Recovering / Migrating Mozilla Firefox / Thunderbird Profiles!

OK, I did a hard drive partition whilst running on battery and I left it running and forgot all about it, so.. logical tells us the battery didn't last as long as the process, hence my whole partition was partially stuffed up, big time!

Meaning windows would not boot. I ran the recovery options from the W7 disc and ta-da, Windows now boots.

OK now my desktop won't load at all, so my Windows install is pretty much stuffed up, ad not even the Admin or Safe-mode accounts can load anything up. I'll try a system restore point, opss I disabled that before for some unexplained reason :\

So now I am evaluating what I will lose if I do a fresh install over it, well Firefox Bookmarks NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO and also Thunderbird E-mails and address book, Ahh NOOOOOOOOOO this can't be happening, I don't make a regualr habbit of back up, only like once every 3 months. =.="

So I decided to do a fresh install but on a different partion and keep the sutffed up W7 partition so I can attempt to recover the programs etc. (not really recover but like I can acces the Program files oflder of the stuffed up W7 and at least have a remidner of what programs I had installed etc.

I separate my data and OS for this purpose, so that only Firefox and Thunderbird data is lost (hopefully, I haven't yet thought of anything else I might lose except for windows shortcuts and layouts which some can be copied and pasted and maybe saved games, which can also be pasted, see why I said install in a new partition?? you can continue to recover some stuff)


IF YOU ARE NOT INTERESTED IN MY EVENT STORY AND JUST WANT TO KNOW HOW TO RECOVER THE PROFILES OF MOZILLA SOFTWARE DO THIS: (Windows 7)
Read Red Tips below first before beginning to save time =)

• Go to: C:\Users\Gec\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox
  Where C = Drive letter of stuffed up W7
  Where Gec = name of your Windows profile (e.g. Gec's Pictures, i.e. the name you see at the log in screen)
  
  
• Go to "Profiles" > fn489th3.default
  Where fn489th3 = random, your one will not be called this
  
  
• Copy the whole fn489th3.default folder into:
  
  
• D:\Users\Gec\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles
  Where D = new drive letter of working W7
  Where Gec = new windows account name
  
  
• Now in: D:\Users\Gec\AppData\Roaming\Firefox\profiles.ini
  
  
• Change "Path=Profiles/zvdf31jz.default" to "Path=Profiles/fn489th3.default"
  Where zvdf31jz.default = random name made by the new Firefox install
  
  
• Save the changes and now open up Firefox, most bookmarks etc. should be there with the exception of Themes.
  
  
• !!! The same works for Thunderbird, with the exception that the location is
  C:\Users\Gec\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird
  
  
  
• !!! To avoid this situation again, try using a Mozilla Backup tool called "MozBackup" (recommendation only, i am no way associated with the promotion of the product, BTW it's free anyway ;P)
  
  

TROUBLE SHOOTING / TIPS:

1. You need Firefox and or Thunderbird installed in the new W7 install first.
   
   
2. You also need to run the application once first and when asked, select "do not import
   anything" as this will set up the profile folders.
   
   
3. You need to go to Tools > Folder Options > View > Show hidden files, folders and drives
   before you can see the "AppData folder in D:\Users\Gec\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird
   
   
4. You may only see profile instead of profile.ini unless you un-check "Hide file extensions of known file types" (Tools > Folder Options > View > Hide file extensions of known file types"

Word table going onto next page with big gaps

The symptom is the table has 1 or 2 rows and then there is a big gap in the page and the table continues on the next page. So in other words the table breaks automatically over pages with gaps in between. Broken up tables across pages? Don't know how to explain it but hopefully I would have typed enough keywords for you to find this blog on Google

CLICK THUMBNAILS FOR LARGE VIEW

Like this I guess:












SOLUTION:

Go to the next page where the table continues, then go to the row where you think the rows before it will fit in the gap and inset a page break at the beginning of that row. This should fit some rows into the gap and then continue the table on the next page to give a constant flow table.

Bit hard to explain in text, maybe I shall make a tutorial?


Measure approximately how many rows can fit in the gap in Page1. Less is better than more else it won't work.

Now place the cursor at the beginning of the first word in the row you want to be the first row on Page 2.

