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Here we go for 2008:
January 2, 2008 - With the start of the new year, I was asked to discuss Internet Safety with parents. At Christmas, a lot of families get new computers and new technology. For a lot of families, it is their first computer. They rush to get the Internet and then let their children use the Internet. Unfortunately, a lot of parents know less about the Internet than the kids do. That can create some problems and, in some cases, grave situations and problems. In frustration, some parents are resorting to taking their Internet modems with them when they leave the house to prevent their kids from using the Internet when they are gone. I have documented over the last three years many safety tips and warnings for parents. Here are a few of the absolute and most important tips for using the Internet.
You are not invading the privacy of your child by demanding the above guidelines. You are educating them and helping them to be responsible and safe. I have five children and have encountered just about every excuse as to why I don’t need to know everything having to do with the computer (Please let me know the excuses you hear so I can know them all).There are many types of software on the market that can assist you governing the activities of your child’s Internet experience. If you would like me to review a particular program, just email me and I will help you out. If your children become troublesome over this issue, I can teach you how to modify the computer to help you accomplish your goals of safety and responsibility.
January 9, 2008 - Melanie from Windsor had an issue this week regarding the blue screen of death. She wrote, “Came back to use my computer after an hour or so and found a blue screen advising me there had been a serious error and the computer had been shut down. then it said it was dumping files - which appeared numerically. I then shut it down - took 3 tries and it came back up, which confirmed my computer "had recovered from a serious error".
Melanie has experienced the blue screen of death in Windows XP. Usually this happens when there is a conflict on the computer that Windows cannot resolve. Instead of damaging the computer or Windows installation, the Operating System just stops everything and displays a blue screen telling you what is wrong. However, sometimes the blue screen does not stay up long enough for you to read what has happened. The computer automatically creates a file called a dump or minidump. It will have a .dmp extension and will be located in the Windows directory. I had Melanie email me this file and Tech Support people, such as myself, have tools that help us look in this file to find out what caused the problem. After examination, I found that a new program that had been installed was causing the conflict. She uninstalled the program and the problem went away. In Windows XP, you can view dump files by Selecting Start >> Run. In the window that appears, type drwtsn32 and click on OK. The program that opens up allows you to view the contents of the dump file. If this does not work, you do not have the Administrator Tools installed on your XP machine. In Vista or XP, you can download the Windows Debugging Tool from Microsoft.com. For those who program, Visual Studio or Dreamweaver may let you have a look at the file.
January 16, 2008 - This week’s article is a follow up to my article late last year outlining the security hole in Windows Vista and OpenVpn. After some investigation, I have found the following. When OpenVpn install in Vista, it installs itself as a service and sets itself to start automatically when you start your computer. Therefore, when you make the connection the first time, the connection does not shut off because a service only shuts off in Windows if you tell it to. In order to use an OpenVpn connection securely, you must jump through the following hoops: Each time you are finished with your OpenVpn connection, you must go to got to the Control Panel >> Administrative Tools >> Services. From the list, find OpenVpn Service. Right-click on the service and select Stop from the menu. Now you connection is closed and you PC is secure. Make sure the service is set to Manual. If it is not, Double-click on the OpenVpn service and the Properties Box will open. Change Startup type to Manual and click Apply >> OK. This secures your computer from anyone who wants to try and access your VPN connection. The sad part is you have to reverse this every time you want to use your VPN connection client. There is a solution being researched by the OpenVpn community where, through a GUI (Graphical User Interface), you will be able to Start and Stop the service more easily than the way described above. Oh, one more little wrinkle. You must be logged on as an Administrator or the annoying security popup windows will keep appearing as you go through all the steps above.
January 23, 2008 - I have been asked many, many times over the last few weeks about my opinion regarding the age I think is appropriate to allow a child to use MySpace.com ™ and Facebook.com ™. First and foremost, I believe, that no one under the age of eighteen should have a MySpace or Facebook account. If a parent or adult wants to see the kind of activity that can result from MySpace need to visit http:///www.deadkidsofmyspace.com. This site may be a bit unnerving for some adults when they read some of the results of the atrocities that have taken place as a result of communicating through MySpace.com. Because it is a site of mostly adults, the content is mostly adult. Unfortunately, the people who want to use it for fun can still be inundated with requests and interruptions. In my opinion, adults are more prepared for this kind of garbage than children. A good alternative to MySpace is http://www.imbee.com. This site requires the parents to use their address to create an account. It is very user friendly and is designed for children and is strictly monitored for content. Imbee.com is also used by teachers through the Teacher’s portal.
