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These pages are created to help new customers perform routine maintenance on a PC. They are provided as a courtesy of Missvalley customers, we hope they will help you. In these pages we will teach you how to do basic computer software maintenance. The index below lists our different sections. As always if you have any questions or need any help, feel free to give us a call at 660-263-6300 or toll free at 800-892-7139.

  1. How do I change from a different Internet provider?

  2. Basic Internet Browser help

  3. How-to upload a website to the internet


  4. What is Spyware/Malware/Adware? Where does it come from?

  5. Windows Updates


  6. Virus Scans


  7. Scandisk/defrag

  8. Importance of Physical Cleaning


CHANGING OVER FROM ANOTHER PROVIDER

DIALUP NETWORKING
  1. Double click on My Computer (in the top left corner of your screen)
  2. Double click on Dialup Networking
  3. If you have any icon other than Make a New Connection, you need to delete it by doing the following.
  4. Double click on Make a New Connection
  5. Where it says Type a name for the computer you are dialing: Type missvalley
  6. Click on Next
  7. Type the telephone number for your area:
    8. Center 267-9881
    Clarence 699-2103
    Curryville 342-2328
    Edina 397-3554
    Hannibal 231-0594
    Hunnewell 983-2495
    LaPlata 332-6000
    Louisiana 754-7934
    Macon 385-3487
    Madison 291-8873
    Moberly 269-8700
    Monroe City 735-2495
    New London 985-3200
    Paris 565-2035
    Perry 565-2035
    Shelbina 588-1013
    Shelbyville 633-1401
    Chariton Valley Exchanges 277-4105
  8. Click on Next
  9. Click on Finish
  10. Do a right mouse click on Missvalley
  11. Click on Properties
  12. Take the check mark out of this screen by clicking on it
  13. At the top click on Server Types
  14. On this screen take the check marks out of the following boxes
  15. Click on ok
*When you first login you will have to type in your username and password
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SETTING UP EMAIL IN OUTLOOK EXPRESS

  1. Open Outlook Express
  2. Click on Tools
  3. Click on Accounts
  4. Near the top of that screen click on the word Mail
  5. If you have something in the box delete it by doing the following:
    1. click on the name in the white box
    2. click on Remove
    3. Click on Yes, you want to delete it
  6. Now click on Add
  7. Click on Mail
  8. Type in your Display Name (i.e. John Doe)
  9. Click on Next
  10. Type in your email address (i.e. johndoe@missvalley.com)
  11. Click on Next
  12. For your Incoming Mail Server type missvalley.com
  13. For your Outgoing Mail Server type missvalley.com
  14. Click on Next
  15. Type in your missvalley account name (i.e. johndoe)
  16. Type in you password
  17. Click on Next
  18. Click on Finish
  19. Click on Close
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Adding a web page to your favorites:

This is probably one of the simplest functions to do. Look along the top of your browser, where it says File Edit etc.... You’ll see a Favorites (for MSIE) or BookMarks (for Netscape) there. Click on that and a pulldown menu will appear, at the top is an "Add to favorites" or "Add Bookmark"

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Search Engines

A search engine is a database of webpages. Some like Infoseek contain the descriptions of over 20 Million pages. A search engine is VERY useful in finding a web page that deals with the topic you’re interested in.

To search for a site, just enter some keywords. For example: if you’re searching for web sites dealing with fishing, you would enter fishing.

The problem is that many webmasters enter keywords for their sites that have nothing to do with the site itself. The reason they do that is to try and draw more visitors to their site. And Adult oriented sites are the worst, the above example may return several adult sites in the list. One way to prevent this from occurring, or at least reduce the number of false pages, is to use the plus, minus and quotes in your searches.

For example, if you use: +fishing -credit you’d be pretty sure that the search engine would return listing for strictly fishing sites.

Each search engine has a help or search tips section if you’d like to learn how to narrow your searches even more.

Popular search engines:

www.infoseek.com www.excite.com

www.yahoo.com www.lycos.com

www.search.com www.snap.com

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Setting your "Home Page"

MSIE:
  1. Go to the page you want to have MSIE display when it starts
  2. Click on View
  3. Select Options
  4. In the section that says "HomePage", click on the "Use Current" button.

Netscape:
  1. Click on Options along the top of the browser
  2. Select General Preferences
  3. Select appearance
  4. Find Startup in the appearance screen, check Netscape Browser" for On Startup Launch.
  5. Browser starts with, click Homepage Location and then enter the url of the site you want Netscape to go to every time it starts up.