Now, Insert a page break there



You should now have more of the table on Page 1 and less on Page 2 so it has a continuous flow without any gaps.

Hope this helped!! Sure took me forever to figure it out and also the help on forums and Google weren't that helpful, so I hope I have used some keywords for the useless sites I have found, so you can find this blog within 5 clicks on Google and
rest easy and earlier tonight!

Upgrading/install new HDD in laptop, not showing up in My Computer

Simple, Your new HDD (upgrade) is a new HDD and so your laptop has no idea who it is. Assign it a drive letter and your computer will acknowledge who it is.

• Right-click My computer > Manage > disk Management
  

• Should have a pop up window, follow the prompts and assign partition method (MBR I would recommend after reading the warning inside the pop up window)
  
  
• Right-click the new HDD in the main window (should be a HDD that is black coloured and says Unallocated)
  
  
• New simple volume > assign space and drive letters as required. Set space to max if you want 1 partition but if want more than 1 then you much around with it, if you know what you are doing.

A really simple solution to a simple problem really but hahah well I kinda forgot and I thought I had a dud HDD but it was hot so it was on and connected, so yeah here you have it~

How to expand a HDD with a different physical HDD

How to combine two paritions on two different physical HDDs
How to make two partitions as one when partitions are on separate HDDs
How to make one big HDD with two physical HDDs


Remember to back up data before attempting this tutorial!

• Have a partition you want to be the main one (Partition # 1) - can have data on it
  
• Mount the other partition in a folder inside the partition above (Partition # 2) - should have no data on it
  

1. Right-click My Computer > Manage
2. Storage / Disk Management
3. Right-click Partition #2 and Create New volume (If you have already formatted this partition, delete it and then do step 3, REMEMBER deleting a partition removes data, you should move the data off this partition before formatting)
   
4. Follow the prompts and select the option to mount to a NFTS folder
5. Select an empty folder in Partition #1
6. Continue with the prompts
7. Open up the Partition #1 folder where you mounted the drive, you should now have a folder in Partition #1 that you can store data in, the data will store in the folder as if normal but the data will be stored on a different physical HDD but with minimal user interface differences.

Good Luck! Remember to back up data before attempting this tutorial! I can make screen shots if anyone is struggling and requests more detailed steps but if you can't follow the steps above then you really shouldn't muck around in the Manage tools of My computer. =) all the best!

How to find out what mobile network your friend is on

1. Ask them duh!

3. EDIT - Refer to Edit below

2. This question has surfaced the Internet before due to mobile carriers providing free sms or calls to numbers on the same carrier, sometimes you want to know for things like Plumbers, contractors, sellers (from poster ads and notice boards etc.) for whom you don't want to ask because it makes you look stingy and cheap, LOL

The Internet reads that with new mobile numbers it is impossible to tell which provider because numbers are no longer allocated to providers specifically. I am sure there are other methods to find out the provider of a mobile phone but I thought of a method to do it by using another service (not designed to tell you what provider the mobile number belongs to but works to do just that if you know how to)

SOLUTION:

1. Go to http://www.web2msg.com/
2. Make sure you go to the web page when all the allocated SMS to all the providers are "currently unavailable", to check this look under the "Current Status" box in the top right side of the web page. You should see all yellow crossed boxes
   
3. Now fill in the form on the website and send an SMS to number you want to send to
4. All providers are unavailable and you will get a message saying that the message was not sent because all the allocated SMS quota to provider XYZABCDEFG Pty. Ltd. are exhausted.
5. That's how you determine the provider, or one of the ways, or the only way I've come up with so far without asking the person (which is sometimes not possible without calling them first).

EXCEPTION:

1. If the providers are not all unavailable your message will actually be sent, so try avoid doing this, the SMS sent will be from Web2msg's number and will be considered as spam if you send it. The quota is reset every 12 hours so if you try at the right time, or analyse the website you'll know what time the quota is always exhausted, I will post some AEST times that I have found them to be most dead.

EDIT: (More reliable as method 2. has issues with carriers using other carrier networks and numbers being transferred to new carrier?)

Just found a better, simpler way to do it, good ol Google work.

http://www.smsfun.com.au/mobile_lookup.php

Shows the previous and current provider/carrier, which can be a bit confusing but;

Current provider: provider currently with (free txt or calls goes with them)

Previous provider: the previous carrier of that number (number change over?)

