PC issues - DIY

XP usefull shortcuts

noreply@blogger.com (AndyAr85) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:35:00 +0000

Why shortcuts? Because someone thought when XP was designed(all Microsoft products have them and they are not the only), to make thing even easier. They are fast and very helpful.

I'm going to tell you about copy or cut/paste shortcuts, but the ones that not many know about. here is a list:

These are some of the most used:

Start + M: Minimizes all open windows
Start + Shift + M: Maximizes All Windows
Start + E: Runs Windows Explorer
Start + R: Open the RUN Dialog Box
Start + F: Open the Search Results Dialog box
Start + CTRL + F: Opens the Search Results-Computer dialog Box (if the
computer is connected to a network)
Start + Pause (Break): Opens the System Properties Dialog Box
Start+U+U: Shutdown(the fastest if you don't have a specific key for this)
Other type of shortcuts:

Microsoft Natural Keyboard Keys:
Windows Logo: Start menu
Windows Logo + R: Run dialog box
Windows Logo + M: Minimize all
SHIFT + Windows Logo+M: Undo minimize all
Windows Logo + F1: Help
Windows Logo + E: Windows Explorer
Windows Logo + F: Find files or folders
Windows Logo + D: Minimizes all open windows and displays the desktop
CTRL + Windows Logo + F: Find computer
CTRL + Windows Logo + TAB: Moves focus from Start, to the Quick Launch
toolbar, to the system tray (use RIGHT ARROW or LEFT ARROW to move
focus to items on the Quick Launch toolbar and the system tray)
Windows Logo + TAB: Cycle through taskbar buttons
Windows Logo + Break: System Properties dialog box
Application key: Displays a shortcut menu for the selected item

Microsoft Natural Keyboard with IntelliType Software Installed:
Windows Logo + L: Log off Windows
Windows Logo + P: Starts Print Manager
Windows Logo + C: Opens Control Panel
Windows Logo + V: Starts Clipboard
Windows Logo + K: Opens Keyboard Properties dialog box
Windows Logo + I: Opens Mouse Properties dialog box
Windows Logo + A: Starts Accessibility Options (if installed)
Windows Logo + SPACEBAR: Displays the list of Microsoft IntelliType
shortcut keys
Windows Logo + S: Toggles CAPS LOCK on and off

The BIOS Chip Recovery

noreply@blogger.com (AndyAr85) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:23:00 +0000

I hope many of you will thank me for this. I'm not overestimating, because what I'm about to tell you is a little secret that almost everyone can do. I mean almost, because not all of you know how to do it or you don't have all the resources needed for this. I must tell you that this article contains certain information that require some technical skills and also I must use a disclaimer. I can't be responsible for your actions. The technique involved works, I used it several times.

OK, let me tell you what this is about. How many of you flashed a BIOS with the latest version available? ...you must than know that there is a small chance of write failure or power failure during the update procedure. What happens then?? YOU MAY WANT TO THROW THE MOTHER BOARD TO GARBAGE; at least this is the first tendency. DON'T! There is a way that you can "recover" your BIOS back.

If you don't know how to flash a BIOS check this .

Basically a BIOS chip is a EEPROM(Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory- I won't enter in further details) or flash memory device. That means that the BIOS code is stored in a memory device and the computer on startup reads the instruction code in the BIOS and let's say it does his job there for the computer to start up.

You're saying it's not possible? Sure it is, but you need a specialized flash programmer that allows you to write back the BIOS you want.

What about every one else that can't afford one or don't know how to do that? Well you need to gain access(own or know someone who does) to another mother board exactly like yours. The basic idea is that if your mother board won't start up for another BIOS flash, you flash the BIOS on another motherboard.
Let's take it slowly:

1. the first, after the part of finding another mother board exactly like yours, is to extract the BIOS chip from your MB. Be very careful not to crack it or bend it's pins. If you own a chip extractor use it, or else use a pin with a bended end and slowly get the chip out of it's socket. Maybe you should write down or make a schematic on it's socket positioning;

2. the second step is to take the "new" MB and start the process of flashing the BIOS. make sure that the flash program won't auto start or if so keep pressed Shift so the autoexec.bat won't execute. It's important to do it this way;

3. when the flashing program gets to the part when it should write the new BIOS on the chip(usually they ask permission to do this), this is the part where you interfere;

4. CAREFULLY you take the good BIOS chip out of it's socket(make sure you don't touch any connections on the MB, case of a short-circuit);

5. place in the socket the bad BIOS chip(watch out for any bended pins before placeing an make sure it's right positioned);

6. go ahead with the flashing procedure;

7. After everything is done, stop the computer, take out the "new" BIOS and place it on your mother board.

It should be like new!

