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.

24 Hour time in Windows XP

If you think 24 hour time is cooler, more useful, want to save space on the Windows system tray or for whatever reason had AM and PM time as default and want to change to 24 hours, follow these instructions:

Start > Control Panel > Regional and Language options

(Next to English) click "Customise"

click the "Time" tab

Change the value for "Time format" and change whatever foramt you are using from 'h" to 'H"

Apply and your done!

Don't throw away the mp3 player

Many people who have brought mp3 players when they first came out have most likely replaced it with one with GBs capacity. The old mp3 players are bulky and can't store enough of your favourite songs.

Some re-use it as a thumb drive as the flash chip still has many thousands of cycles to go. The problem is new thumb drives that are flashy, shiny and ever so easy to lose cause their small, thin and comfortable to carry. This makes their old mp3 player bulky uncomfortable and not prefered as a portable data travel mate.

I recently had this same problem as a 128MB and 256MB mp3 player got replaced with a 2GB player. I still wanted to use the flash chip even though 1Gb thumb drives are $10 these days because it is just bad to waste good technology no matter how the new marketing adverts make you feel about new technology.

My solution was simple, a case mod that makes the player slim. Method, break open the case and remove it. The hard part for me was my lack of knowledge for electronics and i was fearing that removing certain components from the circuit board would break the connection and operation of the drive all together (i.e. series circuit) in my scenario i was able to remove the buttons and LCD screen.

Now the hard thinking part what things will be fit for making case? many ideas on the net such as Tic-Tac box etc. won't work on my player as the shape and size of the circuit board was larger than most usb thumb drive boards. After a bit of trying i decided to just wrap it in duct tape, it is thick and strong enough for protection and feels light but thickly padded. Doesn't look cool but compared to a Tic-Tac box i would say I've made it fairly thin.

Yeah, I think I've just about covered it all, now i just have my portable apps with me on the drive. Haven't used it in public so not sure if people would say cool, what is that or wow your so cheap.....

BartPE - Windows on USB

For recovery, troubleshooting or what ever reason sometimes it is helpful if not critical to have Windows work.

I tried to use BartPE to make a copy of Windows suitable for a USB drive but had some problems with the service pack version.

"i386\ntdll.dll is 5.1.2600.0 should be 5.1.2600.1106 or higher"

That is the message i got and i could fix the version with the BartPE in-built slipstream option. I had to use Auto streamer.

1. Insert Windows CD
2. Insert Windows SP pack CD
3. Run AutoStreamer
4. Windows CD should locate automatically else identify CD drive letter for software
5. For SP pack locate contents/fixes and choose one of the files (difficult part, can't just locate drive letter, for me at least)
6. Create ISO of both CDs combined (using AutoStreamer)
7. Mount ISO file with a virtual drive software OR burn to disc and insert the new disc
8. Open BartPE and use the new CD or virtual Cd drive and the rest should be easy and automated.

Just thought I'd publish a mention of my scenario as BartPE wasn't completely user friendly and easy to use. Hope I've solved some troubles and save some time for you, that is why i do post these tips, hopefully good karma will mean little trouble shooting for me.

This is a good FAQ with common problem messages

StatCounter

Easy to use online web hit counter service.
Does the job, has many functions and options than you will ever need and is free for the time being.
It even allows you to choose whether or not you want to display a counter and or their logo.

Another plus is that they have serviced a lot of [G]EC sites in the past.

http://www.statcounter.com/

How much extra RAM should you plan?

Usually when you upgrade or plan for RAM in a computer you always pack more than you usually need, so to cater for future use or to boost the occasional surge of RAM usage.

If your not using your computer for heavy work such as 3D or video processing, just average work, play and school I would recommend using Nero and burning a full DVD and then open up process explorer (Ctrl + Alt + Del) and have a look at how much RAM is being used if it is under how much physical RAM you have you should upgrade and also note how much RAM is being used cause you should have at least that much RAM for good performance.

Unlock PSD files

Cannot delete ????.psd: It is being used by another person or program.
I can't move my psd files. They are always busy or being used by some program.
My psd files are always busy.

Sound familiar? When i have thumbnails for psd enabled my psd files get locked up and i can't move them and sometimes its so bad the changes i make to my images can't be saved unless i save as and make a new file and delete the old one.

My solution is to download this wounderful program called Unlocker, it not only unlocks your files for you but tells you what programs are actually locking up access to your files and works great with this psd scenario, at least for me.

The program is call unlocker and is from Cedrick Collomb @ ccollomb.free.fr
The program is small, fast, free and has the benefits of paracetamol.