* A limitation of this 3rd method is that you can check up to ~3 numebrs a day without needing to make an account with the website (who has more than 3 numebrs to check anyway?)

Removing Blogger/Blogspot banner border

Removing Blogger/Blogspot header/banner border

1. First go to blog.
2. Go to layout tab
3. Click "Edit HTML" link
4. Press CTRL + F and type in "header"
5. Press next or find next until you see the follow below:

#header-wrapper {
width:300px;
margin: 0px -5px;
border:0px solid $bordercolor;
}


Change the default number to 0 (where the Red zero is placed)

Now click preview and see if that's what you wanted. Next click save template if so.

Customise your USB thumb drive

^ Screenshot of what USB stick looks like in My Computer.

Add a icon to your USB thumb drives to make it unique and also help distinguish between devices.

What we are going to do in this tutorial is create or use an icon (.ico format) and make it the icon for a USB thumb drive. By experience this will only work on Windows Xp, Vista and maybe 2000 but not for Windows 98se or lower.

I can't teach you how to make your own icon, maybe i can hellp you convert a .gif or jpeg file to a .ico file but in this tutorial I won't cover how to create a custom icon. Search Windows folder for ".ico" files for some cool icons.

OK, first of all what we are going to do is create an Autorun.inf file which is what they usually use for CDs and DVDs that has something pop up automatically like installer windows etc (aka AutoRun) To make it clear which device to assign the icon to and
to allocate the icon to be used no matter what computer you plug the USB into
we are going to create an autorun.inf file and place it and the icon file into the USB drive.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Open up Notepad.exe:

Type in:
[autorun]
icon=logo.ico

File > Save as "Autorun.inf" into your USB drive

Copy your icon file into the USB drive too (make sure the icon file is named as "logo.ico" else you will have to edit "icon=newfilename.ico" in the Autorun.inf file but its easier renaming the icon file.

Unplug the drive and now re-plug it, Tar-Dar

To make the USB drive folder neater:

Right-click the two files and click properties and check the hidden boxes for both files.

Tools > Folder Options > View > Do Not Show Hidden Files or Folders (hides hidden folders throughout your computer, can be a drastic change for you, "Choose Show Hidden Files" or Folders to restore back to showing hidden files. )

That will make your file hidden so they never get in the way.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Just recently did this for fun to all my USB sticks, if you’re silly enough or for what ever reason what your own photo or face on it, you can always send me photo and I can make it into an .ico file for you or you can use software out there that does that too. Remember pictures should be simple as icons are 32 by 32 and you’ll have hardly any detail if you place a huge picture for me to convent. Also if you have .exe files such as games, software etc. that you want to use the logo for (private use) you can try this free and wonderful program called rainbow iconextracter.

Remove all hyperlinks (MS Word)

How do i remove lots of hyperlinks in one go?
How do i batch remove hyperlinks?
Anti-hyperlinks
Deleting hyperlinks in one go
How do i get rid of all the hyperlinks?


I am guessing your copy and pasting? maybe, anyway sometimes its annoying getting a heap of hyperlinks in your Word documents, even if you going to print them and not use them digitally because there is the blue lines which is a waste of ink.

For whatever reason getting rid of hyperlinks is a common job, right-clicking each line or word (when there is a space sometimes the hyperlinks are separated and requires you to apply no-hyperlinks to each word separated by a space) is a stupid task to do individually.

To get rid of all hyperlinks in one go:


For Copy and Paste from websites or other source

• Copy text from website
• Go into Word
• Edit > Paste Special > Unformatted Text
  
  

For text already in Word document

• Select all the text that you want un-hyperlinked
• Copy it
• Delete it
• Edit > Paste Special > Unformatted Text back into Word

Non-Copy and Paste easy way

• Select all hyperlinked text
• Right-click
• Remove all hyperlinks
  

Longer "don't know why you would use this" way

• Select all hyperlinked text
• Insert > Hyperlink > [Remove Link]

Hmmmm, removing hyperlinks doesn't seem too hard when writing this post. Was it harder in Word 2000? don't know just seems to be very nicely designed in Word 2003.