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Email

MSIE - Writing a message:
  1. Click on New Message
  2. Enter the address of the person you’re sending the message TO in the To: box
  3. Click on Subject, enter a subject in the box
  4. Click down in the message body, the large box, and type away. :)
  5. When you’re done, click on the small envelope icon in the upper left hand corner.
  6. IF you’re email client isn’t set up to automatically send and receive, you’ll have to click on the send/receive icon along the top of the main window. (hint: Make sure your email program is set to display the "InBox" when it’s started.)

NetScape (version 3.0)
  1. Open Netscape Mail (if you’re already running your browser, select Window then Netscape Mail)
  2. Click on the "To: Mail" Icon
  3. Enter the address of the person you’re sending the message TO in the Mail To: box
  4. Click on Subject, enter a subject in the box
  5. Click down in the message body, the large box, and type away. :)
  6. When you’re done, click on the Send icon.
  7. IF you’re email client isn’t set up to automatically send and receive, you’ll have to click on File (along the top of the main mail program) then select "Send Messages in Outbox.

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Address Books

MSIE:
  1. Go to File along the top of the MSIE mail program.
  2. Select Address Book.
  3. Click on "New Contact"
  4. Enter the information for the person you want to add.
  5. Click on OK and that person is added.

NetScape:
  1. While in the Netscape Mail program, select window along the top of the program.
  2. Select Address Book to display the address book window.
  3. Select Item along the top of the address book window.
  4. Select add user and another window will appear where you can enter specific information about the person you want to add to your address book.
  5. Click on OK and that person is added.

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IRC -- Internet Relay Chat

If you’d like to join the world in IRC, first select an IRC client. mIRC 5.02 is the most popular, the homepage is available as a link from missvalley.com website.

To get on a server:
  1. Find your mirc client. If you elected to do the default installation, there should be an icon on your desktop for mIRC.
  2. Select setup (along the top of the program).
  3. Under the IRC Servers tab, click on the small down arrow to display a list of IRC servers (the mIRC setup contains a list of IRC servers).
  4. Select a server from the list. Undernet is the largest and most popular chat network.
  5. If this is the first time you’ve run mIRC, enter your full name, email address and two nicknames in the spaces provided at the bottom of the servers tab window.
  6. Click on "Connect to IRC server"
  7. Have fun chatting.

Selecting an IRC channel:
mIRC comes with a set of channels in the channel list. Most are for general chat and help. To enter one of the default channels:
  1. Click on Channels Folder, the 5th icon from the left.
  2. Click on the channel you’d like to enter.
  3. Click on the "Join" button to go in.

To Add a new channel to the channels folder:
  1. Open the channels Folder as described above.
  2. Type the name of the channel you want to add.
  3. Click on Add and the channel should now be displayed on your list.
To Find a channel not in the channels folder:
  1. Start your web browser.
  2. Go to http://cservice.undernet.org/
  3. Click on Search on the CService homepage.
  4. Enter the keywords for the topic you’re interested in in either the X or W boxes. (hint: Most channels are registered under W)
  5. Click on the "Go Baby!" button.

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Making a Manual Connection

Windows 95-98-98se
  1. Go to your Start button,
  2. Go to Programs,
  3. Go to Accessories,
  4. Go to Dial-up Networking.
  5. Double click and there should be an option that says Miss Valley Internet.
  6. Double click that and a window should appear in the center of your screen.
  7. Enter your login name and password in the spaces provided. Then click on connect.
  8. You should hear your modem dial out and connect to missvalley.com.
Windows XP
  1. Go to your Start button,
  2. Go to Connect To,
  3. there should be an option that says MissValley Internet.
  4. click that and a window should appear in the center of your screen.
  5. Enter your login name and password in the spaces provided. Then click on connect.
  6. Yaou should hear your modem dial out and connect to missvalley.com.

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Using Your FTP Account

FTP or File Transfer Protocol, is a method of exchanging files over the internet between computers. Mississippi Valley Internet offers FTP accounts to every customer at their request. Your FTP account will allow you to upload files to your space on our server so you can create a personal web page, or post pictures for eBay. To activate you FTP account, email us at helpdesk@missvalley.com and include you username and password. Below is a simple tutorial on using your new account.

