Member Avatar for scyph

I'm setting up a TruConnect 3G mobile internet on my laptop so that I can check email from anywhere. I have free wifi at school, and I went with TruConnect because it's cheap and I only need it for emergency backup when I'm not on campus.

Thing is, it's $5 a month and 4 cents per megabyte--which, at 3G speeds, can cost me up to $7 a minute in the minute it takes me to turn 3G on, check my email, and shut it down again. I already set up one of my browsers to not display pictures and other bandwidth hogs, but what I'm worried about is applications deciding to download updates.

I don't want to shut automatic updates down completely. I still want them to download while I'm on the school wifi. I just want to ban them from using 3G. If I have to click a button every day to "check for all updates to all applications," that's fine. I just don't want to update them one by one by one.

Is there an easy way to do that?

Or is it easier to just get Linux?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by harinath_2007
Member Avatar for flagstar

You can disable any auto updates apps when they run at startup. Type msconfig and hit Enter. Click on Startup tab and there should be a selection of programs that run on startup. Disable any unused program but be sure not to uncheck programs from System32 folders...

You can disable automatic updates for windows as well and you can manually download it when you were on wifi.

Member Avatar for caperjack

you can disable all updates manually ,but i don't know of any way to stop all with just the bush of one button ,most upadtes can be turned off in the tool/properties of each program
as for linux you could try one of many live cd's to use just when you are using the G3.
i use from time to time Puppy Linux dvd i created a few yrs back ,it is burnt onto a open secession disk and, im able to save files and setting like browser bookmarks back to the dvd automatically when i shut down.
http://puppylinux.org/main/Overview%20and%20Getting%20Started.htm

Edited by caperjack because: n/a
Member Avatar for harinath_2007

Get ZoneAlarm firewall(free version). It will warn you when a application tries to connect with internet .
So that way you can avoid those applications not to download anything or download updates.
You can easily turn on and off the updates.

I think this is the best way in my view.....

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