak small PC.

    Revo Uninstaller Freeware - The best uninstall program I have found, Hunter mode is great. Lots of options. A must have IMO.

    Object Dock - Free for personal use. It takes a little while to configure this to your uses, but this is one great prg., I plan on purchasing the pro. version soon. This is a very useful program, especially if your working in your daw and need to load up something outside of it. I have it setup to auto hide when not in use. Excellent PRG., I know there is Rocket dock, and a few others, I like this one the best. JMO.....

    7Zip - A great free zip/unzip and other formats program. Very fast.

    Sysinternals Individual Program Downloads Link - I recommend Zoom it "I have this setup to run on windows start, it makes it simple to zoom into anything using CTRL-1 or whatever Keys you choose. I set it up to auto run at windows start by copying it into the startup folder in windows. I also use Autoruns - It shows you pretty much everything, you'd be surprised at some of the stuff running on your PC that you don't know is there.

    If you would rather download the entire Suite of programs here's the link for that -  Sysinternal Suite Download Link - Some of the programs in this suite I would recommend you don't use unless you know what you are doing because they can cause problems if you don't understand what they are to be used for.

    Power Menu - I use this all the time, the download page should be self explanatory on how to use it. If you watch TV online, or just want to keep a window on top while doing other things it comes in real handy. I also like the priority change selection it has. Nice Prg IMO.

    I do plan on installing the free Lame MP3 Encoder and setting it up to use with MC4, I haven't done it yet.

       Here are some thread's and article links that show you how to export files directly from Cakewalk software using the FREE Lame .Mp3 encoding software.      

    I thought this might help so I figured I would post it.
     
    This one is a bit old, but the pictures do help explain a lot :   Using Lame With Cakewalk Software

    Also there's this info. that explains even more : Export .mp3 from Sonar   This is probably the best, it goes into detail.

    Here's a thread link that has some interesting information on the subject that's here on these forums.

    Thread Link for info. click here  

    Edited : "I just realized the link in that thread for downloading Lame is broken, here's one that is working Lame Download for Windows ", I'm sure there are others, that's just the first one I found on the search list.


    I am by NO MEANS an expert, this is just basically what I've installed so far. I'm just trying to make things as simple as possible for my brother to have his computer setup and ready to use when he get's his internet turned on in a week or so.

    I've also installed some firefox add on's, Web of Trust, Adblock Plus, and Better Privacy. Which reminds me, I need to install FEBE for firefox because you can set it up to keep firefox settings etc... backed up. If you use Firefox you can find those from their addons section. NOTE : Those are not all available for the new Firefox Beta 4.X. I installed the latest stable version of Firefox which at this time is 3.6.13 to the best of my knowledge.

    Todo-Backup - I almost forgot, probably the most important thing of all BACKUP SOFTWARE.  I'm going to back everything up to disc for him when I get finished setting this up. I'm going to use this freeware program. Scroll down on the page to read all the features. This one is free and basically does it all, from "IMAGE - Meaning Operating System and Everything Backup", to "Incremental - Meaning changes since the last backup" and lots more. Just read about it.  I know there's others, I've tried this one on my PC and it worked for me. Personally I use Acronis True Image, but it's not free, I'm seriously thinking of changing after looking at all the new features of this freeware program.

    Anyway, If I missed something or messed up feel free to correct me. Keep in mind, FREE is the key word here.

    Keep in mind, use these programs at your own risk, I don't endorse nor am I affiliated with the creators or programmers in anyway. I just feel they seem useful.  Some of them I just found a few days ago and haven't used much, YET.

    I thought this might help someone, and thanks to everyone who has helped me in this thread and in the past.

    Bobby


    post edited by RockingChair - 2011/01/21 23:28:45

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    RockingChair
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    Re:Advice on setting up this old/new computer for my Brother? 2011/01/21 23:13:42 (permalink)
    I also installed several freeware VST's and Synths, I didn't mention them here because most everybody here knows about them already, and there's a thread in the Techniques forum and several other forums mentioning most all of them.


    Bobby


    #9
    RockingChair
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    Re:Advice on setting up this old/new computer for my Brother? 2011/01/22 00:24:34 (permalink)
    I just wanted to mention, I'm setting this PC up for my brother and not me. I know I mentioned that earlier, but I don't want the thought to get lost after so much reading in this thread. Freeware is the main thing.

    Like I said, we ain't rich "If your living in the USA south" and "We are not well off, if you live in the USA north".  But our PC's run just as good or bad just the same.


    Bobby


    #10
    RockingChair
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    Re:Advice on setting up this old/new computer for my Brother? 2011/01/22 01:42:31 (permalink)

      I realized something earlier, what I'm going to do is use my external hard drive and back this PC up with an IMAGE backup with only Virus/Spyware/Firewall protection and the essentials for maintenance on a schedule.

    Then I'm going to add everything I mentioned here and back it up also on my external hard drive. All this being because my bro. doesn't have an external hard drive.

    If he doesn't like what I added then I will simply reinstall the basic setup.

    We shall see. My brothers much smarter than me, with the exception of computers because he hasn't used them as much as I have.

    Thanks for all the replies all.

    Bobby

    post edited by RockingChair - 2011/01/22 21:58:00

    #11
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