Facebook is definitely an adult site. By adult, I do not mean pornography rather, it is the mature content of the site. Pre-teens and young teens do not need to be made subject of the conversations and threads running through some of the sites. I realize that Facebook is the flavour of the week right now; just beware. Second, unless you turn off a lot of features, every update you make to your page or anyone else’s page is seen by every member of those pages. If you want to see just how many people are looking at your pages, click on Forward when you receive a message and Select Ctrl + F4. It will display all of the usernames of people accessing your account through this particular thread. As MySpace continues to move more toward the Facebook model, I do not have a good alternative as of yet. Anyone can email me to suggest a site for me to investigate that may be better for younger people.
Remember scott@slconsultingsolutions.com for all of your questions or comments. By the way, happy belated birthday Mr. Mayor.
February 6, 2008 - I had an interesting chat with the owner of Village One Computers in Belle River, Tom Szaran (v-one@cogeco.ca). We were discussing the importance of having the right back up system for your small business or home business information. Tom’s specialty is Data Recovery. In the event of a catastrophic failure of your hard drive system, there isn’t much that Tom cannot recover. Tom emphasizes that even though your hard drive my fail, do not give up hope. The data is still there in some form. Even if you have performed a low level format of your drive, there still may be some hope. Low level drive formats are different today than they used to be. In the old DOS days, a low level format pretty much guaranteed no data would be recoverable from the drive after that. Today’s low level format is more of an aggressive formatting of the drive user areas rather than what a true low level format was on much older hard drives. In language we can understand this means, that even though the data appears to be gone; some of it is still there.
In order to lessen the risk of loss of information due to hard drive failure, be sure to make regular backups of your information by burning your files on to CD’s or DVD’s. CD’s will hold up to 800 MB of information and DVD’s will hold up to 4.3 GB of information. A point to remember: you cannot backup up programs such as Microsoft Office. You must reinstall programs because the folder that says Microsoft Office in your Program Files directory is only a small portion of the actual program. The rest is installed elsewhere on your hard drive.
I would like to thank Tom (v-one@cogeco.ca )for his insight into data recovery. It is certainly comforting to know all is not lost.
February 20, 2008 - Shawn from Windsor had a potentially critical problem that we were able to resolve. His computer came up with an error that said “lsassrv.dll cannot be found. Windows cannot logon”. Even in safe mode, he was not able to log on. After some investigation, I found out that he had just uninstalled his anti-virus program. Unfortunately, when the program uninstalled it took this file with it. The lsassrv.dll file is the main, critical file that allows a user to log into Windows. Even if you have no log in screen that appears at log on, the computer still goes through a log on sequence. The computer accesses this file to tell it all is in order and the computer is allowed to operate normally. Shawn thought he was going to have to reinstall Windows to get this file back. Normally for most novice users, this is the solution. For those who are not novice, get the lsassrv.dll from the C:\Windows directory of a Windows XP computer and copy the file to a floppy disk. Only if you really know what you are doing should you copy it to a USB flash drive (you have to make sure to enable USB devices in the bios). Boot the computer using a MS-DOS boot disk or Windows 98 boot disk. Take the boot disk out and put in the disk with the lsassrv.dll file. At the A:\ prompt type copy lsassrv.dll C:\Windows and hit enter. Some DOS versions may have you type diskcopy instead of copy. A message will not appear if the file copied successfully. The A:\ prompt will appear again. Remove the diskette and reboot the computer normally. Your Windows should boot normally and all is good. Because this file doesn’t hold the actual logon names and passwords (it just references that file), no one’s names or passwords will be transferred to your computer.
One brief reminder as we stay indoors for the winter weather. Remember to clean the inside of your computer. As your house collects dust, so does your computer. Now may be the time to unplug your computer, open it up and use a can of compressed air to clean it out. The damage dust can cause when not cleaned out is only measureable when you have to replace parts because it got too hot and burned out.