Changing Windows XP Vista icon size

How do I change the size of icons?
How do I make my desktop icons bigger or larger?
Changing Windows XP Vista icon size

I like to have my screen in a higher resolution because it looks better and desktop wallpapers are usually a better fit.

A problem is I am usually use to having medium sized desktop icons which are now very small in a high resolution. To prevent me having to learn to be more precise with my mouse clicking I will have to adjust the icon size to be larger but how?

Here is how:

Vista:
Right click on an empty space on the desktop

Click “Windows Colour and Appearance

Click on “Open classic appearance properties for more colour options”

Click on [Advanced Button]

Select “Icon” under Item: dropdown

Change the “Size:” field to a large number that suits you

You can always set the Size: to a smaller value to make icons smaller too if you ever have that need.

Windows XP:
Right click on an empty space on the desktop

Properties > Appearance > Advanced

Select “Icon” under Item: dropdown

Change the “Size:” field to a large number that suits you

You can always set the Size: to a smaller value to make icons smaller too if you ever have that need.

How do I save a file as .doc in Word 2007?

How do i save a file that will open in word 2003 using Word 2007?
Saving .doc in Word 2007
How can i make my files compatible with Word 2003?


To save files so others can open them in Word 2003 or older Word versions or to teach others how to save in .doc before sending a file to you, point them to one of the following sites below:
I have tested them for accuracy.

• MS site, simple text only instructions.
• Nice graphical tutorial, really nice wbe site check out their other Word tutorals.
  

Exta:

Just found this beauty of a site that teachers you that there is a method to save .doc as a default. Which is great cause it kills my comment about people being lazy and saving files as .docx by defaut.

Default Word 2007 to save in.doc format.

Password Protected Screensaver

If you leave your computer and use the screen saver to lock your screen up you will most likely find out that making shortcuts to the screen saver will not get your computer password protected and it will only be protected when the screen saver is run after idle time of X minutes.

solution1 . To over come this you can actually use the lock computer function (Windows Key + L)

solution2 . Using the shortcut keys suck. Make a shortcut the the shortcut that can be treated like the screen saver shortcuts.

• Right click an empty area of your desktop, choose New/Shortcut and enter this line as the command line:

• rundll32.exe user32.dll, LockWorkStation

• Click Next. Name the shortcut whatever you prefer and click Finish. That's it.

• If you'd like to change the icon, just right click the shortcut and go to Properties/Shortcut/Change Icon. If you want open up c:\windows\system32 and find the keys icon to go with your locking shortcut. As it is now a icon shortcut you can make a shortcut on your desktop and quick launch.

Additional . If you have the welcome screen on you can turn it off to make password entering easier and more corporate when you return to your computer. To do this change the setting back to classic login prompt.

Start > Control Panel > UserAccounts > Change the way users log on and off
> [Uncheck] Use Welcome Screen




some of the instructions was taken from :
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=70

From now on I will post the web site of tutorial places to save me having to reword simple tutorial steps.

XXL LCD for Photoshop? (con't)

I found out that Photoshop can load much slower if you just place a whole CD worth of Plugins and brushes into the default folder (i.e. Program files/adobe/photoshop/preset/brushes) Instead you can put it in a different location, for me i choose to place it on my data hard drive so i can always have my brushes set the way i like it even when reinstalling Windows or Photoshop, provided i can restore the data disk of data.

A problem with this method is that because the brushes are not in the default folder Photoshop will not load them automatically and you will need to manually load each brush each time you use it which will be very annoying.

My solution, just a good guess really, i moved all the brushes to a different folder and then placed a shortcut to the folder in the default folder and everything loads automatically !!! yay!, I never really measured the loading speeds but if loading them at start up will even out the loading time advantage, but you still benefit from the back up and reinstall advantages.

Impulse to kill files?

Interesting title, i know.
Do you ever suffer from searching your computer and going "crap, crap, carp, rubbish, useless, space waster etc. etc.", finding random files you really don't want and sending them to the recycle bin, then to find no, i need that file, dam it, and then trying to spend hours on the net finding a recovery software?

Well, you could try this freeware, not!, why don't you just prevent this impulse!

I actually suffer from this too, i was obsessed to empty the recycle bin as soon as the icon changed from empty to having something in it.

