By Suzann Dodd, Contributor
YOU'RE ON the Internet. You've opened one too many browsers and suddenly everything is just dead. The mouse isn't moving and you're hoping that by some miracle the computer will overcome and you'll be able to continue.
Your Internet time is dribbling away, phone charges are mounting, and all you can do is ctrl-alt-del--and if that doesn't work; (as it sometimes doesn't) you will have to shut off your computer.
You shut it off, restart it, get the scolding for not properly shutting down your computer, and finally get back to your desktop. You try to log on and might be told that the modem is in use or there is no modem, some nasty remark which you don't need.
You might have to grovel around on the floor to disconnect then reconnect the telephone jack. You might have to close down your computer properly, shut it off, kill a chicken and sprinkle it's blood, so that 10 or 15 minutes later you can get back to where you were.
This is called crashing.
In Linux this doesn't happen. The worst that happens is that maybe a browser window causes a fault. You press cntrl-alt-esc, get a skull and crossbones, and that browser window is killed, though more often than not Linux will automatically kill the problem window for you. One bad site doesn't crash the computer; it crashes only itself.
As you're no doubt using Gatesware, crashes are deadly. You will lose all your data without a prayer of getting it back. Make sure anything you want you save and you keep saving all the way through a document.
It is wise to draft something off line, save it, then log on to `the 'Net and send it. If anything happens you still have your saved copy. Bookmark useful sites immediately, just in case of a crash.
You can cut down crashes by not taxing memory or keeping junk. For example, clear your caches, in fact, set cache to 0 on your browsers.
In Internet Explorer, go to 'View' then 'Internet Options' then 'General' then to 'Settings' and put your dot in 'never' and move `the lever to the lowest possible level.
In Netscape select to 'Edit' then to 'Preferences' and go to the bottom of the list and click on 'Advanced'. You will see 'cache' come up. Set both the Memory and Disk cache to 0 and select 'never' as when to compare documents.
This will conserve memory to some extent and won't fool you into `thinking you're on the 'Net when you're actually viewing an old page on your computer.
Suzann Dodd is an attorney and writer.
