computerboom

How to make gamebooster from iobit work with win2k, and other gdi problems that some programs have

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:32:00 +0000

Problem>

according to the site, gamebooster should work with windows 2000
i have virtual machines, and i have seen that using gamebooster allows me to run them faster.. so one of my virtual machines is win2k
i was able to install gamebooster on winxp, windows vista and win7 with no problem
but when it came to win2k i just get an error message

http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html
below is the text>
Operating Systems Supported
Microsoft® Windows® 8
Microsoft® Windows® 7 (32-bit and 64-bit) Starter/ Home Basic/Home Premium/Professional/Ultimate
Microsoft® Windows® Vista (32-bit and 64-bit) Starter/Home Basic/Home Premium/Business /Ultimate
Microsoft® Windows® XP (32-bit and 64-bit) with SP2/SP3 or Home/Professional/Media Center
Microsoft® Windows® 2000

solution>>

Win2k needs the gdi for some programs to work, this must be installed separately
To install gdi on Windows 2000, follow these steps:
1) Get the download here.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en
2) unpack and find the gdiplus.dll inside this extracted directory
\asms\10\msft\windows\gdiplus
3) Place the DLL file in \winnt\system32
run gamebooster

Evernote for 4.5.3 > updated version with pdf improvements

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:23:00 +0000

updated version with pdf improvements
Evernote for 4.5.3 GA Release Notes

Search terms will highlight within PDFs
Find for PDFs (ctrl+F) terms will highlight
Copy / Paste out of PDFs
Select All from PDFs
Ability to drag PDF out of a note via the Evernote PDF Reader Toolbar
Finnish language added
Fixed printing bug that used incorrect font sizes
Fixed printing bug caused headers to be printed in incorrect font & font size
Checkbox option to print all pages of PDF. If left unchecked, only the first page of the PDF will print. This is available under Tools >> Options/li>
Improvements to Simplify Formatting
Bug Fix for Evernote not launching from Taskbar

Get it at www.evernote.com

ComputerBoom is coming back in 2012, new and improved!

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:34:00 +0000

This is just a very short post, let everybody know that my site: computerboom, will be back with more exciting and interesting stuff.

web loging required 78754

noreply@blogger.com (-K) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 17:30:00 +0000

You can easily set up a Gmail account delivered to your email check box in your computer. I hope you all know it. So, you can easily receive Gmail mails in your Outlook Express or Office Outlook. If you try to do this sometimes an error message may appear and it is very common to all. When you will try to login your account for sending email to friends or to check your inbox, an error message may show like this, "Web login required" or "Your IMAP server wishes to alert you to the following: Web login required. (Failure)". What can you do in this situation? Don't become worried. I am giving you solution.

Previously, I told you that it is a very common problem or may not be an error, just an instruction needed to mention during the set up of Gmail IMAP account.

This error may happen due to two reasons. The first one is very common. It is happened for a security issue that Google try to prevent automated scripts from doing access your email account. During the try to login into Gmail account from any remote client, just unlock the security so that it can trust you as an authorized user. For this reason, you have to unlock Google's Captcha.

Before trying to unlock captcha first do the following two things:

1. Check that you have correct user name and correct password.

2. Check the settings of your email. Did you enter all your information correctly?

How to Unlock the Captcha Service?

1. Firstly, go to this site: https://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha

2. Give your email address and correct password in the box.

3. This time login to your email account using the email program in your computer.

Captcha is the verification letters which will try to verify you as a human. You can visit another link to solve your problem:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=78754

Second Case - Why you failed to login to your Gmail account?

Your email program will send a query to Gmail service. So, you have to change the frequency settings of your email program so that emails may not be checked coming from Gmail. Gmail recommends to set mail client so that only one new message can come in every ten minutes.

How to set the time of checking email in Outlook email?

1. Open your Outlook service

2. Go to "Tools" menu in the top.

3. Choose "Options" from menu.

4. Go to "Mail Setup" tab and click on "Send/Receive..." button.

5. This time "Send/Receive Groups" dialog box will be opened. Below this page you will see an option named "Schedule an automatic send/receive every -- minutes". Set 30 minutes from here.

How to set the time of checking email in Thunderbird email?

