If you haven’t heard about SSD (Solid State Disk) HDDs (Hard Disk Drives) then you’re probably not a geek. But if you’re alive then you probably have a computer, and that computer could run twice as fast (if not faster) than it does now if you replaced the HDD with an SSD HDD. Traditional HDDs are alot like a vinyl record what with their moving parts and susceptibility to bumps and scratches (so to speak). SSDs don’t have the moving parts or the scratch problems (and they’re crazy fast!) An 80GB (which is usually plenty for most end users) Intel X25M (lots of good reviews and plenty of good personal experience) will set you back about $210 from a reputable vendor like NewEgg. You’re geek can likely install one in your laptop or desktop computer in about an hour or two. Just do it! You’ll thank me later. (P.S. Only do this if you’re running Windows 7 or some other SSD aware OS; Vista and XP don’t work particularly well as they don’t support TRIM and they’re optimized for older rotational media HDDs; you’ve been warned.)
SSD HDD – Get off the fence and buy one!
August 25th, 2010Windows Media Player tries to open Everything!
June 1st, 2010Here’s something new. I just cleaned a Windows XP Home computer that was trying to use Windows Media Player to open shortcuts to EXE files. Had to create a broken shortcut on the desktop, and then “run with” and select c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe to get a command prompt. After that I found the registry entry HKCU/software/microsoft/windows/currentversion/explorer/fileexts/.exe and delete the key pointing back to wmplayer.exe.
Seemingly random printing problems with Quickbooks – Everything else works fine
May 19th, 2010So you can print from everything but Quickbooks; but that’s not quite true, because you can print estimates in Quickbooks, but not invoices; and when you attempt to print invoices you just hear little bell sound…..? Delete the qbprint.qbp file (search for it) and then start up Quickbooks and magically everything is printing
ping, nslookup, and IE all work; Firefox and WOW do not … what?
March 26th, 2010XP Home SP3: So I’ve checked that DHCP is on, no proxy’s are configured, “reset” IE, netsh’d and rebooted, LSPFIX’d (and found nothing), HIJACKTHIS looks good; still, IE works perfectly; Firefox and Word of Warcraft fail instantly!, like they’re not even really looking to see if the WAN is there. Run the Norton manual removal tool and without a reboot Firefox and WOW start to work (Norton had been installed 6 months ago but it had long since been removed and was using AVG, or so I was told – AVG was installed when I got there). I’ve seen this happen once before on a Windows Server 2003 box running some corporate version for Norton. The uninstall leaves something in the registry that prevents any computer using the 2003 server as a gateway from accessing the WAN, but the gateway can still access the internet … Bad Norton uninsall … Norton strikes again!
URL Whitelisting with a cheap WiFi router
February 28th, 2010Just spent some time searching for a cheap router that supports whitelisting (sometimes called domain blocking or domain filtering) and found the Dlink DIR-615. It allows URL whitelisting for every connected computer (according to the online user guide). The last device that I know of that supported this feature was the DI-524, but it’s been out of production for over a year now. Whitelisting seems to be a very rare feature, even in the aftermarket firmware world. I’ve looked at DD-WRT, Tomato, Gargoyle, etc. and have not been able to see where whitelisting was supported. What I like about the router URL whitelisting is that you don’t need to turn off the default route and code static routes in the routing table (which can be done with just about any router I think) and you don’t have to mess with HOSTS files on each workstation. Also, you can find the DIR-615 on Newegg.com for $47 plus shipping which is a pretty good deal. If this works out, I just might switch from my standard Linksys WRT54GL (a great router since it’s supported by so many after market firmwares like DD-WRT, Open-WRT, Tomato, Gargoyle, etc.) to the Dlink DIR-615.
Update: Installed the DIR-615 today with limited success. The web filter caused “time out” error messages when loging into certain websites and the credit card processing machines at the cash registers would only work for short periods of time (maybe a minute) before they would “time out” waiting for a response from the online merchant account site. To fix the CC machines would work again if we unplugged them for a few seconds (power cycle). None of this was a problem with the old Linksys 8 port router. I’ve turned off UPnP and disabled QoS (AKA traffic shaping). Also, the router got flaky once and would not respond to web configuration (had to power cycle the router). I updated the firmware from 3.11NA to 3.12NA but it did not seem to make any difference. The DIR-615 is version C1 hardware (if it makes any difference).
Hal.dll missing or corrupt after Blackberry Desktop software install
February 10th, 2010So a client comes to me with the following problem. Their Verizon rep. comes over to help them sync. their Blackberry phone to their XP Pro computer. This means installing the Blackberry Desktop software. After waiting for the Blackberry Desktop software for an unusual amount of time, the Verizon rep. decides to terminate the install and reboot the computer. At reboot the following message is displayed “hal.dll missing or corrupt” (not verbatim of course). Cutting to the chase, the problem was with the boot.ini file (aka the file you edit with bootcfg). Somehow the boot.ini file was erased. After an absurd amount of troubleshooting the hal.dll file, an obscure reference to bootcfg fixing hal.dll problems lead to the soln. So the moral of the story goes like this: if you interrupt a Blackberry Desktop software install, be ready with your XP OS boot disk so that you can boot into recovery console mode and fix the boot.ini file with a bootcfg /list, bootcfg /scan, and bootcfg /rebuild. Hope this saves someone a few hours of Blackberry hell.
Sync HTC6800 using Windows Mobile Device Center on Vista Ultimate 64
August 6th, 2009I’ll skip right to the answer on this one: plug the cable into a USB port directly on the MB (not an add on card). After that, the phone was suddenly and inexplicably recognized by the PC and Sync worked perfectly…..
Outlook 2007 on Vista 32bit
August 5th, 2009Had a client today that couldn’t save or open attachments in Outlook 2007 with a specific file name. Turns out it was just the Outlook temporary file store that had malfunctioned. Cleared the temporary store and it was fixed. Found the store by looking at the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Security\OutlookSecureTempFolder. More info. on Microsoft’s website at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817878
Timeslips 2008
April 24th, 2009First time working on this program. Overall it’s a pretty easy program to setup if you do it exactly this way. There’s just a few things to remember.
1. When installing (or replacing) the server, install from the CD to the shared drive drive (T: in my case), and configure the Timeslips Administrator to point to the program using the same shared drive that the clients will connect to. To do this, share the Timeslips install folder (C:\Program Files\Timeslips) and then map the drive back to the server (T:\ -> \\server\timeslips). Then use the Timeslips administrator console (Start->Programs->~Timeslips administrator) to point to the installation at T:\ instead of C:\Program Files\Timeslips. You shouldn’t need to do this if you install the server to the T: drive to begin with.
2. Make sure to install the clinets from the server. To do this map the T:\ drive to the clients and then install from the ~setup.exe at ~T:\remoteinstl (or something like that).
3. Don’t be afraid to clear out the licenses on the server using the Options menu under the Timeslips administrator console on the server.
4. Be sure to point to the timeslip.cfg file on the server ~T:\timeslip.cfg on each of the clients using the admin console on the clients.
Hope this helps me and someonelse in the future. Feel free to ask any questions or leave responses. I can’t guarantee I’ll have time to respond, but ya never know 