Another successful carnival

noreply@blogger.com (AndyAr85) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:45:00 +0000

Welcome to the February 29, 2008 edition of pc issues diy. This time I have to admit IT'S A PRASH HYSTERIA, he's one wild. Thank you Prash for all your posts and confidence. All the posts I have received are very interesting and I advice reading them.

Jose DeJesus MD presents Tuning up Windows - Technology posted at Physician Entrepreneur.

prash presents All in one messenger posted at prashanth's blog.

prash presents download youtube videos posted at prashanth's blog.

prash presents Connect your dsl modem to a wireless router posted at prashanth's blog.

prash presents How to set up your own Web Server? posted at prashanth's blog.

prash presents Disable autorun.inf posted at prashanth's blog.

prash presents CD/DVD burning software for linux(ubuntu) posted at prashanth's blog.

prash presents Improve your internet connection's speed posted at prashanth's blog.

prash presents Change your default modem/router password for security reasons posted at prashanth's blog.

presents Sexy and Sleek Top 50 Tech Gadgets! posted at CustomizedGirl Blog, saying, "This is a must read for anyone in the computer and technology field. This list has some of the coolest and newest gadgets out there. There are some on here that you may not have heard of before that are really cool."

Marius Visan presents Google offers team Web site publishing service posted at Global PWD.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
pc issues diy
using our
carnival submission form.
Past posts and future hosts can be found on our

blog carnival index page.

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Unique opportunity

noreply@blogger.com (AndyAr85) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:12:00 +0000

WOW! I found a very attractive offer on a Pay-per-Click site

THEY ARE WILLING TO PAY YOU 2$ BONUS FOR EVERY REFERRAL YOU OWN AND IT'S ACTIVE!

The price of a click is 0.01$ and guess what...the payout is at 1$ only...now this is great.

So....

JOIN NOW

"Give it to your friends and earn $0.01 for each of your referral click, and $2 bonus if your referral is active"

The pay-out it's done by PayPal

Click you way into money

noreply@blogger.com (AndyAr85) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:19:00 +0000

Let's face it WE ALL NEED MONEY; to support our selves, our business, our web page and so on. A lot of bloggers and web page owners have tried numerous methods to win some/lots of money from their web pages. One of the well known methods it's Google's AdSense , but I'm not going to present it here. There are other methods...I'm talking about "Surf Ads" pages.

All you have to do is sign up on one of the web pages that pay this kind of activity and in return you have to click an ad and let the advertising web page open for 30 seconds and then you receive usually 0.01$. I know what you are saying..."that' all I get payed? that's nothing!". You maybe right, but if you join let's say on 10 different sites that pay...it ads up. I'm not going to lie to you and say you're going to make a fortune out of this...but is a effortless "job". It only takes 5 min/day to click all the ads. You don't even have to watch the add unless you're interested.

This is not a get-rich-scheme or scam, but it can put some extra gas money in your pocket!

In other words...you may give it a try, you are spending time online anyway, why not earn a few bucks with this? I'm going to present some of the web pages that pay for this type of activity.

1.One of the BEST sites that I encountered is BUX.TO. Why? because there are numerous ads to click(up to 20/day-that's a lot) and there is no catch to the price, meaning all the ads are 0.01$/30sec. Believe me when I tell you from all the pages that I signed on this is the most proffitable. You won't get any consistent bonus on signing in, but the cash will build up faster than in other cases. You must earn at least $10.00 and you cash-out with Alertpay
This is what Bux.to say about their earning possibilities:

"Earnings example (based on current averages)
» You click 10 ads per day = $0.10
» 20 referrals click 10 ads per day = $2.00
» Your daily earnings = $2.10
» Your weekly earnings = $14.70
» Your monthly earnings = $63.00"

JOIN BUX.TO NOW!

2.Another site that is also a profitable one is Paid.vg. Here you get 10 ads/day at 0.01$ an ad. The cash-out is at 10$ via Alertpay services.

"How much can I earn?

If you click 10 ads a day, you refer 100 members who click 10 ads a day, you could earn up to $3,500 yearly. With more referrals or ads the earning potential is endless."

JOIN NOW!

3.This is a nice one too. It's called Xclix. Actually this is a brand new site, but it pays a 0.01$/ad. You get about 10 ads per day, but the best thing is it has a very low payout, only 2$. Again PayPal is used. Check it out!!

JOIN Xclix

4.Try another one....CLIX4COINS . Here you get a 3$ bonus just for signing up. The bad part is you only get 4 ads/day, but they can worth 0.01/0.02/0.03$. Usually they are 0.02$, so it's not bad option. The more the better. Also the Alertpay service is used here.

5.TRY this one too...WordLinx.When you have earned over $10 USD from clicks and affiliate sales you can request to be paid by WordLinx. Here you have to use PayPal services

HERE ARE OTHER LINKS. TRY THEM ALL

7.

