Laptop won't start?!?!

I had an interesting call from a friend last week in a panic. She works in the accounting department at a large organization, and the computer that houses their GL wouldn't start. The kicker? It was stored on a laptop!! (we won't even get into their backup procedure, or lack thereof).

This was late at night so their IT staff had gone home (they had an early session of WoW back at their parent's house). The laptop wasn't in good shape. No bootup screen. No memory check. No chance to enter BIOS. Nothing. She told me that they had already taken the battery out and put it back in, but it wasn't responding. They missed one step.

I've seen this work in more than one situation...With the battery removed, hold down the power button for about 10-15 seconds. This drains any residual charges (I'm no electrical engineer) and seems to clear up alot of those startup issues. Hope this can help some other people in that situation.

(as for the folks who put a million dollar organization's GL on a laptop, and back it up to USB flash drives... they're beyond helping)


PS - sometimes it really is a battery, in which case go buy a new one :) Tigerdirect might carry some - try the search screen on the right. Or Mr. Battery carries a wide range as well.

Get your life back - remove freecell and solitaire!

Addictive personalities can really get addicted to anything these days - case in point: Solitaire, Freecell, and other freebie games included with Windows.

Why not free yourself from the little devil on your shoulder saying, "Just one more game...you know you'll find that ace of clubs this time." It's not worth hurting a marriage to see the grand finale of little cards bouncing across your screen coupled with the sound of chihuahua's squeezing out little poops.

Whether you're trying to kick the habit or you just want your spouse to concentrate more on you, these easy steps should do the trick:

*these are done in XP, but should be similar in Vista

1. Click "Start", then click "Search"
2. Click "All Files and Folders"
3. In the text box below "All or part of the file name:", type "sol.exe".
4. Right-click on all found files, and click "Delete"
5. Complete the same process for "spider.exe" (for spider solitaire) and "freecell.exe"

This will make these games inaccessible, but if you are a true addict you will restore them from the recycle bin, so delete them from there too and get your life back!!!

If you're still having problems kicking that digital-card habit click here for free advice on kicking any bad habit!

Remove and prevent spyware, malware, and other nasty stuff

I recently bought a brand spanking new Dell laptop. I was going to install Spybot (as per usual) but decided to read a bit about spyware software since I hadn't in some time.

What did I find out? Spybot is not the top of the heap anymore ....... in fact, it's no where near the top. Why?

Basic business - no cashflow. By providing a free tool, Spybot spread around quickly, but can't maintain the high level of quality living off beans and water.

There are tons of other options out there for you, but to save you the hastle I found a great one - CounterSpy.
(click on image to learn more)

CounterSpy is a great tool that not only detects and cleans spyware, malware, and rootkits, it also prevents them from ever getting in your computer - this includes the scary keyloggers!

$30/year is a blip in the budget radar, and keeps my new computer clean as the day I got it.

Pixelated Graphics in Internet Explorer

After recently purchasing a new Dell Precision laptop, I was disappointed to say the least when my 512MB graphics cards was some how producing pixelated images within IE. Thankfully there's a quick solution to this little problem:

1. Right-click on your desktop, and select "Properties"

2. Go to the Settings tab, and click the "Advanced" button

3. Go to the General tab, and select "Normal Size" in the DPI Setting dropdown box

4. Restart the computer and your graphics on the web should appear normal.

The IT Room

Check out this preview page for The IT Room. Looks to be a new online company satire of the day-to-day operations of a standard IT department ... that is if 'standard' means having a midget, a monkey, and a leggy blond on the team.

Computer Support - Buyers Beware

I recently saw a CBC Marketplace episode exposing the bad side of computer support. Being in the industry, it kills me to see people being taken advantage of like this. This video is well worth the 30 minutes it takes to watch. Please also watch it with a grain of salt - the report is a bit biased but for the most part it's very revealing.

http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/2007/10/03/geeks/

IMAP, Gmail, and Blackberry. One happy family.

Google finally release IMAP support for Gmail. Just go here so I don't have to explain it all again.

I'm just happy to consolidate my emails on my Blackberry. Here's a how-to link on setting it up. Very easy.

Now to just rid my world of Hotmail and I'll have total email consolidation!