1. Open Thunderbird email service.

2. Go to "Tools>Account Settings" from menu.

3. Find the email address for changing the settings.

4. Click on the "Server Settings" option under correct mail address.

5. Check the box for "Check for new email messages every" like before and press "OK".

Solution: Disable the downloads Complete Firefox notification Pop-up

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 19:21:00 +0000

Some folks don’t like the pop-up notification Mozilla Firefox gives, when downloads are completed.
Especially when using REMOTE DESKTOP this notification pop up IS VERY SLOW!

You can turn that off using a hidden setting. Enter about:config in the location bar. (address bar, and press enter)

Search for the preference in the search box below the address bar (just copy paste the following and press enter)

browser.download.manager.showAlertOnComplete

double click to Modify the value to false.

How to update Firefox addons to work with a new release

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 14:11:00 +0000

Have you ever got used to a Firefox addon that you really like, or just can't live without, and then a new version of either Firefox or Thunderbird is released, and suddenly your addon no longer works?

Of course, the generally recommended way is to search http://addon.mozilla.org for a new version, but sometimes when you try to update your addons, you find there is no new version, or it seems like nobody is maintaining the addon any more. I tend to live on the leading edge of new Firefox releases, I want the new features, I want the latest, and I want it now, so I quite frequently hit this problem. Fortunately, there is an easy way to keep using your favorite addons, usually with little or no risk.

The summary for those who just want to skim and jump in:

Download the addon file you want to update
Rename the addon archive file to add .zip to the end
Extract install.rdf
Edit install.rdf, find and change maxVersion, save the change
Pack install.rdf back into the install archive
Rename the file back to it's original .xpi name
Install using File, Open

The detail for those who need all the steps:
You will need only two free tools to help you do this job, and in this age I think it is reasonably safe to assume that virtually every user already has a copy of WinZip, the totally free 7-Zip or some other ZIP file management utility and hopefully knows how to use it. The other tool is a simple text editor. Microsoft's Notepad will do, but any other text editor will work if you have any particular preference. My preference is NotePad++ which is a good free programming and general purpose text editor.

via http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-update-firefox-thunderbird-addons-new-release.htm

Microsoft IE 9 Release Candidate ready to roll

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 20:08:00 +0000

On February 10, as expected, Microsoft is making available for download the near-final test build of Internet Explorer (IE 9).

Many are expecting the Softies to make the bits available “officially” around 1 pm ET today. (But I just downloaded the final RC bits from WinRumors.com.)

Update: The RC bits are available for download from Microsoft’s BeautyOfTheWeb.com site now.

Included in the new RC build is the promised “Tracking Protection” feature, as well as a new ActiveX filtering option.

Tracking Protection is an opt-in mechanism. “Tracking Protection Lists” will enable consumers to control what third-party site content can track them when they’re online. The new feature is meant to complement other privacy features in IE, including InPrivate Browsing. ActiveX filtering allows users to turn on/off ActiveX plug-ins.

My blogging colleague Ed Bott has an in-depth review of the RC build of IE 9 here.

In the hour-plus I’ve been playing with the IE 9 RC, I’ve found it to be noticeably snappier than the beta version. And some of the site rendering issues I’d been having seem to have been resolved. The Twitter Web site, for one, seems to be working properly with IE for me, at last. Reader @Alimaggs noted that Facebook and Windows Live Home are both rendering correctly for him with the RC, as well.

If you’re like me and want your tabs in a row unto themselves, apart from the URL/address box, a right click will provide you with an option to show tabs on a separate row below. (Huzzah!)

Microsoft is holding an IE 9 RC launch event in San Francisco later today. I’m doubtful we’ll hear anything (still) about a final release-to-web target for IE 9, but I’m still thinking Mix ‘11 in mid April this year seems like a good bet.