A. I moved the recycle bin to under my documents instead of the bottom right corner which was its default position. This increased the view of it, so if you did that too, place it back in the corner.


B. Use a a recycle bin instead of a trash bin (what I am trying to say is set your bin so it just holds the files until you empty it instead of deleting it as soon as click delete) this will also prevent accidental deletions. To do this:

*Open up the recycle bin > Right click > Properties > Make sure "Do not move files to Recycle Bin. Remove files immediately when deleted" is unchecked. This should be the default i think, if you can see files you deleted in the recycle bin then this is obviously off.


C. Use of "Pre-Delete" folder, make a folder on the desktop and call it what ever you like, then when ever you have an urge to delete something throw it in there instead and if you decide that you really don't need it you can send it to the recycle bin. This is especially useful when deleting program or system files because moving it to a different location will show you if the program can run properly without that file.


D. Only have the recycle bin in the quick launch bar, less vision and smaller icon will make you only empty the bin when you need more space or when your not busy and have time to realise that there are a lot of files in your bin. To do so:

* Go the desktop > Drag recycle bin into taskbar until you see a black line divider and then drop. This will place the recycle bin in your taskbar, i think it might already be in there in some default set outs by Windows. If it is already there precede to the next step.

* This step removes the recycle bin from the desktop. There should be other ways to do it but i did it the easy way and downloaded TweakUI (read next post for download info) and then went to the desktop item and unchecked recycle bin.

WMP on the taskbar

You can place WMP on the taskbar (i.e next to your quick launch short-cuts or next to your system clock))

This tip is handy for my last post (WMP - Random Playlist) as it places WMP away in a neater place and also allows you to have access to the next song button, which is really useful if you don't got that button on your keyboard. Not to mention it allows you to pause the music to hear others talk to you if you've got your music on too loud.

1. Right click on an empty part of the taskbar

2. Toolbars > Windows Media Player (make it ticked)

3. Open WMP > Minimise the window and it should automatically be placed into the taskbar

WMP - Random Playlist Short-Cut

WMP = Windows Media Player by the way.

The story, With my holiday at home, I listen to music more often and play songs at random from my collection. I usually use MPC (Media Player Classics) for single mp3 playback as it consumes less computing resources. For lots of songs and random playing I need to use WMP as it has that ability. Today i developed a way to speed up the process of me opening WMP and playing my songs at random.
I usually open my music folder (I have short cuts in Start menu) and right click on one of my songs and click "Play with media player" as the default launch program is MPC. I would then go to library and in the search box type "eastern" as i have organised my music in eastern (asian music) and western (english music) and non-vocal music. I would then have to click one of the songs in the search results and play it and then all the search results songs (ie asian music) would be loaded into the now playing list and random song selection would be performed.

The methods, read the above paragraph first, I was going to divide the method and story apart but i have mentioned what the long way is in the story and to make the short-cut you need to perform the long way first.

Note: My scenario is assuming you divide your music into folders if not, just load your library and play any song you like.


First,
Do the long way and play a song from the search results or just your library so songs load in the now playing playlist (the right hand side column)


Set playing to random,
In WMP > Play > Shuffle (Ctrl+H)

Save Play List,
In WMP > File > Save Now Playing List As > (Type in file name and save to desktop)


The result, now your music is just one click away and you've got your ipod shuffle on your PC! If you don't like shuffle music you can always uncheck Shuffle and just have your music playlist on your desktop to speed up finding a song or clicking the WMP icon to start up WMP.

More tips,
If you don't like the song in shuffle you can always use the next song button on your keyboard or in WMP to skip to next random song. The button likes something like this (>>|) = Next song . (|<<) = Last played song

Web Masters

So far in my holiday I've done some photoshop banners for my blogger sites and i think I am now going to fix my up web sites. I have a few websites, they're not great but they are ok but i think it is time to try and shed the armature web programmer look so I will try to improve some things or just re-design the whole thing!

In the course of doing so I will post about some of the free online services I use that are excellent and also give some tips and ideas for beginner web creator want to bes.

In my holiday if i don't waste all of my time, I also want to as I've mentioned before upgrade my PC and i hope i can blog about that too, what to be careful of, how to find the right parts etc.