BTW in my case it was windows explorer locking my files, something to do with generating the preview thumbnails from the psd files i would imagine.

RAM Upgrade

I upgrade my machine from 512MB to add an extra 1GB but Windows only uses and detects 1.25GB which means one of my 256MB sticks aren't being used.

A friend suggests that maybe it has something to do with single and doudle sided RAm and the support for each with Motherboards. Maybe the Mobo only utilises a certain combination of each.

I'll try to fix it (if possible) and update on it.

Pet Rubber Ducky monitors PC

Ever wanted or had a virtual per on your desktop but got bored of it as it didn't provide you with enough practical use?

Rubber Ducky from MimarSinan is a virtual fish tank which has been beautifully visualised with simple yet attractive graphics. The fish tank isn't interactive like most virtual pets but instead it has a life of its own and reacts to show your computer status.

There is the:

Water - Shows Swap File usage
Duck - RAM
Fish - Network activity
Air Bubbles - CPU activity
Sea Plants - Hard drive activity

It is a brilliant idea as you can watch the fish tank get busy as your computer gets busy. A virtual fish tank with practical use without being obtrusive or work-related, unless you want it to be.

http://www.mimarsinan.com/rubberducky.asp

PeerGuardian

PeerGuardian is an application used for people who are using P2P services and want to block IP addresses belonging to corporate or government bodies, usually to hide their online activities for whatever reason.

This app is also good for blocking some 'bad' addresses such as those from advertisers, spyware and spammers trying to contact your computer.

If you do use this to block advertisers you should keep in mind that your favourite website could be replying on the ads to remain free and when activated advertising spots such as banners will show up as "page could not be found" which may be more annoying than the ad itself.

If you use this, you have to update often to keep the database of IP addresses up-to-date and also know when to disable or permanently allow some IP addresses for example Mysapace uses servers with IP addresses that are on the block list so you either have to allow always for the IP number to contact you or disable the protection, this will also be the same when trying to view government sites such as public transport sites so keep in mind of that when using this little app.

VodaFone Update

To Be Written

Free Image Hosting

Photobucket and other image hosting sites? Maybe a free web hosting service? Do you trying to search the web for a free solution to share photos with family or host pictures for use on the web but hate time limits and other restrictions?

You can upload albums from your computer to Picasa, a image service from Google, their service provides image editing and the lot from the time your images are on your computer to the time your showing the pictures on the web on someone's computer. It is designed to be an all in one picture management total solution for the average user who doesn't want to bother with FTP, Photoshop, file indexing and folder structures etc. etc. and just wants to focus on good photography.

For the Pro user it can allow you to exploit the service a lot and take advantage of all the free services, mainly the image hosting. I am planning to use the service to upload pictures to if i have a low limit web hosting service with little web space and bandwidth and even upload my gallery of Photoshop work. The reason being, it doesn't operate like web hosting where your given free bandwidth, instead your limited to size of storage (I think, I am posting at an evaluation stage really) but it really beats using Photoshop gallery website creator or making tables in a webpage to display my gallery, instead when i have a new photo created I can add to my collection with a few mouse clicks and via software on my computer so i don't need to FTP or go to a uploading site and click browse etc. etc. I even get a comment system like Myspace only it is more of a picture album than MySpace, I don't upload to there as it seems non-Pro

I think you will see more services like this in the future as people upload cameraphone photos and digital photos more than in the future especially the teens and this makes a good market for teen advertising.

MagicISO edit:MagicDisk

This is a great software for using virtual CD/DVD drives to play ISO images or create them. As MagicISO allows you to create ISO files as well as play ISO images it is perfect for heavy gamers who want to play games that require their disc to be in the drive but have an expensive or high tech disc drive they don't want to wear out or simply don't like to use discs.

It is easy to use and unintrusive with your normal computer use. So far one of the best software compared to Pargon etc. mainly because it is unintrusive and doesn't get in your way.

One thing to be weary of though is that on the description page it says it is freeware but on the same website it also has a buy now link. I may have missed something like commercial or pro version, i don't know but it is confusing and should be noted.

http://www.magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-magicdisc-overview.htm


EDIT: MagicISO and MagicDisk are two different software. MagicDisk was the software i was actually referring to and is the freeware. I thought MagicDisk was aka for MagicISO as it had (MagicDisk) next to the name but it seems MagicISO is the company name as well as one of their software titles hence the mix up.

Back Up Ext. Hard Drive

I've been having problems with my external hard drive used for back up. Well to be more exact it is the software. As the hard drive is external it is only plugged in when back up is needed and my problem is that the software recognises the hard drive as "I" drive which isn't always allocated to my hard drive and is usually allocated to any USB device that i plug in first for example a mp3 player.