Testers: Anything else of interest you’re seeing with the IE 9 RC?

via http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-ie-9-release-candidate-ready-to-roll/8671

Early Preview of Free Software Update for Kindle

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 14:52:00 +0000

We’re excited to tell you about some new features coming to the latest generation Kindle and Kindle 3G:
•    Public Notes – This feature lets Kindle users choose to make their book notes and highlights available for others to see. Any Kindle user – including authors, their fans, book reviewers, professors and passionate readers everywhere – can opt-in to share their thoughts on book passages and ideas with friends, family members, colleagues, and the greater Kindle community of people who love to read. This is a new way for readers to share their excitement and knowledge about books and get more from the books they read. To review and turn on Public Notes in your own books, view the Public Notes of people you follow, track your reading activities, see Popular Highlights and your annotations, and view your full library of books, go to http://kindle.amazon.com.
•    Real Page Numbers – Our customers have told us they want real page numbers that match the page numbers in print books so they can easily reference and cite passages, and read alongside others in a book club or class. Rather than add page numbers that don’t correspond to print books, which is how page numbers have been added to e-books in the past, we’re adding real page numbers that correspond directly to a book’s print edition. We’ve already added real page numbers to tens of thousands of Kindle books, including the top 100 bestselling books in the Kindle Store that have matching print editions and thousands more of the most popular books. Page numbers will also be available on our free “Buy Once, Read Everywhere” Kindle apps in the coming months.
•    Before You Go… – When you reach the end of the book, we will now offer a seamless experience that lets you immediately rate the book, share a message about the book with your social network, get personalized recommendations for what to read next, and see more books by the same author.
•    New Newspaper and Magazine Layout – We’re introducing a new and improved layout for newspapers and magazines. This new layout gives you a quick snapshot of the news and helps you decide what you want to read first.
Latest generation Kindle and Kindle 3G customers who want to try an Early Preview of these new features can manually download the software update here. All latest generation Kindle and Kindle 3G customers will receive this software update automatically via Wi-Fi once it becomes available. We will update the Kindle Community forum when we complete the Early Preview and begin to automatically deliver the update.

[via]

LastPass acquires Xmarks, premium service announced | Webware - CNET

noreply@blogger.com (-K) — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 13:55:00 +0000

LastPass acquires Xmarks, premium service announced | Webware - CNET

Windows Live Essentials 2011 Release To Web Launch

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 12:44:00 +0000

Windows Live Essentials 2011 Launch today 10:00 AM (PST)

The version RTW (Release To Web) Build 15.4.3502.922 was built last week launched a Top Microsoft Partners and self-installed in all the Microsoft Network on 23th

New features

◦ Messenger Integration with Facebook - Now users have a place to chat with all your friends. Messenger now lets you stay tuned for more updates from your friends on different networks and talk with Facebook chat.

◦ Rapid advances in the photo gallery: The new user interface gallery, you can see a change before applying it, simply placing the mouse on the option. In the final version, we also added the ability to see the tab "Search." Therefore, before applying a filter (date, number, label), which can float on one of these filters and see the results instantly.

◦ Bing Maps Integration: A photo gallery is now integrated with Bing Maps with the functionality of location tags, allowing users to view a map of where the photo was taken determined.

◦ Integration with Flickr Video: The users of the most popular world of online photo service can now upload their videos to their Flickr accounts, allowing you to share your videos, even the most.

◦ Faster Messenger: The time to enter, update contacts and channels and the animation speed is faster than previous versions of Messenger.

◦ Efficiently Video Chat Video Chat Messenger now uses 30% less CPU resources, conduct of the work of the GPU (graphics processor), which means better performance.

◦ Best face recognition facial recognition of the gallery has had significant improvements and works faster.

◦ Load bsest films: Movie Maker now allows you to upload videos with higher resolutions to SkyDrive (480 x 640 x 480 compared to 320 in previous versions).
◦ Films with higher bit rate: Movie Maker now supports videos with a slightly higher rate of higher quality.

◦ Improved Spell: Windows Live Writer significantly improved the quality of the spelling.

◦ Better integration with Office, Windows Live Writer is much better to recognize and maintain the formatting of text in Word or another Office program when you paste.

◦ Better support for Gmail, Windows Live Mail now comes the spam folder and trash Gmail more accurately.

◦ Fastest web filter: Child Protection web filter is 35% faster than the previous version.

Download WLE 2011 RTW http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials =)

IMPORTANT: Xmarks Sync to be Discontinued

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 18:36:00 +0000

Sadly, Xmarks will be shutting down our free browser synchronization service on January 10, 2011. This page contains details on how to transition to recommended alternative services. For more detail on why we're closing our doors, please see our blog post.