  1. First, you will need a program to communicate with our FTP server, or any FTP server. You can download CuteFTP here. Save this file to your computer, like your desktop, and when the file has finished downloading, double click on it to install it.
  2. Next, Once you have CuteFTP or another FTP program installed, you must enter our FTP server. In the field remote host or server enter ftp.missvalley.com, and put your username and password in the appropriate fields. Once this is done you are ready to connect to the server.
  3. Click connect and your username and password will be sent to our server for authentication, once you are authenticated and logged in, you can upload/download files. To do so, in CuteFTP, the left hand window is your local computer, the right hand window is the our remote computer. You can upload a file by selecting it, and dragging it from the left hand window to the right hand window. Once you release the mouse button, your computer will send the selected file to our server and it will show up in the right hand window once the transfer is complete. This is all that is required to FTP files over the internet. For any further questions, please contact our office. Thanks.

Spyware/Malware/Adware -- Background Information

When people talk about "spyware", most of the time they're talking about a whole range of malicious software, and not just software that actually spies on you. They usually mean anything that's installed on your PC without your knowledge or permission, and which has unwanted effects. The technical term for most of these things is usually "browser parasites", since most of them interact with Internet Explorer in some way, but in this document I'm going to call them by the catch-all term spyware.

"Parasite" is a shorthand term for unsolicited commercial software -- that is, a program that gets installed on your computer which you never asked for, and which does something you probably don't want it to, for someone else's profit. The parasite problem has grown enormously over the last few years, and many millions of computers are affected. Unsolicited commercial software can typically:


Now that you know what spyware is, we need to know how to get it off your computer! You will need a program to remove most spyware. We recommend using Adaware by Lavasoft. It is a free program with frequent updates to remove a lot of spyware. However no program is perfect, there is simply too much spyware out there for one program to remove ALL the spyware from a computer.

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Adaware Installation Instructions

  1. You will first need to download Adaware by clicking here.
  2. The Open/Save option should be displayed shortly. Click "Open" if you have that option. Else you have an option to "run this program from its selected location" put a dot next to that and click "OK".
  3. After the program downloads (this may take several minutes), you will have an Adaware SE Personal window appear. click on "Next."
  4. Now you will see the Adaware License Agreement, You will have to agree to it by clicking "Next" to go any further.
  5. Now to finish installation simple keep clicking Next until you can click Finish, the default options are acceptable.
  6. Click "Finish." Adaware will now start a full system scan on your computer, please refer to step 8 in the "How-to use Adaware" section below to finish. After your first time installing you will simply follow the "How-to use Adaware" instructions below to help keep your computer clean of spyware.
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How-to use Adaware

  1. Double click the Adaware SE Personal icon on your desktop.
  2. You should now see the Adaware start screen. Adaware needs to be updated every time before you scan your computer for spyware, so it will know about the latest spyware, malware, and adware out there. To do this you will need to connect to the internet in your normal way. Then click "check for updates now" You will see that option near the bottom right corner of the Adaware window.
  3. You will then see a Performing Web update window displayed on your screen. Click "Connect"
  4. If a new reference file is available to download, click "OK" to begin downloading. This will probably take less than 5 min on a 56k modem connection. When the download is complete or if there are no updates available click on "Finish."
  5. Click on "Start" in the bottom right corner of the Adaware window. *** Please note we are not referring to your Windows Start menu button.
  6. This brings us to the Adaware Scan Mode window. We will need to put a dot next to "Perform full system scan"
  7. Click "Next" to have Adaware start scanning your computer for spyware infected files.
  8. When Adaware has finished scanning your computer you will see a small flashing bug-like picture near the middle of the window and it will play a short sound. Click "Next" to view what Adaware has found.
  9. On this screen you will see a list of objects with a small box to the left of each one. You will need to check each object or right click one of them to bring up a menu and choose "Select All Objects." Once you have them selected click Next.
  10. Finally Adaware will bring up a window saying " ## objects will be removed. Continue?" You must click "OK" to remove the spyware from your computer. A progress bar will appear as Adaware quarantines and deletes the selected objects. You are finally returned to Adawares Start screen where you can click the red X in the top right corner to close it.

TIP: you should follow these instructions once a week to help keep spyware off of your computer.
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Windows Updates

Probably one of the most important steps in maintaining a computer is to be sure your Windows Operating System is updated. Microsoft has made this process very easy by creating a Windows Update website. We recommend you check for Windows Updates once a week by doing the following steps. You will often have to repeat these steps several times to receive all the windows updates, some updates are required before others can be installed. You should follow these instructions atleast once a month to keep your windows uptodate.

