Outfiting An Old Computer

[Jaime Andrés]

Originally posted by locustfurnace@Apr 14 2004, 11:12 PM
How old is this article by the way?

May issue 2004.

Very many thanks for such a comprehensive reply. I do take your point about the suggested system as overkill for such an ordinary user such as myself with basic home use system requirments. My real interest in a project like this is because shortly I am setting up a new business which will involve a commercial web-site and online sales.
As a first timer in this type of venture I was obviously concerned about security. I would assume that the host/server I sign up with would provide a secure package.
It would seem sensible to start off in a simple way as you suggest just using a floppy disk based firewall. I will certainly research the links you have given and will probably return to this thread if I get bogged down.
Many thanks for your interest.

[locustfurnace]

Originally posted by Jaime Andrés@Apr 14 2004, 06:15 PM
I am setting up a new business which will involve a commercial web-site and online sales.
As a first timer in this type of venture I was obviously concerned about security. I would assume that the host/server I sign up with would provide a secure package.

First time business, go with a provider til you have the skills and understanding of the backend business, which usually requires skills with Web servers(Apache), a database for transactions, accounts, inventory(Postgresql), Secure Socket Layers(SSL), an excellent firewall, a credit card validator, cgi and good HTML, XML skills, redundant backup system for when systems crashes, UPS system and enough bandwidth to handle the load, PLUS a domain name, static IP. and much more.
Its well worth it to just have someone else provide you with the space, bandwidth needed & necessary the tools.
Make sure the host provides enough room to grow, enough tools to use, such as Postgresql, php, perl, enough e-mail space and whatever else you decide you want, they should have up-to-date servers, and keep their systems patched, not all do. Do not expect just because they are in business, they are computer literate either. Many people drop a dime on a turn-key business and have no idea what they are doing, to them it is just making money for them.
If you plan to make a business, dont just look for the cheapest host, remember you get what you pay for at times, and alot of these places just give you a web account to host static pages, not ideal for a transaction based business.
Ask what their uptime is on the servers, what they use for backup, do they backup your accounts daily? What kind of guarantee are you getting if they crash and burn and lose all your data, which is a good ida to also backup your work daily.
For the best performance, what you will want is a host thats running on server hardware, not someone who's using cheap Celeron boxes - if your business if going to be heavily trafficed. Look for someone using alapha boxes or sun boxes. Also, Windows is not the best Server OS.
Apache is the #1 web server in the market, but don't fall for the Apache on Windows combo either. Not a great idea. The best Server OS's are UNIX and *BSD with many now going to the GNU/LINUX, Windows is not the most widely used. Even Microsoft has depended on BSD to run their Hotmail, and GNU/Linux to protect their servers from attacks (recently too).
If you plan to do this at home, learn learn and learn some more, But while your learning, you should let someone with the experience host your site. Its extremely cheap for what you get also, and without the worrys of "did I connect, setup this correctly?"

[Guest]

Thanks again for your very good advice. I understand about not going for a cheap option. Could I prevail on your experience just once more and ask your opinion of the following server as regard to the features that you mentioned in the above post, sorry it is in Spanish but the features are quite recognizable. I will be using the Plan Profesional. http://www.servidoresonline.com/tarifas.shtml

[Jaime Andrés]

Auto login failure sorry. This link has details of the plan http://www.servidoresonline.com/profesional.shtml

[locustfurnace]

They seem to cover it all. They have cgi, ssi, php, perl, Postgresql, ODBC, SSL, Frontpage extensions; if you wish you create pages, sites via Frontpage, which really is one good feature I have used in the past and found it to work well.
They do make use of the P4 CPU, which works well for most services, and a good start. Which I am sure also helps keep costs down compared to the costs of 64bit SUN or Alpha systems. Which aren't necessary, but a real plus if a host uses that equipment.
You will need to purchase a SSL certifcate if you plan to use SSL, and you should use SSL for transactions, that's a must for protecting customers data.
Looks like a good house to host your business on.

[Jaime Andrés]

Thanks for that reassurance, and apologies for veering off of the original topic.