8.

9.

10.sebasbux.com. This is new for me but I think it's worth it. It should be in top 5 at least

TO EARN MORE AND MORE SIMPLY GET MORE REFERRALS AND YOU WILL GET BONUSES

Some interestig articles that may help

noreply@blogger.com (AndyAr85) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 16:43:00 +0000

It's time for some carnival!!! This edition called "PC issues-DIY" received some good articles that can really give you a hand. Read them!!!

Welcome to the February 14, 2008 edition of pc issues diy

Pablo presents How to recover data from a broken hard drive posted at geekyprojects.com, saying, "This article features everything that can be done (at home) to recover data from a broken Hard Drive."

Kingsley Tagbo presents SQL Training posted at HOW TO LEARN COMPUTER PROGRAMMING FAST OR GET A JOB EASILY.

Kenton Newby presents Video Tip of the Week: Automatically Backing Up Critical Data posted at KentonNewby.com.

Matthew Paulson presents DataSync Business News » Blog Archive » A Comparison of Zimbra & Outlook’s Web Clients posted at DataSync Business News.

Rob Moshe presents Live Your Best Life By Serving Others posted at Rob Schaumer, saying, "This is not necessarily a fitting post for your carnival. Once the project starts, each day I will recognize a fellow blogger that "Helped""

jsanderz presents Information Addicts » PC Software posted at Information Addicts, saying, "How to quickly and easily change your boring old Windows XP welcome screen"

:: Suzanne :: presents Function key (Fn key) is Stuck posted at :: adventures in daily living ::.

Nesher presents 25 Defragmenters for Your Hard Drive - Freeware Reviews posted at Freeware Reviews, saying, "Defragmentation is essential to keep health and effective computer operations. Find a list of the free defragmenting utilities for your HDD."

Steven presents 7 Cable Clutter and Storage Tips posted at Steve's Tech Guide.

Kevin Fleming presents The Best Places to Watch Prison Break Online - Satellite TV Guru posted at Satellite TV Guru.

Freddie L. Sirmans, Sr. presents Can The US Prevent A Starvation Crisis? posted at Can The US Prevent A Starvation Crisis.

prash presents what can you do with an old computer?-Turn it into a server posted at prashanth's blog.

prash presents Search for anything using google maps posted at prashanth's blog.

John Crenshaw presents The Biggest Scam Your Bank Gets Away With Everyday posted at Truthful Lending dot Com, saying, "This little known scam accounts for a huge portion of fees paid to banks every year and is going on right under your nose. The worst part is, it's completely legal."

Technorati tags:

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HDD cloning/image backup

noreply@blogger.com (AndyAr85) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 11:49:00 +0000

Here comes a fun part, at least I always laugh when someone gets confused when I tell him/her that I reinstall my OS in about 3 minutes. Are you surprised too?? don't be...I'll tell you how to do this yourself!!

It's all about a concept called cloning. what is cloning? Like you already guessed is a process that makes an exact copy of something. Regarding HDD cloning, basically you make an exact copy of the contents of one HDD drive to another HDD.

Why is this useful? For example you are a IT engineer and your boss tels you to install on a bunch of computers an OS for some important client. Your options:
1. you install the OS from scratch on every PC/Mac
2. you install the OS on one machine and clone the rest.... :-)(this way I get away very easy)

Another useful application, very similar to HDD cloning id HDD imaging. You create an image of your HDD drive and apply/reapply it on a diferent HDD or even your own HDD drive(this is the way I told you about- how I reinstall my OS). The great thing is that you can make a full recovery of your OS with all the applications already installed and functional. Don't waste your time any more on new OS install! Do it once and that's it!

How to do it

First you have to connect the two drives on the motherboard(make sure that you can see them in BIOS). This is whether you want to clone them.
For HDD imaging you need the original drive on the second one is optional. you need it only if you want to save the image on it. Otherwise you can save it on a different partition.

There are a bunch of specifically designed programs just for that: Norton Ghost, Acronis Disk Image, Paragon Disk Copy, Paragon Disk Backup, and there are a lot more. you can find them on the internet, there are trial versions available for download, or on the Utility Bootable CD-s I mention all the time: Hiren Boot CD, Windows UBCD.

For example in the DOS version of Norton Ghost to make:
- a HDD clone you choose Local-> Disk-> To Disk and then you choose the source Disk(what you want to clone) and the destination Disk(where you want to clone).
- a HDD image choosing Local-> Disk-> To image, and then you name the image and select where to save it. This way you save the entire HDD image(with partitions and all the data). Make sure you have another drive to save the image;
The great part is creating an image of a partition(the Windows partition):
- choose Local->Partition-> To image;
and for restoring the image(make sure you specify the exact partition to restore!!)
- choose Local-> Partition->From image
- a HDD restore from an image you created earlier, choose Local-> Disk-> From image, and then select the path to the image you created and the destination drive.