March 5 -This week’s tip may seem a bit out of the ordinary. Often when a person’s hard drive fails, all hope is lost. Many individuals and companies lose information every day because their hard drives crash and because they do not have a back up of the files. They frantically call their local computer guy in a panic asking us to get all of the crucial files off that they forgot to back up. Here is a tip that we use to solve the task of getting old files off a crashed hard drive. First, a basic overview of a hard drive: The hard disk drive is a permanent storage area for data and the programs used to create the data. Inside the hard disk drive are individual platters, covered on both sides with a special magnetic material. Drives work by writing small magnetic charges onto the surface of the disk platter. These platters spin at thousands of Revolution per Minute (RPM). A hard disk has a certain number of heads, tracks per platter, and sectors per track. A computer’s BIOS is set up so the PC knows how to access the drive. The physical components are: Platters, Heads, a Spindle Motor, the hard disk drive controller of the hard drive itself. Since digital information is a stream of ones and zeros, hard disks store information in the form of magnetic pulses. In order for the PC's data to be stored on the hard disk, it must be converted to magnetic information. When it is read from the disk, it must be converted back to digital information. This work is done by the integrated controller built into the hard drive, in combination with sense and amplification circuits that are used to interpret the weak signals read from the platters themselves. Solution: freeze your hard drive. Yes, I said freeze your hard drive. This typically works when there is a problem with spindle motor, armature control motor or bearings. Freezing them basically shrinks the mechanical components just enough that they may operate as normal for a short time afterwards. This method does not work if the problem is with the logic board. You need to leave the hard drive in the freezer at least four hours if you want it frozen enough to last longer than the boot time. Typically ten to fifteen minutes is all you have. When you put it in the freezer, make sure to put it in a sealed bag and suck as much air out as possible. When you remove it from the freezer, time is of the essence. Every minute counts. As the hard drive warms, so do the defective components. Get the hard drive into the computer. Attach your jump drive before booting so that no time is wasted. If it boots? Save, save, save. I have used this method several times with positive results.
March 12 - This week’s question comes from a reader who wants to know why her videos that she plays on YouTube are very choppy. They start and stop and start and stop all the time. Our reader has a DSL lite connection to the Internet.
There are two reason why your video keeps stopping every few seconds. First, your internet connection is a basic connection so it lets information through at about 64 KB to 100 KB per second. Normal DSL lines let 100 KB to 300 KB information through at a time. Most videos want to play back at 192KB to 300 KB per second on a computer through an internet connection. When you are playing the video, your computer downloads pieces of the file before it plays. If your connection is slower, the player is going faster than the video is downloaded. Therefore, it stops to catch up with the downloading video. The only way to avoid the stop and start is to get a faster connection or wait until the entire video downloads to your computer before starting to play it. The download is usually indicated by a small bar across the bottom of the video screen indicating how much of the video has been buffered for playing. When it has filled the entire bar, you can play the video uninterrupted.
March 19 - Computer Data Products (http://www.cdppc.com) from Amherstburg notified me of a new virus circulating throughout email boxes everywhere. They had computers lined up for cleaning because of this and other viruses. It is called a MailMerge virus. This particular virus attacks your address book first. It takes all of the addresses in your book and, one at a time, constructs a letter (from a template contained in the virus program). Here is the scary part. The virus is sent to every email address in your address book. The email comes from you, it is signed by you and addressed to the person in your address book. The rule used to be that if you did not recognize the email address the email is originating from, delete it immediately. This is no longer a 100% safe option. Computer Data Products suggests the following to consumers: create a keyword that only you and your contacts will know and put it in the subject of all your emails. When a recipients receives the email and sees the key word in the subject, the receiver will know it came from you and not from an automated virus program. Enter the email address in the To: line (i.e. info@ cdppc.com). In the subject line type your subject. Now type the keyword beside the subject. Now type your regular email. The virus cannot pick up on this keyword (I guess I should say, Yet). Your email receiver will know it is an authentic email from you.
March 26 - Vista Service Pack One was released to the public this week. Windows Vista SP1 adds numerous improvements to the original Vista release when it comes to security, reliability, application compatibility, power management and device support. Naturally, Windows Vista SP1 also includes all previously released updates for Windows Vista. For example, the Search option has been removed from the Start menu. There is also a new option in Windows Vista's Disk Defragmenter allowing you to choose which volumes you would like to defragment. On my notebook, I have two drives (one internal and one external). I was able to choose, specifically, to defragment my second hard drive. This worked great. I've also taken notice to improvements in overall responsiveness of my PCs. Improvements were also noticeable in resuming from Hibernation or Sleep on both my desktop PC and laptop running SP1. I discovered copying files from one directory to another is a bit faster. Emptying the recycle bin is faster as is the writing of the file to the hard drive after download. And on my laptop - battery life seems to be improved since running SP1. I have also noticed that transferring files to my other computers are a bit faster than they were previously without SP1. Overall performance in accessing my mapped network drives is improved as well. I store quite a bit of data on my external hard drives so this was a huge plus for me. Windows Vista now uses less RAM memory to run. These are just some of the performance improvements I've seen running SP1 so far. My wireless network experience is improved on my laptop. Prior to SP1, I had been experiencing issues in losing connectivity on my wireless home network and having to repair the connection (especially after resuming from Sleep or Hibernation). Since SP1, I've not had to repair my connection once. All of the applications I used before SP1 still work properly after SP1. By the way, if you do have problems, you can uninstall it from the Programs / Feature in the Control Panel.
