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Kevin

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I need some input on shipping some musical instruments. Some are old and expensive. At least two of them are antiques. One is very a old Gibson he's had since he was a teen, one is a Tacamini (sp) theres a classical 12 string and a beautiful black lacquer 12 string that was always my favorite of his instruments.

I think he has a banjo some where and he also wants his mandolin and his flutes.

I'm very nervous about doing this especially the guitars. Two of them don't have cases.

He wants me to send them UPS and I was want to pack as many into one box as I can. I think I should be able to send at least two at a time and a flute or two maybe.

What I was wondering is if I could just ship the guitars that have cases without putting them in a box. Would it be safe to try it that way? Also, I know I can insure them but will they cover them as antiques? Is it even a good idea to send them UPS and is there a better option?

Any suggestions on the best way to do this? If anything happens to these instruments, I'll never forgive myself :(

You could use a freight forwarder or moving company for the guitars and banjo. They'll crate them up. If the mandolin and flutes have strong cases... pack them with lot's of bubble wrap in a box or two and ship them fed ex. Never use united parcel service, they break everything. It's going to be very expensive shipping and insuring these antique musical instruments. Maybe it's cheaper just to come pick them up in a car and take them with you. Or maybe crate 'em up and Air Freight them.

Oh, by the way... a belated Happy Birthday !

:cool:

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Thanks for all the input guys. Great advice. I'm thinking maybe UPS might not be the best idea after all. I would hate to have anything happen to them.

He checked into driving here to get them but he lives in NM and would have to take time off work so it's not really a good idea for him. He also wants me to try to keep the cost as low as I can.

When the instruments get there he will have to take them and get them repaired and that is going to cost him an arm and a leg. They have been stored for years already.

He has flown the last several times he was here so didn't take them with him when he left. He also felt that they were safer at moms for now because he was moving around quite a bit and couldn't take them with him.

I will look into all your suggestions and I like the Air Freight idea. I wonder how they'd do by train?

Thank you for the Birthday greeting bluesboy. I had a nice one this year :D

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In my experience, instruments should travel with their owners... :P I gave a guitar to one of my best friends last year, she lives in Argentina and she couldn't take it with her as she was going somewhere else... one year later, I still have the guitar at home as we couldn't find a friend who would take it with them on the plane. We don't even dare to ship it. I will have to come back to Buenos Aires 38 years later just to bring her the guitar :laughing:

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I think your right Lucky and I will check out other options as well. Last time one of the frets got broke(I didn't cause btw)

I will check into to everything after the holidays and will check all the options you guys gave me.

I knew I'd be in good hands here and I will tell my brother he has you to thank if they arrive in one piece :D

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Hi :)

I got this external HD as new-year's present. It looks great and it has the capacity I need to free my laptop from it's files. My parents said it's still exchangeable if necessary.

So I was just wondering if anybody had experience with this one or has I reason why I shouldn't keep it.

Info

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Hi :)

I got this external HD as new-year's present. It looks great and it has the capacity I need to free my laptop from it's files. My parents said it's still exchangeable if necessary.

So I was just wondering if anybody had experience with this one or has I reason why I shouldn't keep it.

Info

Hi yourself :)

to your questions: nope and nope... looking good :thumbsup:

;)

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  • 2 weeks later...

I get those annoying pop-ups lateley. It's because I had to install some kind of toolbar to watch an episode of the Big Bang Theory online. Now I removed the toolbar but clearly, it has left it's mark.

Ad-aware and avg scan didn't help, what's my next step? re-install firefox?

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I get those annoying pop-ups lateley. It's because I had to install some kind of toolbar to watch an episode of the Big Bang Theory online. Now I removed the toolbar but clearly, it has left it's mark.

Ad-aware and avg scan didn't help, what's my next step? re-install firefox?

Run 'MsConfig' and check your startup programs.

If you see anything referring to that toolbar or any other items that shouldn't be there, unclick them and restart.