To over come this I had to allocate the end letters in the alphabet as Windows uses the next unused letter when mounting devices so now my drive is "Z" and the back up software is syncing "Z" drive so it doesn't matter what i plug in my computer first.

NovaBench Update

I have been having slow downs where i have to wait for my computers hard drive instead of my computer wait for me to command.

I wanted to upgrade my RAM and i had a look at a program called FreeRAM XP for free RAM available. It seems that when i have a slow down i still have 100s of MB of RAM (by 100s i mean 100-200).
I asked some experts and they said that software like this is useless and actually flushes RAM to the hard drive kind of like Swapfiles. I then read reviews on FreeRAM XP and many people have said that they have had crashes (not really me), slow progress in swapping windows (yep, that's me) and someone also had jittery performance in a graphics intensive game (yep also happened, with MS flight Sim)

So yeah now I am trying to close it and not use it and see if there is any performance boost. I tried to NovaBench, yep got an extra point but then i tried with other pgorams and it seems that if you close a heavy program you seem to get one point anyway. So i guess the only way to test it is for me to notice the performance in the real world.

A note for those readers who are using NovaBench, as you can read from above you might want to compare your bench points when running basic programs or nothing besides Windows to give a fair test.

BIOS update problem

for google purposes:

• My uguru clock shows wrong temp after BIOS upgrade flash
• A-bit CPU temp is wrong after BIOS upgrade flash
• CPU temp is below room temp

Anyway, remember when i said i updated my BIOS and didn't see any problems? well now i did. The CPU monitoring system was screwed up and showed me anywhere from 6c to 22c when the room temp was 29c I thought wow i have cooling that is better than water cooling as water can only bring the CPU back down around room temp mine is almost freezing point so i thought something must be wrong it isn't physically possible.

A good thing about this BIOS fix was that my Cool and Quiet technology is actually working, this is basically CPU throttling which means less electricity is pumped through the CPU and the CPU is ran at a slower pace when your not using much processing, this means less resistance which means cooler temp which means fans need to spin less per minute which means quieter fans.

Anyway so i went into control panel and had a look at system and had a look at the freq. of my CPU and indeed it was working and was automated which really rocked and i was sometimes using less than half of my processors capacity so i though this would and is very cool (literally) but not 6c cool.

I sent an e-mail to A-bit, my motherboard maker and they replied that sometimes BIOS updates can miss some CPUs and this can happen and that i should remove and return the CMOS battery and jumper and CPU, never having removing my CPU i did not want to do that in case i need more thermal paste which i don't have ATM. So i decided maybe just clearing the CMOS will do and then when i took my jumper out i thought to myself i wonder if there is a top and bottom to the jumper but then i doubted it as i shouldn't have been able to plug in the jumper if it was upside down and i had a look and i realised that yes it is different.

|_|_| this was what i had my jumper in originally. (by the way when i say jumper I am actually referring to the plastic coated removable tab)

I then turned it upside down and re-plugged it in |-|-| (the lines in the middle are meant to be at top but no buttons on the keyboard seems to give me that)

I didn't actually move the jumper into the clear CMOS position i simply just unplugged and re-plugged it in and when i turned on my computer the CMOS clock was reset and i had a look at the CPU temp and it was FIXED, yay!

My theory is that according to my Physics knowledge it shouldn't of mattered which way i had the jumpers cause the electricity still goes through the metal bits and joins the connection. My view is that clearing the CMOS twice should solve the problem but i am not too sure. I tried to google this problem many times but with no one having this problem. Maybe i simply didn't clear the CMOS right anyway i just decided to post this in case if anyone tries to google the same problem that way they can solve this little hiccup faster than i did, hopefully.

My CPU now reads ~31c when Cool and Quiet is working, I am going to do some video processing to see how efficient my cooling is when a full load is placed on the CPU.

Everything is Firmware

After updating my BIOS i realised how many new electronic gadgets nower days need fireware and how many can be updated, this is great cause you don't need a recall for software problems just go online and update latest firmware for a fix.

A main problem is that many things that use to work can be screwed up by a firmware update. So really you only update when there is a problem.

Better Video on digital cams

If you plan to use your digital camera for video recording and want the best quality (In the case of the Cybershot anyway) you may have to read some reviews to find out if you can use high quality video capture with normal memory sticks. In the cybershot you can do average fps recording with normal memory sticks but if you want to capture faster things you may have to use faster fps recording which can only be done if you are using a memory stick pro for recording.