April 9 - William and Edith from Cottam were experiencing some unusual behavior from their computer. It would turn on and boot up without any problems. They would be able to use the computer and perform any tasks without issue. Then, all of a sudden, the screen would disappear and say that it was in standby mode. After some investigation, they determined that the monitor would turn off approximately 10-15 minutes after boot.
This type of behavior from computer is indicative of a heat problem. When first hearing about it, I considered two possibilities: one was the video card was having heat issues by getting too hot and the other was the cpu fan had quit. Computers are designed to help prevent further damaged is another major component fails. Because the fan that cools the cpu failed, the motherboard and the computer chip were getting too hot. Therefore, instead of allowing the damage to occur, the computer turns itself off to prevent the damage. The reason the computer worked for a little while before shutting off was that it had not yet reached the dangerous temperature. It starts cool then heats up. The solution was to replace the heat sink and fan for the computer chip. For those who know that the heat sink and fan come apart, you may ask, “Why not just replace the fan?” It is a good question. The fan and heat sink are matched when produced. The fan is engineered to draw the heat away from the heat sink. It makes sense to keep matching components together to issue a properly running computer.
April 30 - This week’s issue involves Internet Explorer 7.0 and spyware. Our reader had clicked on a suspicious ad and realized that he probably shouldn’t have. Instantly, he noticed that whenever he tried to open a popup type window from his browser (i.e. watching the highlights from an NHL game on Yahoo sports), only a blank window appeared. What was really unusual, he thought, was that the blank window had a URL in it from his browsing history. He knew he was prepared to thwart this new problem because he had heeded advice and purchased an anti-spyware program and an adware program to remove such threats. Unfortunately, neither of them worked on this problem. No matter how many times he scanned his computer, it would not remove his problem. He is using Internet Explorer 7.0 and Windows XP. This is when our reader got frustrated enough and emailed me for a solution.
Thankfully for our reader I have witnessed this problem before. This solution will not work for Vista users because Internet Explorer 7.0 comes shipped with the machine. For Windows XP users, your operating system comes with Internet Explorer 6.0 and you have to upgrade to Internet Explorer 7.0. To remove the threat, go to Start >> Control Panel. Double-click on Add/Remove Programs. When the program list appears, check the small checkbox at the top labeled Show Updates. Make sure that box is checked. By selecting this box, the program list will expand to show you all Windows updates you have performed. Internet Explorer 7.0 will be in that list. Find it in the list and click Remove. By removing Internet Explorer 7.0 this way, you will retain all of your Favorites but you will lose saved passwords and forms. After Windows is finished removing Internet Explorer 7.0, it will ask you to reboot your computer. Reboot your computer and Internet Explorer 6.0 will be back on your machine. Browse the Internet and you will discover that all functions are back. Within minutes, your computer will alert you that there are updates available for your Windows. That alert is asking you to download Internet Explorer 7.0. Go ahead and install Internet Explorer 7.0 again. This time when the installation is finished, all of your functions will work just like it did before you clicked on the wrong advertisement.