Also make sure you run a full scan on the AdAware, not a smart scan.

It takes longer, but I've ran a smart scan and it came up clean, immediately followed by a full scan and it found items.

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Anyway, the msconfig thing didn't help either, any more ideas? :(

You can shut down the running process if you can figure out which one it is, which can be difficult..

Most of that pop-up crap sets itself up in the startup section and can be shut down with the msconfig run.

Are you sure you unchecked all items that didn't belong in there?

If you see any startup items or commands that are blank or only have a bunch of scrambled letters followed by ".exe" in the command column and they are not in a specific folder, you have to uncheck those also.

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Sébastien, I know how frustrating pop-ups can be.

I'm no computer wizard but it sounds that maybe a complete recovery of your main system's module is in order.

I was having some minor problems concerning fast navigation to certain sites and found I had to erase everything.

Sounds a bit harsh but I'm happy to say that I'm able to not worry about pop-ups anymore because the very virus that caused it was erased.

Viruses, once immune, never come back, just lay dormant...

I have a simple "spy-sweep" program that lets me know when my search has lead to a possible threat.

Good luck in finding a solution to your computer's need.

~ Muzik

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setting up the whole system again might be a bit harsh at this moment, let's try something else first

I get those annoying pop-ups lateley. It's because I had to install some kind of toolbar to watch an episode of the Big Bang Theory online. Now I removed the toolbar but clearly, it has left it's mark.

Ad-aware and avg scan didn't help, what's my next step? re-install firefox?

try re-installing FF (first deinstallation, then installing the new one)

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setting up the whole system again might be a bit harsh at this moment

True.

Not all attacks against your computer are viruses.

If the malicious program does not spread itself from your computer to another, it isn't considered a virus at all.

Many of these programs are considered Malware or Spyware which only target your computer and do not spread to others.

They can be very annoying and cause your computer to run very slowly, as they consume your memory while working in the background.

They bombard you with annoying pop-ups and anti-virus programs won't detect them unless they also scan for these types of programs.

A complete restore should be your very last resort, as you will have to download everything again that you put on the hard drive after you purchased it, unless you do a regular system restore by finding a restore point that was made before the problem started (if you can remember when the problem first started). Then you won't lose so much.

Restoring deletes the malicious program (whether it be a virus or malware) but you can also do that yourself if you take the time to find it.

There are many anti-spyware/malware programs out there and some of them have a free version.

I've helped many of my friends rid their computers of this crap by scanning with Ad-Aware by Lavasoft and also running "msconfig" and shutting down everything that doesn't belong under the start-up tab.

It's best to do it in "safe mode", which will prevent the program from running while your geting rid of it.

It takes patience. If you can't get it to work, ask a friend that can help you with it.

Also, always make sure you have a good anti-virus program that will stop most attacks as they happen.

It's better to pay for something that will work better than to get a free version that doesn't do so well.

I use Norton by Symantec and there have been a few times that I clicked on an infected link (one in a google search and another that was sent to me from a hacker who got into my friends facebook account and mailed it to all her contacts) and Norton stopped it in it's tracks.

Good luck!

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I'd also like to add that it isn't always so easy to get rid of some of these malware programs.

Years ago, my friend's computer wouldn't even allow him to get online.

He had no anti-spyware/malware program installed on his computer, so I had to make a list of all his running processes and research them on my computer.

What I found was that he had a nasty called "Huntbar",(if I remember correctly) and it was sucking up all of his resources.

I found how to manually edit the registry to rid his computer of it but it took many, many hours to do it.

It would have been easier to wipe everything out back to original settings but he didn't want to lose what he had on there (especially his family photos).

Editing the registry can be tricky and one wrong mistake can cause problems, so that's why it is important to run scans often.

Try the anti-malware program that was mentioned in the "grind your gears" thread.

I've never heard of that one but a couple of our forum members here have had success with it.

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