This was the case for me but my camera is 2 years old so not sure if it still applies today.

Checked the plugs?

Sounds like a familiar quote from a technical support centre?
Yeah I have sent a few minutes trying to fix my computer, for some reason only the stereo speakers worked and it sounded crap. Then i remembered that i cleaned the computer desk yesterday and yep, unplugged every sound plug except for the stereo speakers (amazing if you ask me)

In the past i have had problems with Windows settings being Desktop speakers instead of 5.1 speakers but this time yeah, stupid human error, lucky i didn't spend 30 minutes on it or i would feel so stupid right now. Anyway this is probably not a tip you would need to remember unless if your silly like me ;)

BIOS update

Horay, I did my first BIOS flash update, now just hoping that nothing goes wrong.

It was a bit scary at first as BIOS chips don't accept the CTRL + Z undo function if you update and flash it wrong the only way to fix it is to buy a new clip or re-program the corrupt one.

If it is so dodgy why update then? good question it was cause i had a cold boot problem (which the BIOS update might fix, some say it has, but for me there is only time to tell)
At first what i did notice was the cool new intro screen and the nice new logos that say that dual cores are now supported, not that my motherboard will accept dual cores, i think.
I also wanted to correct the temperature monitor that came with my motherboard, it was too highly calibrated, i think but now it is always under the room temperature so now i think it is even more wrong but i like the look of 13 degrees especially if i haven't got water cooling but i am almost certain the thermo. mon. is whacked but it is too scary to return to the old version.

I would only update the BIOS if you:

• Want something to be compatible
• Fix an error

What i would make sure you do is:

• Make a back up of your existing BIOS on a bootable floppy disk so you can try to recover a bad update without running Windows which will probably not run and also to recover when an error is detected down the track.
  
• Clear CMOS and unplug PSU after update for 2 minutes
• Fix CMOS settings or just date and time and save new changes
  
• Fix clock and date settings after update

Novabench Benchmark

This is a great software to easily compare computers to others as it measures the computers performance and gives you a score for it, the higher the score the more efficient processing the computer has. This allows you to compare computers without having to compare RAM and CPU clock speeds etc. etc. which is sometimes hard as Intel and AMD have different clock speeds and some Intel processors have slower clocks speeds but faster (I am yet still to understand what they are, maybe its a marketing technique, who knows)

I installed but couldn't successfully run on Windows 98se but Win Xp is fine.
www.novabench.com

On a different note, after running Novabench once and recording the score i did a defrag with Auslogic defrag, in Auslogic it says after the defrag there was an increase of 3% to system performance, according to Novabench I got an extra 4 points so defrag does make a good difference in performance, you can check the creditability of other software this way "Make your computer run like if it was brand new" kind of marking tactic tests.

Faster Windows Defrag

I have talked about alternative defag software before that act faster than Windows defrag but if your determined or have to due to your own reasons, use Windows defrag, you can try a restart and then defrag, this way useless junk in your system is cleaned out and a fresh boot will perform faster defrag motions.

Problem with rats (mouse to be more specific)

I was having some work done around that house that required the power to be turned off for safety reasons and for that reason i turned off my computer with a proper shut down.

Despite doing things correctly I had a cold boot, due to the fact that the power was completely turned off to my computer (ie no stand-by power) for some reason Windows would not boot, I gave it some time to warm up and then tried again and still same problem so I went into the BIOS and changed to fail-safe options and last good Windows settings and set things straight but when trying to use Windows after a successful engine start I hit a problem and that was the mouse didn't work at least i thought that at first, I tried the mouse on a different PC and it was detected so it wasn't a hardware problem and I tried a different USB port on my computer and nothing happened so it wasn't that specific ports problem.

My sister then asked me to print her assignment on my computer (as I am the only one with a printer in the network) she handed over her USB thumb drive and I turned on the printer and nothing, nothing was being mounted by Windows and then i realised it wasn't a mouse problem but a USB problem for some reason all my ports had been disabled.

Then it hit me, the fail-safe settings must have disabled the mouse for troubleshooting reasons and all USB were disabled to reduce the number of peripherals connected to cancel out troubleshooting tasks. I went back into the BIOS to load optimised settings defaults instead but this did not fix the problem mainly cause i was careless, by default it says are you sure you want to load optimised defaults (Y/N)? and N is selected as the default answer but i did not read it first and pressed enter and saved the changes and that is why it didn't work but then after a while of stress i thought maybe i could have done that and yep that's the stupid mistake i made. So keep that in mind if you ever need to load fail-safe defaults in any scenarios.