  1. Click here to visit the Windows Updates website and follow the onscreen instructions.
  2. If a security warning pops up, you will need to click on "YES" to allow the windows updates website to function.
  3. In the middle of the screen you will see a small green arrow pointing right to the words "Scan for updates" Click "Scan for updates" this process may take several minutes.
  4. You will now have to click on "Review and Install Updates" to continue.
  5. Now windows will show you any available windows updates for your computer. click the button "Install Now" to begin the install. You will have to follow the on-screen instructions to complete some of the updates. IF Windows Update tells you "You must reboot your computer for the changes to take effect." Click "Yes" and it will reboot your computer for you. You will then need to follow the Windows Updates Procedure again until the website says there are no more available updates.
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Virus Information

Scanning your computer for viruses is an important part of computer maintenance. Viruses are one of the leading causes of computer malfunction, and often the cause of large problems requiring a format (erasing everything and starting over). To help prevent viruses from getting into your computer we recommend two things. Keep your Windows updated, as described above, and keep an installed virus scanner up-to-date on your computer. There are some online virus scanners that will scan and remove some viruses such as House Call by Trendmicro. However these online virus scanners can not remove all viruses, and can only remove a virus when you have them scan. There is no 100% protection from viruses but an installed virus scanner will often alert you as soon as you come in contact with a virus. We recommend using an installed virus scanner such as Norton Antivirus to catch the majority of the viruses. Call our office if you need a copy of Norton Antivirus 2004, we will install and update it for you, for a small fee.

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Disk Defragmenter

Defrag is a program provided with every windows operating system. This tool rearranges data on your hard disk so data can be found easier and faster. It is important to run this tool once a month.

To run this tools you will need to boot your computer into Safemode, to do this you will have to push the F8 key at the right time when you turn your computer on. It can be difficult to determine when to push F8. It has to be pushed before windows begins loading. Many computers have a picture on screen immediately when you turn on your computer, as soon as that screen goes off try pushing F8 a few times. If you computer does not show a picture when you turn it on, it will usually show your bios posting (scanning memory, detecting disk drives and such). When you hit F8 at the right time it will display a menu instead of booting into windows. Use your arrow keys to select Safemode in the list and hit Enter. If you do not get the menu and windows boots up normally, restart your computer and try pushing F8 a little sooner. You will eventually get the boot menu.

When you get windows to boot in Safemode you will receive a warning telling you that not all functions will be available. Click "Yes" or "OK" to continue into Safemode. Once in safe mode you will notice your colors and pictures are distorted, this is normal. You will also see "Safemode" in all four corners of your screen. To run Scandisk and Defrag, follow the steps below.

    Windows XP users

  1. Click "Start", "Programs" (or "All Programs" for some windows XP users), "Accessories", "System Tools", "Disk Defragmentator"
  2. Be sure (C:) is highlighted
  3. Click on "Defragment Now" to begin.

    4. Click here to see a sample picture of that window

    Windows 95 and 98 users

  1. You will need to run a Scandisk before th Disk Defragment tool. Scandisk is a program that checks your Hard Disk Drive for errors. Follow the steps below.
  2. Click "Start", "Programs", "Accessories", "System Tools", "Scandisk"

    3. Click here to see a sample picture of the Scandisk window
  3. Click on your Local Hard Disk (C:)
  4. Put a dot next to "Thorough"
  5. Check "Automatically Fix Errors"
  6. Click on "Start" to start scanning your disk drive. This may take several hours to complete.
  7. Once Scandisk has completed you can run the Disk Defragment tool.
  8. Click "Start", "Programs", "Accessories", "System Tools", "Disk Defragment"
  9. Be sure your "Drive C" is selected in the top drop down box.
  10. Click on "OK" to start the Defragmenter.
  11. Click here to see sample pictures of the Defrag windows

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Physical Cleaning

Physical cleaning is more important than most people realize. Dirt and dust will accumulate inside a computer rather quickly, coating everything inside, including fan blades. This has a few bad effects. The dirt acts as an insulator which could cause your computer to overheat. This is most frequently noticed in power supplies which will overheat and shutdown the computer or die completely. Sometimes when a power supply overheats it sends a surge through the computer killing other components, possibly ruining the entire system. Dirt and dust will also build up on the processor heat sink and fan causing far less air circulation. This can cause your processor to overheat and die. These things can easily be avoided by doing the following steps.

  1. Remove all the cables connections from your computer tower.
  2. Remove the case from your computer, usually one side will come off by removing a couple screws from the back.
  3. Use compressed air to blow the dirt out of the system, either from an air compressor or a can of compressed air sold at Wal-mart or your local computer store.
  4. Replace the case and screws.
  5. Reconnect all cables to your computer
  6. Have fun using a clean computer system :D

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Web tutorial written by Daniel Harrison of Missvalley Communications
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