[ebmocwen]

I have just discovered oldversion.com and am very new to forums like this, but this is an excellent thread! I am not extremely computer literate but I get by. I have an old system Windows 95, Pentium II 350mhz, 256mb ram. I recently had to reformat and reinstall Windows so I'm very interested in the original post about what versions of software will work with my system. I think the original post mentioned Mozilla? I am using Mozilla 1.6 and it works great. I can also run Explorer 5.5 with no problem. Still trying to read through all these forums so I know there is probably all kinds of posts about other software. All the talk about firewalls kinda went over my head but what about the original question about software versions?
If I should've posted in another forum or something I apologize.

[locustfurnace]

Originally posted by ebmocwen@Apr 25 2004, 10:43 AM
I have an old system Windows 95, Pentium II 350mhz, 256mb ram.

Thats not really considered an 'old' system by me, its just older. That should give you ample power to run just about any programs you wish. Just read the above post on how to optimize your computer for better performance.
About what versions to run, thats always debateable. What might work fine on one persons setup, may not be the best for anothers.
There is more to the computers performance factor than just the few items mentioned which can make systems different, such as the type of RAM, speed of RAM, the chipsets, the video RAM; integrated or on a card - PCI or AGP? The type of hard drive, the rpm's of the harddrive, the cache and seek time of the hard drive, are they set in PIO Mode's? Or UDMA? UDMA33? UDMA66? Did you make sure the hardrives are using DMA in Windows?
How many apps do you run at a time? 2?, 4?, 15? there are alot of factors that come into play. Your setup should have not much trouble running most programs.
I've run IE 5.5 on a Pentium 200Mhz non-MMX without problems, I've run alot of apps on that old box with little trouble.
There are many options you can find on the forum, from the listing of alternative browsers in one thread. In Place of IE, you might want to try Slimbrowser, it offers many more features then IE does, and its basically using the IE core dll's. Think of it more as a facelift to IE.
Other web browsers might use different rendering engines, such as Netscapes gecko, which can be found in some other browsers too.
IE & Netscape are very heafty web browsers with alot of integrated apps, such as html composers and e-mail clients. These might be alittle over kill these days. Since you can find better editors and e-mail clients around, such as Thunderbird, Eudora, popcorn.
The first thing you need to do is make a backup of your system. Always backup. This way you don't have to learn later that you do not like a certain version of a program, and now you can not downgrade to a previous release. As some apps will not properly uninstall.

[ebmocwen]

locustfurnace,

I've been reading through all the forums, trying to get up to speed. Are you like a computer or something? How do you know so much stuff? :blink:

I appreciate your last post about each system being different, but don't newer versions of programs stop supporting the older OS's and therefore won't work? Like I thought IE 5.5 was the last version to support Windows 95? Or am I wrong in thinking that?

What you say about backing up makes sense. I can't get my burner to work right now, but I do have two harddrives. I saw in one post as I was reading through where you listed a bunch of back up programs. Would I need to use one of these, or could I just copy my harddrive with Windows on it to my larger harddrive for back up?

Additionally, I am having problems reinstalling kazaa (and trying to install kazaalite as is recommended over and over again in these forums) but there seems to be a kajillion posts and threads about this program. Where should I post my question?

Thanks for your reply and forgive a newbie if I ask dumb questions. )

[locustfurnace]

Win95 has MS backup, if it is not installed you can install it from the Win95 CD.
Go the the control panel and click the Add/Remove prgorams, and the windows programs tab, and click through the available options til you land on MSbackup. Install it and you can use it to make backups.
You can store the backups on a seperate partition on the harddrive, or on a seperate hard drive.
MS backup works fine. it will still require you to install the base OS, then you can recover you system back to the way it was with the backup program. If it ever crashes.
It is very easy to use.
No, you really dont need any other programs than that, as it works fine for backing up the system.

There are better apps out there to use for making system images, which when you restore an image, it restores the base OS and all apps. but its harder to use in some cases. It is a preferrable route though, since you can save alot of time recovering your system.
I can not recommened any Windows based imaging apps since i have never used them enough, i just use the Disk imaging software called Partimage, which is for UNIX systems.


Newer version of apps might state they no longer support older versions of Windows, what this means is that they either do not any longer have a computer with that OS on it to test it, or they do not want to offer technical help supporting it, this does not mean the app wont work on the OS.

If you post your kazza question in any of the related kazza threads, someone will be able to help you with that problem most likely. Does not matter which thread you post it into either, keeping it in a pre-existing thread is a good idea and very welcomed.