Battie

How in the world can you get yours down to 84 MB? My god! With almost every program closed, I can only get... (Hope it shows) Btw, what is a System Idle Process? *feels silly asking* And why does it suck CPU like a vampire?

Well, as far as BT goes, I use it primarily for fansubs. Of all the media on my computer, 95% is unlicensed fansubs (well, not licensed in the US or weren't when I downloaded them). Heh, even if I wanted to amass a huge collection of illegal tv shows or movies, I don't have the hard drive space (or the money for CDs). Monster alone takes up about 10 GBs of my measly 80, and will until I have more CDs to burn it to. And I'd already deleted the downloads before I was called by my ISP. > But I still prefer companies, regardless of their intent or mine, be unable to monitor my activity. My computer is as much a part of my home as anything else. And the fact that Media Sentry is trying to access my computer when I'm doing nothing more than surf the net is...invasive and really ticking me off. > I'm sure they'll find their way around my firewall and other programs, if they haven't already. Thanks for the link. And yes, Windows sucks REALLY BAD at memory management.

My first, very basic, question is about net speed. Often, even with all but the most necessary programs closed (in other words, the stuff Windows runs), I seem to have a download going with an average speed of dial-up (according to NetMeter). I'm guessing, hoping, this is quite normal on a cable hook-up. It is, isn't it? Bah, I've 256k ("Actually higher," so the cable guy says) but all my tests put it below 200k. Which is why this question emerges. I ran the tweak test at broadbandreports.com and it came out fine. Second, I got caught doing something naughty with BT. The catcher contacted my ISP. I was using Protowall, Blocklist Manager and SafePeer, but obviously they didn't work. Now, to be honest, I'm leery of doing anything bad with BT anymore. But should I uh, forget myself, what is out there that could prevent a repeat of what happened? I've heard of routers, but for now, I'm cash-strapped. Not even really sure what a router does. And third, what are the maintenance tasks I should perform to keep computer performance at its peak? I know to defragg, but glancing at the Administrative Tools forced me to groan and think, "Oh god, more computer crap to learn bit by bit."