Best regards,
-Team Xmarks

What you need to know:

Browser Sync Alternatives
While you may have to give up cross-browser sync when Xmarks goes away, there are a lot of good browser-specific sync options available:

Browser
Sync Alternative
Xmarks Data Types Supported
Price

Firefox Sync
(Mozilla)
Bookmarks, passwords, history, tabs
Free

Chrome Sync
(Google)
Bookmarks
Free

Windows Live Essentials
(Microsoft)
Bookmarks
Free

MobileMe
(Apple)
Bookmarks, passwords
$99/year

You can also create an html backup of your bookmarks at any time by using the Export feature at my.xmarks.com.
Service End Date and User Support
Xmarks Sync for Firefox, Chrome, IE, Safari, and iPhone will continue to operate until January 10, 2011. Email support is no longer available, but our user support forums on GetSatisfaction will continue to be a place for users to help each other.
Uninstalling Xmarks Extensions (Sync, Thumbnails, and SearchTabs)
Instructions for uninstalling Xmarks can be found on this wiki page.
Privacy and Your Data
We understand that you have entrusted us with the task of storing your personal browser data and we take that responsibility very seriously.
- We will never sell or release your personal data, and we will make sure to delete all user data once the Xmarks service shuts down.
- If you'd like to take immediate action, click here to immediately delete your account and user data. (Make sure you have all your data first!)
Other Shutdown Questions
Please see our Shutdown FAQ if you have questions you don't see answered above.
More Sync Options
If you have need of syncing more than just bookmarks between computers, here are two great services we recommend you try out. Both offer a free plan with no payment obligation.

Evernote lets you save entire webpages, including text, links and images. It keeps everything synchronized across your computer, phone and the web. In addition to storing webpages, Evernote also allows you to take notes, store to-dos, snap photos and more.
SugarSync is easy, secure online file sync and backup. Keep your files, photos, and music stored in the cloud so you can access them anytime. Works with PC and Mac plus mobile devices like iPhone, iPad, Android, and more. Try it Free!

via http://www.xmarks.com/about/shutdown

Tips and tricks for getting the most out of your desktop gadgets (windows 7)

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 05:16:00 +0000

Desktop gadgets are mini programs that offer information at a glance and provide quick access to frequently used tools. But did you know that there are lots of ways to make your gadgets more efficient, useful, and fun? Here are a few tips and tricks you can try.

Tip: Resize gadgets to get more information

You've heard the expression "less is more," but that isn't always true—especially when it comes to information. You can resize some gadgets to get even more info, like news headlines and weather, on your desktop.

Right-click the gadget that you want to resize, point to Size, and then click the size that you want the gadget to be.

(Not all gadgets can be resized.)

Try this with: The Weather gadget and the Currency gadget.

The large Weather gadget shows more information.

Trick: Sneak a peek at your gadgets

You can use the Show desktop button to take a quick look at your gadgets even when they're buried under a pile of open windows. No need to interrupt your train of thought (or even minimize any windows).

Point to the Show desktop button at the end of the taskbar. The open windows fade from view, revealing the desktop.

To make the windows reappear, move the mouse away from the Show desktop button.

The Show desktop button

Try this when: You want to peek at your gadgets then go back to what you were doing.

Tip: Change the face of your gadgets

Don't like the look of some of your gadgets? Many of them can be customized. For starters, you can change the pictures in the Slide Show gadget and the Picture Puzzle gadget. Or you can change the appearance of the Clock gadget entirely.

Right-click the gadget that you want to change, and then click Options.

(Not all gadgets have options.)

Try this with: The Clock gadget and the Picture Puzzle gadget.

You can change the look of the Clock.

Trick: Hide gadgets for a cleaner desktop

Have you ever wished you could make all of the clutter on your desktop go away? In Windows 7, you can hide the gadgets on your desktop when you feel the need to tidy up your PC and then bring them back whenever you want. Your gadgets are restored the way you left them, with their options and locations on the desktop intact.

Right-click the desktop, point to View, and then click Show desktop gadgets to clear the check mark.

(Note that hiding your gadgets doesn't remove them from the desktop.)

Try this when: You want to cut back on some of the clutter on your desktop. (It works with icons, too. For more information, see Show, hide, or resize desktop icons).

Tip: Get more gadgets

Looking to add to your gadget collection? There are lots more available for download on the Windows website. You're sure to find at least a few that pique your interest.