OBS. You have to be very careful with this tools, mainly with choosing the drives(you have to be sure which is the source drive and which is destination drive, or you can get with lost data....for this see my other posts)

Make you own HDD image

Start by installing an OS from scratch, add all the drivers an applications that you need(remember the way you save the image is the way it will always look when you restore it) and then create a HDD image like I already showed you.

Another useful tool, also from Norton is the 2003 windows version of ghost. this one is great, because you can manage the images and cloning process from Windows. Also, a very handy option is that you can save an image on a CD/DVD and that way you create a HDD backup right on the DVD itself...very useful.

That's it you're ready to go...you'll thank me later

Retrieve deleted information from hard-drives

noreply@blogger.com (AndyAr85) — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 02:41:00 +0000

If you get to be a truly "fortunate" guy, like me, it's quite inevitable to get your hard drive formated. It can happen as a result of all sort of things, a bad hard drive, which is NOT your fault and probably you start cursing and getting angry on the company that made your hardware, or it can happen, this is my favorite part, due to your hazardous treatment or inadequate usage.

I really should create a disclaimer for those of you who will try this and won't understand it properly, so DON'T do this on your own unless you are sure on what you are about to do...(or it's not your computer...just kidding) . Also that this process of retrieving data from formatted hard-drives is never 100% sure(I'll explain why later on).

Let's start on the tools you really need on any attempt to fix something on your PC. This are in fact the minimum every one of you should have. Get this and master all it's contents and you'll never hire someone to fix any of your PC failure (this is actually my lose). You need a bootable CD/DVD/USB that contains it's own OS and a library of fixing programs. Why it's necessary to boot from it? you will ask me....it's because you don't want any of the processes that are lunched in windows to interfere with your work and using an OS from another media support will do just that. Of course if you have another computer to mount the "destroyed" hard-drive into will do the trick too, but for all the rest of you this is the easiest solution.
A few examples of bootable recovery disks: Hiren, Windows UBCD and a lot others, you just have to google for, but these two are more than enough. You can find them:
Hiren: http://www.hiren.info/
Win UBCD: http://www.ubcd4win.com/
Download, burn them on CD/DVD and boot. you should download the ultimate version but the older ones are as good. Mostly the difference is the virus definitions, but there can be also other stuff.

You should know there are two types of formatting: a quick format and a low level format. The difference?...a big one. If you are trying to get data back from a quick formatted drive, you just mite succeed. In the other case...you have to stop right now searching and reading any forums and documentation cause it's lost. Everything is lost. Why? Because when you make a quick format you only erase the HDD MBR(Master Boot Record)but the data even if you don't see it is still there, but a low level format means that the formating program fills the HDD sectors with logical zero(This is called Zero-Fill)
There is one problem with the area of data recovery software, Software companies know that a good recovery program is something that people will pay good money for. So most freeware and shareware programs comes with very basic functionality.

Ok, so you have a hard-drive(doesn't matter if you don't know the type of formatting, maybe it was a virus or an accident), but when you power your PC it won't boot or on other HDD you lost any data. The first thing you MUST do is DON'T WRITE ANYTHING ELSE ON THE HARD-DRIVE. Any data written above the lost one makes the lost data irretrievable.

If your HDD won't boot and you have the opportunity to transfer it to another computer and retrieve the important data by Explorer method this is the easiest way, but if you have a HDD with only one partition and can't do the transfer operation, this becomes more difficult.
In this case boot with one of the CD's mentioned before, let's say Hiren Boot Cd. You will get a menu and choose the option boot from CD. Now you get the Hiren Boot menu. Now the fun begins.

If you have deleted partitions by accident, do not create another partitions, just leave it blank. I'll tell you how to get them back other time.

There are several recovery programs included in Hiren pack such as Ontrack Easy Recovery, Winternals Disk Commander, Active Partition Recovery and Active Uneraser that will boot your system straight into DOS, then perform file recovery. There is an entire level in the boot menu that contains data recovery software, beside the ones mentioned before are Restoration, PC Inspector File Recovery, Drive Rescue, Free Undelete, Data Unerase Personal Edition and a lot more. Come to think about it I need an upgrade too....

The use of this programs is not difficult, you basically just have to point the HDD that you want to search data on and maybe the level of search, but you can do it with a quick search also. Now it depends on the program if it finds the files you need or not. If the file is found, great, you just recover it, or save it somewhere specific. That's the easiest way to do it, and the fastest. But ,you must know that not all recovery attempts get a 100% success . There is a chance that what you recovered to be damaged (the text, mp3 and other media type of files are affected, and a few others).

The thing is you have to be prepared that you have only a chance of recovering the original data you deleleted. Hope this helps you!