May 14 -This week we are going to talk about the release of Windows XP Service Pack three. It was released to the general public on Wednesday, May 7, 2008 and is now available through the Windows Update. There are only a few subtle changes with the service pack. First, you should see no difference in the way your computer performs. Second, this update will be necessary if you want your XP to last longer than the retirement date of Windows XP. There are a couple of things to beware of. A few weeks ago I talked about how to uninstall and reinstall Internet Explorer 7.0. After you install SP3, you will no longer be able to uninstall Internet Explorer 7.0. The only way you will be able to uninstall it is to uninstall the Service Pack first and then uninstall Internet Explorer 7.0. If you install Internet Explorer 7.0 after you update to Service Pack 3, you will be able to uninstall Internet Explorer 7.0. If anyone wants the ultra technical reason why, feel free to email me at essex_voice@slconsultingsolutions.com. One last caution: The service pack is having a hard time with some AMD computers. After installation, the computer goes into an endless reboot. I’m sure there will be a patch soon. Another small glitch is with some notebook computers and the intelppm.sys (Intel based) and the amdk8.sys (AMD based) files. These are the power management files and on some HP notebooks will cause and endless reboot. The solution is to boot to safe mode and uninstall the service pack. I installed it on my Dell XPS 1710 with 4 GB of RAM and a Dual Core 1.8 GHz cpu and am having no issues thus far. I have been running it for a couple of weeks now.
May 28 - Ken from Essex has been trying to play a network game with his son and cannot see the other computer. When he tries to connect the two games together, it says he needs IPX/SPX installed for the game to work. He wants to know, what is IPX/SPX and how do you install it.
First: IPX stands for Internetwork Packet Exchange and SPX stands for Sequenced Packet Exchange. IPX/SPX is a protocol that is used for intra-network connections. IPX/SPX is similar to TCP/IP (Transfer Control Protocol/Internet Protocol.). TCP/IP is used for Internet use and Internet/intranet connectivity. TCP/IP is more secure and processes information and packets extremely fast as compared to IPX/SPX. Protocols allow computers to communicate back and forth. Is this case, IPX/SPX is used to exchange information about the game back and forth to the computers. In the end, it appears you are both playing the same game because your computers are set up to communicate back and forth with this protocol. IPX/SPX is not installed by default on Windows XP computers because it is less secure and because it is a protocol that was more popular with Windows 3.1, Windows 95 and 98, Novell and Windows NT. It is older but still needed in particular cases such as ours today.
To set up IPX/SPX on your computer, you will need to complete the following steps. Click on Start >> Control Panel. Double-click on Network Connections. Right click on your network connection icon (usually named Local Area Connection) and choose Properties from the menu that appears. When the small popup window appears, click on Install. A windows will open giving you the option to install a Client, Service or Protocol. Click on Protocol. A list will appear and, from that list, choose NWLink IPX/SPX/NetBIOS Compatible Transport Protocol. After selecting it, click OK and it will install. Do not try to change any of the settings for this protocol once it is installed. It automatically configures itself to operate on your computer. When it is finished installing, click OK to complete the installation. You should not have to reboot your computer. Open the game and click on your network game option again and the other computer should appear in the list of games you can join. If it does not, chances are the other computer does not have IPX/SPX installed either and it will have to be installed to work. This protocol is not reliable over Wireless network connections. Keep the questions coming to essex_voice@slconsultingsolutions.com.
June 4 - Mel from Windsor wanted me to investigate the practicality of a new product from http://www.GoClickFree.com. It is a backup device that no longer needs CD’s, DVD’s or Tape backups. For a small business or home user, it is quite cumbersome to always remember to change the tape or keep track of your CD/DVD’s. This solution is a device, much like a hard drive, that connects to your computer through your USB port. The proprietary software included on the hard drive automatically downloads all of the contents of your hard drive to the external backup device. When it is finished transferring the files to the backup device, unplug it from your computer. It is this simple: remove it from its box, plug it in to your computer, remove it when it is finished. There is no software to use to make this work. Now, when you want to complete incremental backups, all you have to do is plug it in to your computer and it will backup all of your hard drive again. Right now, it has a 120 GB limit but I am sure that will change in the near future. It retails for only $149 U.S. and they ship to Canada. Your PC must have the following requirements to use it: Microsoft Windows Vista (Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate or Business), Windows XP (Home, Professional or Media Center Edition) or Windows 2000 (with Service Pack 4). An extremely important note is that this will not backup your operating system or system files or program files. It is designed to be compatible with 350 different file types associated with everyday productivity. Some examples of files it does back up are: .jpg, .gif, .png, .psd, .doc, .xls, .ppt, email files, html, htm, etc. translated , it means pictures, documents, spreadsheet, presentations, web pages etc.
June 18 - Pierre from Windsor had an issue he had been struggling with for two weeks. All of his desktop icons disappeared. No matter what he tried, they would not reappear. To make them reappear, right click anywhere on your Desktop. From the menu that appears, select Arrange Icons By. Next, select Show Desktop Icons from the next menu that appears. By making this selection, all of your Desktop icons will reappear in about five seconds.
