Pete_C

Windows Experts
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Everything posted by Pete_C

  1. (Man! I've been robbed more often than I thought!) Had my storage locker cleaned out when I lived in an apartment. Kids, they took all the stuff I'd kept since I was a kid (including a beautiful chess set given to me by my Dad). All I'm gonna say about the kleptomaniac is, it's not uncommon. As long as it's restricted to stupid stuff, let it go. What's a can of tuna or soup? It's annoying and offensive, but she likely has a mental or emotional disability -- Have a heart. Yeah, it is weird; she knows that we cook big (hey the dogs will eat leftovers) and if she needs dinner friends are
  2. What is your budget? http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=4126378 For $99 this is a steal. I really like these network aware HPs. You connect it to a phone line, and by ethernet to your router. It will recieve incomming faxes on your phone line; either manually or automatically. You can dial out and fax from it, or from any networked computer. You can press scan on it , and it will list all the computers on your network which are turned on and ask which to send the scan to. You can print from any of the computers on the network to it. 2,400 x 4,800 dpi optical resolution scanning n
  3. I had one of those I gave to my stepson for his kids to play on and he left it in his house when he moved out last xmas.
  4. No, but I have noticed they are really slow today. Maybe they are doing maintenance or something.
  5. Well the first thing I was going to say is that when a drive starts some times and not others it is generally going to be a failing power supply. The drive just is not getting up to speed in time due to insufficient power. But when you get a SMART warning; that means it is time to go to the drive manufactures site and download their testing software and see if the drive is in fact failing. It is also wise to immeadiately backup your data and prepare for catastrophic failure (make sure you have your windows cd, product key , and money to buy a new drive)
  6. A complete freeze where ctrl+alt+del has no effect means that the CPU is not accepting input. (If it froze, and moving your mouse seemed to do nothing; but c+a+d did then you know the CPU is accepting input but the video card is locked up displaying the last frame it generated). It is unlikely that software (virus or spyware) would be the cause. IT is highly probable that this is either power, heat , motherboard, or processor related. Most common would be an unstable power supply or overheating. Remember it is now heating season. Make sure your computer is not located by a heat vent output. T
  7. No problems here on any machines. I noticed that if you use WMP it now prompts to update to WMP 11. Caution here to close WMP before proceeding and turn off antivirus, just like for IE7 install.
  8. http://www.smarthome.com/4870.html http://www.lightningrodparts.com/surge.html Where there is a risk of overvoltage due to local lightning storms, or bad wiring (old transformers or lines of different voltages accidentally connecting and sending huge surges down to your house) I like the added level of protection these will provide. While they may not necessarily be fast enough to protect electronics all by themselves; they will protect your home. I also like having kitchen and bath and outdoor circuits with GFCI circuit breakers.
  9. I know the feeling. I had someone jimmy the locks on my truck toolbox and steal the toolkits out of one side last year. They probably pawned them or sold them at a yard sale and got under $30 for what cost me over $300 and will cost me even more to replace. I am still discovering things that I thought I had one of which they must have gotten. I have a shed in my back yard which I just use to store "outdoor" stuff since the city has an ordinance against outdoor storage. I kept a hasp and padlock on it to keep the dogs out. Some moron bent my nine foot fence down in the middle of the night,
  10. In all likelyhood your computer will be obsolete and you will have purchased a replacement long before scanning or normal use could possibly cause it to wear out. Sure , parts fail and things wear out; but really if they are going to fail they will and if they are not , normal use will not make them fail .
  11. Did you set the computer to obtain an IP automatically and disable dns and wins on the computer?
  12. Why is it that you consider it bad to be using the RAM you have? RAM is faster than hard drive swap (paging) file. You are not using one of those STUPID memory managers like "Free RAM" designed to free up RAM by forcing things to use page file instead are you ? That you have problems when you get a lot of your RAM used indicates to me that you may have mismatched sticks of RAM. Did you add RAM ? If so did you make sure that its specs matched those of the ones you already had ? (Latency, refresh rates etc) Have you tried your RAM in different configurations? Normally the memory controller read
  13. Actually that is basically how I have my bosses Vonnage router setup so that he can take it with him and plug it into the LAN output of any router when travelling and use his vonnage number .
  14. In home "security" is only accessible in safe mode ( may have to be logged in with user name Administrator , definitely as an admin)
  15. Did you consider trying Hijackthis to remove the 02 and 03 entries from the toolbar to prevent it from running when IE was launched? It may have been simpler that way.
  16. I have also been watching [l=I Want That Tech Toy on HGTV]http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/pac_ctnt_988/text/0,,HGTV_22056_49923,00.html[/l] With Chi Lan Lieu . They had this really neat "Computer Desk" where the computer is built into the desk . Kind of the ultimate case mod for the office. [l= The Power Desk]http://marketplace.hgtv.com/View_Listing.asp?CompanyId=0&RegionId=&SubCategoryId=1&Level=3&Keyword=&Page=1&PageSize=10&Sort=PD&SoL=&Episode=HITEC-108&IWTShow=5&Lid=1723-N610048[/l] [l=http://www.powerdesk.com/]http://www.powerdesk.com/[/l] Looks lik
  17. http://www.fineliving.com/fine/our_special...6_47770,00.html AIR TIMES:• December 09, 2006 8:00 PM EST • December 09, 2006 11:00 PM EST • December 10, 2006 3:00 PM EST • December 16, 2006 8:00 PM EST • December 16, 2006 11:00 PM EST • December 17, 2006 3:00 PM EST • December 23, 2006 8:00 PM EST • December 23, 2006 11:00 PM EST
  18. Pete_C

