Month: July 2010

Installing it.. When downloading the three files, ensure that you can identify them in the order that they are installed. I made separate folders because I knew that I was downloading way before I would get around to installing them. OK. Yesterday, I decided to install XP Mode. The three modules did not take too long and ran without incident. At the end of the third, I had XP SP3 running in a ‘window’. Next step was to download all of the XP updates which seemed to take forever. Now what? I haven’t addressed the security alerts because I have … Continue reading XP Mode..

From what is seen in the MS Answers forum, one might be forgiven for thinking that Windows 7 breaks motherboards. Vista showed similar properties too,  but can an operating system really break a motherboard? Much depends upon interpretation  of the word ‘break’. Timeline: Windows 7 is installed..  (Hmmmmm) Two weeks later, the motherboard gives out.. (Argh, I can’t stand it any longer.. too slow man) ‘Broken’ motherboard removed.. (good riddance P4 2gb) Replacement board installed (yes.. i7 8gb) Help!! (oh no.. it will not activate) No, it won’t. A major manufacturer OEM installation will look for some evidence of OEM … Continue reading Another one bites the dust?

I was given a Sony DSC-P31 still camera a few years ago. It was and still is not one of the all time greats, but it is small, it works, and it produces decent pictures.. Initially, I was running XP and the software supplied with the camera ran without problems. It was an awful program suite in my opinion, offering options for picture management which were completely tasteless. I uninstalled it within a week and just used XP ability to read and import photos into the inbuilt picture viewer. Vista 64-bit had the same ability as XP, as did Windows … Continue reading Cameras and cards

Specifically Windows Live mail.. It has sort options for use with newsgroups that do not work the same way as they used to work. For somebody like me who is trying to help multiple people with problems, I used to have ‘conversations’ set (it used to be a separate setting), sort by newest date, and messages I had flagged at the top of the list. In Wave 4, if I decide to sort by SENT, the posts are shown in date order and in ‘conversations’. Posts on the same subject as the OP will be kept as sub entries. If … Continue reading Windows Live Wave 4 beta

When is an iPhone not a phone? When you hold it in your left hand and block the incoming signal. The signal meter may show five bars, but the lack of conversation tells another story. Apple, apparently, will send out a fix to the iPhones which will enable the signal meter to sync with the lack of signal. I have a cunning plan. I was walking by a stall in my local mall, and noticed a plethora of cases and covers for a variety of cell phones. The iPhone seemed to be well enough supported, but there was something missing. … Continue reading A Pot Pourri

Q.. Why does a computer manufacturer ask you to make a backup of the system when you start your computer for the first time? A. Because hard drives are not as reliable as they could be, and even new ones can break. The manufacturer recovery partition is only good if the hard drive is still in working order. The above backup will only be good on the day. Anything that you add to the installation, hardware or software will not be included, so you should make another backup in time which better reflects your computer as you want it for … Continue reading Backup

I haven’t used a 3.5” floppy diskette for quite some while, and the last time was to update the BIOS on an aging machine for which there was no Windows flash utility. I can’t remember the last time I saved a Word document or photo to one, and yet I flatly refused to remove all traces of 3.5” floppy stuff from my computer. For the longest time, I couldn’t visualise a computer without a diskette drive, but no more. It is gone. I have a case type where there is a moulded slot where the FDD would be so I … Continue reading It seems like only yesterday..