Carlos R

What I have done so far on this computer: Initial boot and set up while charging logged into a gmail account on the default email app rang some bing and google searches downloaded chrome and opened three tabs on it whats happening now: I turned it on. Logged in with my fingerprint. And all I see is a huge black screen. And the mouse cursor. I can move the mouse cursor. I can use control alt Del to invoke task manager that’s it no desktop in sight what the fuck is going on????

What I have done so far on this computer: Initial boot and set up while charging logged into a gmail account on the default email app rang some bing and google searches downloaded chrome and opened three tabs on it whats happening now: I turned it on. Logged in with my fingerprint. And all I see is a huge black screen. And the mouse cursor. I can move the mouse cursor. I can use control alt Del to invoke task manager that’s it no desktop in sight what the fuck is going on????

How would I go about clean installing from the beginning, though? Would I need to acquire a Windows Key for that?

Can't I just manually uninstall said Bloat? is it a hard process?How do I recognize "bloat"?

I was considering torrenting some university books, but sure I will. If I do so, is a VPN something I'll need? I'm using Edge at the moment, but I heard so many awful things about it in the past...

LG Gram, 15'', 8 GB/256GB SSD, i7 8550U It's, for my needs, a pretty nifty machine. And I would like to keep it that way. What are some best practices and such I should be aware of? What browser are all the kids using these days? Ad spots aside, should I get myself a VPN subscription? Which, if any, antivírus should I use? Any bloatware I should rid myself of asap?

Well, I followed your advice and that seems to have been taken care of. No longer that weird url pops up, 13 files were “quarantined”. Fine and dandy. It it occurs to me that this computer hasn’t been kept... safe. Should an antivirus be installed? McAfee came with it, but the license has already expired. Should I look into a paid one? Or a free one? Is there a “best practices for newbs” I could be pointed to? As it’s not my laptop I haven’t paid too much attention to what was being done with it, but, clearly, that was a mistake.

I’m a bit timid to install anything over here, but the high number of posts on your account lends you enough credibility that I think I’ll do it. Do you mind explaining what this program is/why you’re recommending it?

Using an Inspiron 14 7000 everytime I type something into the browser and press enter so as to google it, briefly, before going to the google page, this weird url “eaburl.com/?vnd=1&q=SEARCHWORD” shows up in the url field. I found it quite sketchy and ran a google search for it. Some very sketchy looking websites claimed it was the work of malware and suggested differing steps to take care of it. As this is neither my laptop nor my area of expertise, I’m turning to the community: how should I proceed?

I had hoped it would a simple affair, and it looks like it is, Thank you!

Different languages use different graphical notations (ç, ~, ^, etc) and have different typing standard layouts. That’s not news, I suppose. Im probably going to get a notebook shipped from the USA to Brazil via a friend. It’s almost a 50% price difference for the same product. To make it easier on me, I’d like to change the keyboard layout to the ABNT2 standard we use here and cover the appropriate keycaps with sticker or some such to indicate their replacement. How easy/hard is it to make the change on windows 10?

Not that I can recall, no. The only relevant thing about that date is that it’s the last day that a new email arrived. And I just now realized it when people called me complaining over my lack of answer.

I don’t even understand what’s going on. I just realized I haven’t received a single email on my gmail account since December 18. I got a call from a coworker asking for a response for something he had sent me, yet there wasn’t anything there. I then realized the last half dozen emails I’ve sent from the iOS email app have not been sent. They aren’t in the outbox/sent folder. This is very worrisome. I logged into gmail from the website. My sent emails weren’t there either. I tried sending test emails to different accounts from both the iOS app and the website. I’ve tried it on the iPad app and the safari browser on it as well. None of the emails sent in this manner work. In the website I get “email send error” little notifications in the bottom left corner. I downloaded the gmail app. When sent from it, at least, the emails then appear in the Sent folder. Both in that app, and the website. And in the iOS app. I’ve sent myself emails from different accounts, all gmails, from three different cellphones. None of them appear at my inbox at the site, gmail app or iOS email app. My sent emails from the gmail app, however, do appear on the inbox of other people. What is going on? What can I do? where are my emails?? Where do I ask for help?

Yeah, he got an unholy amount of mileage from that Vaio. I’m looking at the ThinkPad E580, but it isn’t yet available for purchase in Brasil. That’s a bummer. Seems pretty much perfect for his usecase. Getting him something from the 7th gen, say, an i5, will be one hell of an improvement over what he currently has. But there’s a part of me that’s using the “well, it’s supposed to last a decade” thing to look for a four-cored 8th gen.

No budget on this one. Looking for the thing that gets the job done, no cost restrictions (looking at it as a 10 year machine makes it easy to swallow shelling out more money upfront )