    God

    The clouds remind me of miss piggy the muppett
  19. Pete_C

    Avg V Avast

    Hmm, on my system with avast ; the windows security center has no problem recognizing it and knowing it is up to date. Personally, I prefer it to AVG; but still am willing to pay for F-Secure for full protection.
  20. Well, if the drive is failing; then just open it up and bash the disks inside into broken glass with a sledgehammer. Highly effective at making the data non recoverable. Other options, which are more dangerous are burning it with thermite or dissolving the ferrite off the disks using acid.
  21. Likewise I do not use those bookmark this page javascripts. I have no script running in FF and it blocked that and the swf link. Mcafee siteadvisor however says it found nothing bad about the site.
  22. The 0x just means that the following code is in Hexadecimal ; so yes in general that is all the difference their is; the 0x to indicate that the stop code is hexadecimal.
  23. No, in all likelyhood IE7 is freezing at the connecting when launched. After install IE7 wants to connect to a MSN server which will guide you through setting up your preferences for the new features it has. Unfortunately there are several things which will block this from happening. So the first thing to do is go to control panel => add/remove programs and select "Windows Internet Explorer 7 " from the list (from the programs list , not from the windows components list) this will roll you back to IE6 Now If you have spybot teatimer, you will want to go into its blocked sites list and mak
  24. Try hosing the doors down and riding while the seals are still wet. If that solves it you know it is the seals. Or just lube em up with axle grease. Chances are that either the seal is wearing out (can sometimes be restored by heating with a blow dryer and then soaking with a vinyl rejuvenant like armor all) or someone caught a seatbelt or similar or someone tried to break in and bent the window frame. Could also be the seals around the window or a window which drops down a bit due to the weight of the window handle.
  25. The OL likes Sonic's Tuesday special (buy one get one free) and about the second time I went she asked to come rather than have me bring them home. When the carhop gave me my change and turned around before I could tip, my OL hit me and said I should tip at least 20% and made me go and chase her down to give her a few bucks. Personally, I just did not want the OL to think I was flirting by giving a hot young carhop a big tip for a four burgers. But since the OL was a waitress when we met; she appreciates that where tipping is allowed, it is often a major portion of the waitstaffs projected in