First I've really been shredding my notes from school and packing up my good notes so i can pack it up in a box and put it in the garage to create more room in my room: the purpose -> to create better air flow of course. With my newer and more powerful computer in my small room it overheats on excessive usage but still survives but in summer when the room temp is 32 degrees C without the computer being on it will crash if i overdo the graphics a little or even process video, which is inconvenient. I have already moved things i rarely use into boxes and place them onto of my wardrobe but i think i may move the boxes into the garage to free up even more air flow. My only concerns are insects in the garage and pest that will eat anything so for now I've only place notes in there and packaging and boxes of my technology but if things work out i may even place some of my old hardware there, old ball mouses etc.

To free up air flow originally i move the tower further up. It use to be in a special place on the desk designed for tower like most desks so when you press the CD tray you could place the CD in at arms length but now i have moved the tower to even with the monitor (i now need to get up before placing DVDs into tray) and now the scanner goes where the tower was therefore i just swapped them around really.
To make even more air i have move my desk a little forward from the wall to give some air flow behind the desk and also moved the tower closer the the front of the desk. I have also opened the side panels of the tower by 1 cm so the panels are still on but there is a gap at the back where the panel is suspose to tightly touch, this allows air to be sucked in from the back.

There has been a lot of debate about whether taking the panels off completely is better than leaving them on in terms of cooling affects. The computer fans are suspose to suck in air from the room to cool the computer down because the air inside the computer is warmed up by the heating parts of the computer (hard disk, CPU etc.) so if you remove the panels you get an immediate room temperature inside the computer tower, a contrasting view is that maybe the fans are designed to direct cool air to certain parts or areas of the computer and that by opening the case it distorts the direction and flow of the sir produced by the fans.

In my experience, when it gets hot in summer, open windows, open case and place a desk fan aimed at hard drive if you downloading, cpu and graphics card if you playing a game or using an application. You could use a bigger fan but for me i think a desk fan will provide more desk space, less noise and less force which might be a better idea for fragile parts on on the computer board (to my experience and industry technology standards no computer parts will be damaged by a strong home fan but desk fans I feel are better but larger fan (especially those square ones) are better for all round cooling but if you only need to cool specific components then a desk fan will do.

Is my computer short or hight performance based

Recently this year I have tried to put my computer in the most healthy condition as possible and put it back into shape.

To do so I do internal dust cleaning, fan and heatsink cleaning using a large soft paintbrush and a vacuum cleaner. I also try to keep my desk as clean as possible and remove dust around it.

After I have physically cleansed the computer i have to move on to spiritual cleaning, not technically i really mean software as it is intangible.
I do a defrag on my hard drives using Auslogic
Do a registry repair and untangle with Regpair

and to keep my computer's ethics clean i do a Avast AV scan, Spyboy S&D scan, Ad-aware scan and finally and occasionally a Noadware3 scan. A firewall shouldn't be a cleaning process it should be on when ever electricity is running through your computer (excludes power off state) fine, when every your screen has the ability to display some sort of picture (hence cancelling out power off).

Check back often and i will do reviews on the software i have just mentioned above and i will also tell you where you can download them safely and free.



Recently i have planned to upgrade the memory and now with school out of the way, i really want to put some more muscle into the computer.
Maybe it is my computer craving for me RAM as it knows i am planning to put more in or maybe it is being runned down, my theory is that maybe i have set the swap files on partitions and is causing some sort of a hard drive slow down, occasionally i get a high CPU usage reading when loading something big and when the spike hits max i get a stutter of mind blank from my computer, I am not crossing the possibility of viruses (by the way you should really read my up coming review on Avast, you might be surprised)

Like anything though i can't really expect my computer to run like when it was brand new at least not after 2 years of servicing me, just like cars you can't really expect it to be as good as it was when it was brand new.

As schools out i have been playing games again and have noticed games under perform even on my AMD 64??? my IBM (P3 600mhz) didn't even do that bad but i am comparing different games. So i think i will get some more RAM and see how it goes, trouble is, it is almost Christmas so i hope they still have stocks.

