Month: March 2014

The first company getting this award is Staples Canada, the nice people who sold me a Brother MFC-J470DW all in one. The printer is fine, no problems at all, easy to set up, quick operation, good output, albeit maybe not professional quality. I don’t do a lot of printing, and ink levels are still almost at the very top. My granddaughter has done a bit of printing from it, all colour stuff of course. So why the no confidence vote for Staples Canada? Well, when I bought it, the salesperson assured me that the ink provided would be enough for … Continue reading A vote of no confidence..

Fun with floppies. The 5.25” inch floppy was not too tough, was subject to dirt ingression and could crease quite easily, a problem for computer magazine mounted diskettes.. Yes, this is  how they looked , and top flight machines would have two of these. The drive shown is in the ‘ready for a floppy’ state. Ready to say  good-bye? And then, one day, a new diskette appeared and it was BLUE and it wouldn’t fit into a 5.25” drive. Yar boo sucks. Now I have to buy new floppy drives. The new disks were better all round, harder to damage, … Continue reading Say your good-byes..

Mine specifically.. See this.. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9247212/Confused_over_what_tablet_to_buy_Join_the_crowd?source=rss_latest_content&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+computerworld%2Fnews%2Ffeed+%28Latest+from+Computerworld%29 It isn’t that I am happy to see tablet producers fail exactly, but it shows that not all people are prepared to subscribe to the concept that small tablets are goof for anything other than displaying media.. If small screen devices were going to take off, Netbooks back in 2010 would have made better ground than they actually did. Netbooks have the benefit of reasonable keyboards and are powerful enough to manage basic text documents, email AND media too, but they are too small for sustained use.  I made the point a long time ago … Continue reading Faith has been restored..

April 8th, 2014 marks two events in the Microsoft calendar. Event #1:. Microsoft Windows XP is taken off life support and will have to fend for itself. OK, so let’s look at the picture Microsoft has extended  MSE coverage for a year, and other anti-virus producers will also cover it for a while, but NOTHING is for ever.When Windows 9x was on its last legs, some promised to continue support but lost interest very quickly. Most software people like to be at the cutting edge and that doesn’t include supplying duct tape to patch up holes in old stuff. If … Continue reading Are you really excited by this?

.. in the attempt to pry XP users away from their ‘babies?. In the article provided, we learn that Microsoft were giving away $50 gifts cards, good for any Microsoft store. It would cost me $50 to get to and from my nearest Microsoft store.. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9247125/Microsoft_tries_to_tempt_XP_diehards_with_100_discount_on_new_PCs?source=rss_latest_content&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+computerworld%2Fnews%2Ffeed+%28Latest+from+Computerworld%29 For the $100 it probably cost, Microsoft could put back an official Windows classic start menu, after which Windows 8 would take off like a rocket. Instead, Microsoft is going for the ‘Catherine Wheel’ approach.. All very nice while it is running, but at the end of the day, and after less than a … Continue reading Is Microsoft being serious..

In response to a post where a Windows computer user had been called from this number ‘360-637-4743’ by a company called Windows 7 Tech support. This was my first reply.. The maker of Windows 7 is called MICROSOFT, not Windows 7, so even if Microsoft did cold call, which incidentally they DO NOT, they would introduce themselves as Microsoft. Windows 7 Tech Support is a subset of iYogi which is a remote technical support company based in Guragon, India. They use a service provided by Pac-West Telecomm Inc of Washington State, USA which provides Windows 7 Tech Support with a … Continue reading Telephone scams.. and why they don’t get caught..

Open up Event Viewer, let it sort itself out first and then make your way to the section in the above title.. Applications and services log > Microsoft > Windows > Diagnostics – performance > Operational This is where you can find out what is slowing your computer down, I understand, and looking at the three Windows 7 machines in the home network, there is a LOT of slowing down. Two of the machines, both laptops, were supplied with Windows 7, and the desktop was an XP era machine. I say this because the old desktop only just runs Windows … Continue reading Diagnostics – Performance

..on your iPad 2, boys and girls. Apple have dumped it already, in favour of a new, well, slightly newer  Retina 9.7” model that has a bumper 16gb (would you like that in words?) storage, and the “Lightning” transfer and charging connector”. What are you waiting for? The 9.8” model? That might not appear for at least a year. C’mon, let’s go.. It’s a different world for Apple consumers, isn’t it.  While Apple consumers are dreaming about the day when they can pay out $399 to use the same connectors on their iPad  AND iPhone, Windows users are losing sleep … Continue reading Calling time..

I have been toying with the idea of changing my Coolermaster case. It’s a boring old black thing, and I often get the urge to customize it, not exactly like the mods seen in CPU magazine, a freebie I pick up from my local TigerDirect.. see here.. http://www.computerpoweruser.com/DigitalEditions/Default.aspx .. but trick it out a littler bit. In the last few weeks, I have placed an MVP label on the front to balance out the AMD sticker and I added a card reader. The sticker was purely decorative, but the card reader added functionality but not style as it is the … Continue reading More room..

There are two of them in Windows 7 and 8, but there is a difference. One is for your personal account, and the other covers ‘all users’. This is the first of them.. %systemdrive%\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup For all users, you will find the startup folder in: %systemdrive%\users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup There is another difference where Windows 8.1 is concerned. If you choose the option to have an item auto start, even if you are essentially ‘all users’ and the option or preference setting in the program/utility is set to auto start, it will not comply if you add it to the ‘personal’ startup … Continue reading Startup folders..