Our second item for this week comes from a user who cannot stand the Microsoft chime that he hears every time he starts Windows. He wants to know is there any way to change the chime. First off, whatever audio file we use will have to be saved as a .wav file. In Windows XP, the startup sound .wav file is located in C:\Windows\media. The name of the .wav file is Windows XP Startup.wav. If you want to change the startup sound, save the sound file (keep it under 1 MB) and overwrite the Windows XP Startup file. I would make a backup of the original file just in case it doesn’t work and you want to put it back. After overwriting the file, reboot your computer and the new sound should play as Windows starts instead of the old annoying sound.
June 25 - Wayne’s question is twofold: First, my media player has recently not recognized my burn portion of the cd drive. It will play cd's and rip them but will not burn them. Why when I go to burn a cd a message appears stating "connect a burner and restart the player"? This unit has worked well in the past with no problems burning cd's. Second, I installed a second hard drive on my computer because I was running low on memory. I moved all my music files onto this new hard drive to free up room on my original HD. How can I get my media player to recognize/find these files? Should I move the media player to this new drive and if so how? I am currently using the Windows Media Player. Is there a better one out there?
The solution to your first problem is simple but not the one you are looking for. You most likely will need a new burner. This is typical behaviour from a CD-burner that is no longer capable of burning CD’s. The laser that burns the CD no longer functions for burning but will function for reading the CD. All the media software is doing when it rips a CD is read the CD. In order to open and play the music on your new hard drive, open your media player and click on File >> Open. An opendialog box will appear. Navigate to the location of your music and select the file to open. After you select it, the file will start playing. Further, most media players have a library section and you can add all of the files to your library and the player will find them automatically when you want to play them. In my opinion, there are plenty of better media players than Windows Media Player. The Windows Media Player takes a lot of memory to run. There is WinAmp, VLC, Nero Showtime, Divx to name a few. Each person has their own favourite. The most universal one is Windows Media Player and it is compatible with most of the standard audio and video file types. The media player I prefer is VLC by VideoLAN.
July 2 -Frank from Essex writes:
I am a big fan of your column and look forward to reading it in each edition of The Essex Voice. My problem is that my DVD burner will no longer work with all DVD+R disks.
I am running Windows XP Home Edition, use Nero Express for burning DVD's and have an LG Super Multi DVD Drive #GSA-4160B that I installed in 2004. I used to be able to copy/burn DVD files to any brand of DVD+R disks. Now it will only work with Sony 1x - 16x DVD+R disks. If I try to use, for instance, 16x Memorex, Verbatim, Staples, etc they will not work. For some reason Nero Express does not recognize them and the box where you choose the Writing Speed on the Final Burn Settings page is "grayed out" and cannot be selected. I was reading on the Internet that possibly the LG firmware can be updated to improve capability with DVD+R 16x media. Could this be the solution, besides replacing the DVD burner? How do I do this?
Well Frank, you may be in the situation our reader from the previous week is in. Since your burner is four years old, it is susceptible to failures especially if you use it a lot. A typical burner is good for one thousand burns. DVD players/burners can be damaged by heavily damaged disks being used in them. If the tower/laptop is bumped and bruised too many times, the laser may be damaged. However, because you can still burn +R DVD’s, there is hope. In order to update the firmware for your DVD Burner, follow this link http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Firmware/SingleModel.aspx?DriveId=984 and download the firmware update tool (Right-click where it says Download Location 1 beside the version A306 and choose Save Link As… from the list that appears.). After this file downloads, locate the file and double click on it to activate the firmware update process. It is most important that there are no DVD’s or CD’s in the burner before starting this task. You must not turn your computer off or shut it down during the upgrade process. You will guarantee failure and the need for a new burner if you do. After the process is complete, you will most likely have to restart your computer. If your burner still behaves the same way after the firmware upgrade as it did before the upgrade, then the days are numbered for your DVD burner.
A reminder to readers: Because Frank was able to provide me so much detail about his hardware and problem, it makes it a lot easier for me to find and suggest solutions. Please keep providing me with the detail, so I can provide the most complete answer. Email questions to essex_voice@slconsultinsolutions.com.
July 9 - Kelly from Essex was trying to figure a way to have a backup of a file always available to her. She didn’t want to carry a CD copy of it wherever she went, nor did she want to leave it at her desk for fear of the CD being damaged or stolen. Further, home is not the place for it. A solution can be emailing it to yourself. I do not mean email it to your home user account because it will still be on your computer. Email it to your Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail account. Because these servers are worldwide servers, the information is secure on their servers. Now this file is available to you anywhere in the world as long as you have internet access.