Firefox and Open Source problem

I have found the impossible, a con of open source, yep, no one thought it was possible.
Open source seems to have more updates than corporate software, which is very very good as you get more updates and new features and for free, more service for less money, great.

A problem i found with firefox is that you sometimes get incompatible extensions as authors don't update at the same rate as the firefox developers. This may actually be why corporate companies don't update as often, if a bug is present due to a update they have just screwed up all their customers with fast Internet access and update option set to automatic.

Soooo keep that in mind, I know that happened to me when i changed from FF1 to FF2 but if it does bother you, you can always find extensions, ironically, that overrides the version incompatibility issue, that is if the extension for overriding other extensions is updated... yeah.

Ubuntu to Mac OS

Most people, I am for one feel uncomfortable about Linux cause it seems foreign and hard to use at the first glance. With Ubuntu what i liked was the ability to re-design the desktop to be Mac like which I am familiar with due to my school using them.

What i wasn't impressed with Ubuntu or maybe Linux is that compared to Macs there is a lot of scripting and such, I tried to install on application and couldn't do it user friendly, you have to enter a few paragraphs of code into the terminal and then it still did not work and i still haven't got it installed yet.

So if you a beginner and you don't mind spending money Mac OS may be easier, if not some patience may pull you through and get you using the Mac like interface free alternative but for me at the moment Vista may be a smaller learning curve (yet to get Vista)

Saving Data off Win98

The family computer that runs Win98se is outside of my room and that means none of its noise will wake me during my sleep so I usually use the Win98se computer to download at night (it also runs less heat and electricity as it is a low powered machine)

My only problem was that the file i downloaded was large and i couldn't use a CD or floppy disc. It didn't have a DVD drive so DVD was ruled out, my external hard drive was NTFS and not FAT32 so that made it impossible to use a hard drive.

Then my last thought which should have been my first was to use the Ethernet cable that got the data from the Internet in the first place, just unplug from modem and re-plug to my computer, took a while to set up network again and then just drag and drop.

After a while i figured a better solution and that was to simple use a USB drive of 1Gb which was more than enough (just).

So there we go, a long list of ways to transfer data stranded on an old computer.

Win98 Use By Date

I hope it isn't new news to you when reading this but MS has stopped supporting Win98 which means it is past its use by date not that this will affect a lot of people as most have already WinXP.
What this means though is

• MS does not give out support for this OS it is now open to hacking as it no longer has updates from MS to patch up any flaws.
• As MS doesn't support it no longer, manufacturers will not produce software or hardware that have been tested on Win98, some might still work or say that it is compatible as it uses standards e.g. usb sticks but may work but not mentioned as they can't give you technical support if you call them.
• Some services such as broadband will also say such things but computer wizards know how to manually tweak their computers to be compatible, not that you would would want to go online with an out dated computer.

There are still some good uses for win98 though but it depends on what kind of a user you are. Vista for example will consume 500 billion more computer processing power (statistics backed up by my made-on-the spot-statistics company limited) to run so many things like file servers or basic things like that could be done with Win98.

If you have a computer only fast enough for Win98, you could look into a Linux solution, I might be soon but as it is the family computer you have to consider the inertia of using a graphical user-friendly OS. Dam Small Linux etc. is for light weight computer, Ubuntu is too heavy for old processors (at least for mine).

Edit System Restore

Start > Control Panel > System > System Restore > {Settings} > "Edit as needed, off, limited etc."

Paging File Location Change

Start > Control Panel > System > Advanced > {Performance} Settings > Advanced > {Virtual Memory} Change > "Set to user pref."

Printer Spool Folder Move

Start > Printers and Fax > File > Server Properties > Advanced > [New Spool Folder Location]

Hide it to System Tray

Have you ever had windows minimised that you wished you could make disappear and only reappear when you need it? Things like Ad-aware checks, Defrags, and Anti-Virus scans?
Some software that allows you to do that puts an extra minimise to sys tray button on all windows which is annoying as it is not every second window that you need to minimise to tray.

Hide It is different it places a system tray icon that allows you to choose what things to hide and what to show so you don't end up cluttering you sys tray, all hidden windows are inside the Hide It icon. I especially like this because i don't have to launch Hide It everything at start up, I can simple place a quick launch short cut and click it when i decide I want to hide something.

A problem with this application though is that if the program crashes or you force close it, it will make your hidden windows impossible to maximise again until you restart the program which sometimes requires you to kill the process and then open it again which is a contradiction if your using it for a Spyware scan and need to click a Fix Problems button before scan results will be fixed.

Author Home page: http://www.expocenter.com/hideit/