I could probably reinstall Windows XP Pro but that is why i disliked the IBM, it always required a reinstall and i lost all my data continuously but luckily it wasn't too hard or long to install Win98se compared to XP. A problem was for some reason i always had problems getting Win98se to detect my printer, modem and scanner and that really bugged me when a reinstall had to happen.
If you learn something here on my blog, let it be do not delete system files from Windows 98se or your just asking for a reinstall, yep that's why in the past when i first started using Windows i had so many re-installs: trying to save space by deleting Windows, a Mac and Linux user would say your brilliant!! your a genius but if your a Windows users don't use that dam delete key unless you know the file your deleting is an ugly photo of yourself else don't delete it just cause you can.

Partition Magic (Gparted)

I've talked about Partition Magic before and it did seem to work quiet efficiently but recently i have had to partition my hard drive to fit Ubuntu (a Linux distribution), I had had create a partition for Linux it self and a swap file for it too. I also tried to rearrange my swap file partition for Windows.

The result was it took a very very long time, maybe even up to 6 hours if I remembered right. A reason for this too was because i had shrunk and then grew my partition when changing my mind and forgot that it was recorded in the "to do" tasks list which made it re-size and then contradict the operations. But still it takes about 2 to 3 hours to work on 150Gb hard drive which some people may say is outrageous and decide to use an alternative software but I think that if it the long wait can ensure a safer partition then I would stick with this software but because i have not tried any faster partition alternative software I can not say if the faster partition times are due to better programming or as a result of checking less and hence increasing risk level of losing data.

What was of concern to me was that there was a thunderstorm and hail warning in my area of the time of partitioning and I knew that if I were to stop the software with 2 hours to do it would screw up my hard drive fore sure and if a surge or back out happened it would have the same effect so I just hoped very hard that there was still electricity until it was done.
My suggestion for those attempting to partition a hard drive using this software would be to use a UPS to ensure power in the case of lightning (UPS won't last 6 hours in most of the models I've seen and you can't simple save and resume after power is back up) so alternatively i would have a look at the weather and ensure a fine day ahead. This still doesn't solve the problem if you had a black out due to excessive energy consumption in summer or winter due to heating and cooling demands and a PSU would still not save you (I think) so really a faster partitioning software may be worth your investment of time if you wish to partition large hard drives or many (for what ever reason you have so many) or simple just connect up a bike with electricity generating functions and power your PC the healthy way.

In summary, back up your data before trying to partition and have a Windows install CD near-by for the worst of situations.

My first computer mod

I posted about cooling my computer more with an extra cooling fan i had lying around. I've done it, the computer seems to be a bit more louder but now that I've closed up my case and bay covers it seems to be ignorable but a noisy computer is much better than a non-working one i guess.
I opened up the front cover of the tower first (didn't know i could do that) and not really surprising, there was groups of cotton ball like balls of dust from two years of operations. I also found that there is a place for my fan at the front of the computer on the bottom and that fan is ducted to the bottom of the tower. The problem i had with that idea was that there was a secondary hard disk in the way, i could work around it but didn't want to fiddle around with that in the future when it comes to cleaning time so i decided to use 2 5.5" bays to hold the fan. I could screw the fans to the metal plate that was there at the front but because the fan would be too close to the holes in the metal plates which it made it loud, i decided to place the fan a bit further back, there was no design for that so there was no holes but i managed to work-around this limitation by using ordinary string and string it trough the holes in the fan and the hold on the side of that bay which are used to screw CD drives in place, i did this on both sides to hold the fan in place in case if i need to move or shake my tower. I hope this design will bring me better cleaning procedures, more efficient cooling and better noise control. You'll hear me whine in future posts if my deign doesn't meet it's perfect intention.