July 16 - Melissa from Essex has an Acer laptop with Windows XP and a 16.9GB hard drive. She says she has recently noticed that it is very slow starting up, takes a long time to load, and has been receiving messages that my Windows Virtual Memory is low. My husband suggested defragmenting the system, but when I tried that, there wasn't enough room left on my hard drive to defragment. Even after all of the things I deleted, I still did not have any extra free space left over.
Is there a hidden folder in my computer that is storing files, and if so, how do I access it to erase them? And what does it mean when my virtual memory is low? Can this be fixed?
Let’s start with the most popular definition of Virtual Memory. Virtual memory is a computer system technique which gives an application program the impression that it has contiguous working memory, while in fact it may be physically fragmented and may even overflow on to disk storage. Systems that use this technique make programming of large applications easier and use real physical memory (e.g. RAM) more efficiently than those without virtual memory.
The definition of "virtual memory" is based on tricking programs into thinking they are using large blocks of contiguous addresses. The larger your hard drive and the more RAM you have, the larger your virtual memory file will be.
Here a few ideas for you: First, when a person says, “I cleaned off unused programs”, I hope it means that the person used the Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel to uninstall the program. This insures that all files for that program have been removed. If you used the delete key for the folder in the Program Files directory, it only sends them to the recycle bin and does not remove all of the system files it installed. If you used the delete key, go to the recycle bin (providing you haven’t emptied it), and Restore the programs to their original location and uninstall them properly. If you have uninstalled them properly, I would ask the people of the house a couple of questions. One question would be, “Is anyone downloading music or other programs?” If they are, the files are most likely being stored in a folder called “My Music” found in the “My Documents” folder. If they are using a program such as Kazaa, find the program file folder for it and look in the “Downloaded Files” directory. If they are using a program called a torrent to download, ask them where they are storing the files, or go to the Options tab in the program and see where they are downloading them to.
It seems that the problems started after increased use from the children. Generally, excessive downloading of files and music is the culprit. If this is the case, have them burn the music to CD’s and erase them off your hard drive. To help you understand how much space songs can take, I record music from my vinyl record turntable to my computer. At present, it takes 135 GB of space to hold my songs. If none of the above is true, and you need every program that you have installed, your solution may be to buy an external hard drive for extra storage. Last option would be to completely reformat your hard drive and install only the programs you need. This would show you just how much hard drive space you are supposed to have left over before anyone else gets on the computer.
Next week, we are going to talk about online TV.
July 23 - I have completed some research on watching TV on-line using your computer. There is really no perfect site to watch TV for free from the web. Most have clips available to view for free. Anything worthwhile is usually subscription based. Some sites offer some basic channels, but if you want sports channels or Nickelodeon, you have to go to their sites and pay for it. The most reliable way to watch TV on your computer is to make sure you have a TV tuner card and go to a site like PCTV and buy their software. Now you can watch TV on your computer.
This week’s question is as follows: I just bought a used computer from someone and the username is New. How can I change the username to my name and create a password. I use Windows XP Professional.
Since you have Windows XP Professional, I would suggest using this method over others. Click on Start>>Control Panel. Click on Administrative Tools and click on Computer Management. Click the small plus (+) symbol beside Local Users and Groups. Click on the folder Users. In the panel that appears on the right, find the Username “New” in the list. Right click and choose Rename from the Menu. Type in the name you wish to change it to and hit Enter. Important: You will see that there is an option to Set Password when you right click on the name in the list. DO NOT use this option to change your password. Windows XP creates a unique ID for every username. By resetting the password here, you will create the irreversible loss of data for that user account. Therefore, the next time you log out and back in, you will have lost access to all important files you have created. This cannot be undone. After changing your username, exit out of the Control Panel windows and go back to your desktop. When at your Desktop, press Ctrl+Alt+Del on your keyboard. Choose Change password from the popup. Under username, type in the name you just changed. In this case, your password was blank so leave it blank. Type in your new password and confirm it. Press OK. It is time to reboot your computer. When it has rebooted, change the username to the one you chose and type in the password and click ok. If you have the Welcome Screen login, simply click on your username and type in your password. You desktop will appear just like you left it and all settings will be the same as you left them.