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Q: On several occasions, when turning on our laptop after a period of being shutdown for a week or 10 days while on vacation, the mouse goes through a period of behaving so herkey-jerky that it is impossible to click up anything. It behaves the same if you try to use the touch pad. We have noticed that if we start up in safe mode this does not happen, but when you try to switch back to normal operation it starts to jerk around again. The good news is that after 15 – 30 minutes everything returns to normal. We have had computers work slowly after being shut down but usually they are going through a scan and you can still work on it. Have you ever experienced this and is there anything that can be done to eliminate this. It is frustrating because after being gone there is always mail and other things that need to be attended to.

– Charles K.
Destin, Florida

A: I suspect that if you were to look at the system a little more carefully during the periods when it’s not working properly that you’d find your system’s performance has slowed to a crawl.  This means, of course, that some process running in the background is doing some very intensive work that is using most of your computer’s processing power.  To take it a step further, whatever this process is, apparently does not run when you start the system in safe mode.

The most likely culprit that meets these criteria is a malware scan; more specifically, the deep, whole-system scan that usually gets done only once per week in the middle of the night.  When you have your computer turned off, the scan window is missed.  Then, when you finally boot up again, the scanner goes about its task of looking at all the potentially infectable files on your system.  Hard disk I/O being one of the slowest functions your computer can perform, you’re left in the cold until it completes.

This isn’t really something that can be fixed in the classic sense, because nothing is really amiss.  However, you might be able to minimize the impact it has on you by going into your malware scanners’ setups and seeing if it has the ability to detect that the computer is being used, and delay the scanning.  There is also often an option to reduce the priority of the scan, so it doesn’t take up so much of your computer’s processing time.

Q: I am addicted to audiobooks but am tired of carrying a CD player around, so I got a new iPod. I have no trouble transferring my MP3 formatted books to it with iTunes. My big problem, being a senior non-geek person, is changing my regular CD disks, for unabridged books, to an MP3 format so I can put them on the iPod. I’ve looked on the ‘Net and am thoroughly confused. Can you suggest some simple programs for non-geeks to change the format? Also, I’m not sure how to get all the CDs into one MP3 so that it plays seamlessly or is that not an issue for whatever program I use?

– Crystal G.
Baker, Florida

A: Crystal, you have been writing to me practically since my column started 290 issues (and weeks) ago, and I have to say, you have a lot more on the ball with technology than you often give yourself credit for.  In this case, I think you know a little more than is actually good for you, and that has taken your eyes off the path you need to be on.  First of all, I see absolutely no reason to change the format of your audio files from MP3 to something else.  MP3 is the ideal format for listening either on your computer or your iPod.  Second, you don’t need to (and shouldn’t try to) get all the CDs into a single MP3 file.  That’s what playlists are for.  Just set up a playlist that contains all the individual files you want to group together.  Then, instead of playing individual tracks, play the playlist, and it will do exactly what you want.