On a different note, I have done something i though was very risky and dangerous. I re-sized my hard disk partitions so i can create a section of my disk to be dedicated to Spooling, Cache of browsers and virtual memory or swap file. These types of files are usually temporary and cause lots of fragmentation (wiki this word if you don't understand) if i can partition this type of data to a certain PHYSICAL area of the disk it can make defraging hard disk easier because the fragmentation is located in one place of the disk rather than all over the disk. Less fragmentation and especially less fragmentation all over the disk will cause faster and healthier hard disk operations which is important on the operating system (OS) disk (i.e. hard drive where Windows is installed) as programs and the OS performance will be affected by time lags of having to seach all over the disk for the other parts of a file stored on the disk.
I used Pmagic 1.8 as a bootable CD by downloading the ISO, the software was one of the best Linux based live CDs, previously when i tested out Linux operating systems it had bad loading times and response times but this software was fast and had excellent image and graphics, way beyond my expectations for a bootable program.
It was also fairly simple to use, which is really good for me as i am new to Linux and their graphical user interfaces. This program allows to you shrink the size of an existing hard drive and use that extra free space as a new partition. I have only used it once so i do recommend it but i also even strongly recommend that you back up ALL your data first ( i used an external hard drive ~ 1:1 size worth my computer but only backed up data, i.e. excluded OS and programs installed) as i can't say that nothing bad will or can happen to your case of using this software, what i also did before using the software was defraged my disks (with AusLogics Disk Defrag, which i am still trailing but so far provided faster results than Windows but lacked features like what files are defragmented and analysing if the disk needs to defrag but why do you need it? just use Windows defrag and then to actually defrag the disk use AusLogics)

After partiting my hard disks i decided to rename my partitoned disks, they use to be called 128, 74 and Gec Soft because the disls were 74GB, 128GB and Gec Soft data disk but now as i have partitioned as new disk the disk is no longer 128GB so i decided to rename all my disks to be more meaningful and now they are Win OS, Data Disk, Achieve and Vram (or virtual RAM as this new partition is intended for RAM or temporary data)

I am a clean freak inside and outside of my computer so now it is really eye sore, a dam Vram disk is showing in "My Computer" and cause i am impulsive and clumsy i know i will click on it so many times and waste time as i am use to Gec Soft disk being the last disk in the list of hard drives. A quick Google search and surely the use of Tweak UI from Microsoft's power tools can help me tweak the computer to hide the nasty icon that i won't need as the data in there should be written by software and deleted automatically when it is not needed or when the program closes.

By the way I use Google instead of Yahoo! because i dislike their business methods and social values, Google search "Yahoo communist" or along those lines to read about their law suits with revealing democratic activities on the net to the government of China which caused democratic fighters and freedom of speech practice-ees to be locked up in jail for 10+ years which i personally think is too much, not even a thief would be locked of for 10 years and they are actually doing damage to the community (not that they should be locked up in the first place). Anyway that's another chapter in this book.

Chow

EDIT:
Cool, Tweak UI can also get rid of MSN's stupid sharing folder in My Computer which is annoying cause i only send single files and don't need sharing folders, the program also allows me to remove Saved Files on this computer from My Computer "menu" (it is not actually deleted only the shortcut in my computer is removed) which is alos good because i didn't like Gecsoft's documents (shortcut to my documents) and all the other users documents showing in my computer. It kinds looks hollow now but i guess it is neater.

Re-use old speakers thanks to standard audio cables

Recently (in this school holidays) i have decided to get a stereo set, and two not very powerful old speaker boxes in the garage which was really only sitting there waiting for me to find a place where i can recycle my technology and electronics at no cost to me, i got a cable (audio cable, one black to one black and one red) that i brought a while back which i intended to use for recording LPs for my dad as he has moved on to digital and didn't want to listen to LPs no more. I found out that my LP recording plan didn't go so well because i didn't have an amplifier that had an output to my computer and the amp only had all inputs so i really couldn't get anything to my computer. So again ~$10 wasted on a cable.

In summary i re-used some old technology and a cable that i brought but didn't use to connect up my old computer (which is now the family computer), the PC is located in a rhombus room so it echos and the original IBM speakers that came with was weak and had bad quality and low volume. So i connected the speakers to the stereo set and connected the stereo set to the output of the computer and now i have loud and clear sound on the family computer which is really good as i just recently discovered online radio as i just recently had broadband.
I am fairly happy with the results because i can re-used the old stuff (I am a green supporter) and it really does a really good job, i can hear my sister listening to her music outside of the house (probably not good for health but it is now louder than my 5.1 surround sound set up in my own computer and it costed me nothing)

Its fairly hot today, i just opened up the cover of my 5.5" bay cover (the piece of plastic that covers up the empty space where a CD or DVD drive can be installed on a PC) i have a spare fan so i am hoping that i can make a big difference in cooling of the computer.s