You can also open the Windows website from the Desktop Gadget Gallery:

Right-click the desktop, and then click Gadgets.
Click Get more gadgets online to open the Personalization Gallery on the Windows website.

Try this when: You're tired of looking at the same old desktop.

Want to learn more about desktop gadgets? Check out Customize desktop gadgets, Desktop gadgets: frequently asked questions, and Give your PC some personality with desktop gadgets from Windows Live Gallery.

Via

What is mscorsvw.exe and why is it eating up my CPU? What is this new CLR Optimization Service?

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 19:04:00 +0000

mscorsvw.exe is precompiling .NET assemblies in the background. Once it's done, it will go away. Typically, after you install the .NET Redist, it will be done with the high priority assemblies in 5 to 10 minutes and then will wait until your computer is idle to process the low priority assemblies. Once it does that it will shutdown and you won't see mscorsvw.exe. One important thing is that while you may see 100% CPU usage, the compilation happens in a process with low priority, so it tries not to steal the CPU for other stuff you are doing. Once everything is compiled, assemblies will now be able to share pages across different processes and warm start up will be typically much faster, so we're not throwing away your cycles.

If you are really want to get rid of mscorsvw.exe from your task manager, just do:

ngen.exe executequeueditems

which will drain all the queued up work.

via http://blogs.msdn.com/b/davidnotario/archive/2005/04/27/412838.aspx

Removing additional Passport (.net messenger) Accounts in Windows XP

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 17:00:00 +0000

Removing additional Passport Accounts in Windows XP

When you sign-in to passport based services such as MSN Messenger you will see that it list the accounts of all users who have logged on from your machine. After a while this can get a tad annoying, if you left your friends sign in on your system you will end up with a huge list. To remove accounts from this list open User Accounts from the control panel and click on your username.

Now select to manage your network passwords. When the stored user names and passwords window appears you can remove accounts simply by highlighting them and selecting remove. Passport.Net\* indicates the account associated with your user account

Note: If your machine is part of a domain you can access the stored user names and passwords dialog by going to
Start > Run and typing in control userpasswords2
Once the user accounts window has opened select the Advanced tab > manage passwords button
If you are not an administrator on your local machine and attempt this you will be presented with an error, if you select the 'manage your passwords' text in the lower paragraph you will be able to access the stored user names and passwords dialog.

How can I prevent Windows XP associating Microsoft Passport details with my user account?

After installing Windows XP you may be prompted you to associate a Microsoft Passport account with you Windows User account to enable access to certain Internet communication features (such as Windows Messenger). To bypass this wizard take the following steps.

Go to Start, select run and start the registry editor by typing in regedit. Then in the registry navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MessengerService. If a registry value called PassportBalloon does not already exist here, go to the Edit menu, select "New, Binary Value", enter a name of PassportBalloon, and then click Enter.

Double-click on the PassportBalloon value, set it to 0A 00 00 00, and then click OK. To reverse this right click and delete the PassportBalloon binary entry entirely.

via http://www.mvps.org/marksxp/WindowsXP/passport1.php

Seagate GoFlex Desk breaks the 2.2TB barrier for Windows XP

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 21:34:00 +0000

Seagate wins the 3.0TB race with the industry’s first 3TB hard drive.

It just so happens to be an external drive in the crtically acclaimed Goflex family and it’s available now.

What makes this drive unique, in addition to the massive capacity, dual support for Windows and Mac support, and flexibility of the GoFlex system? It works with Windows XP! There has been a ton of coverage around the limitations of Windows XP as hard drive manufacturers move to 4K sectors. Windows XP users would not be able to see anything above 2.2TB because the OS only recognizes 512b block sizes. Well, GoFlex Desk 3.0TB takes care of that by incorporating logic on the bridge chip that enables Windows XP to allow the drive to work in 4K byte chunks instead of the typical 512 bytes.

The catch is that this works only within the GoFlex solution since it’s embedded in the bridge chip, so don’t feel compelled to take the drive out of the enclosure and install in your PC or another storage system. If you do, you’ll lose 800GB of available storage. You’ll need that 800GB for all those HD movies, games, music, and photos… why else would you buy 3.0TB? Internal versions I expect will be available in the coming months.

Check it out.

iTunes 10 was released!

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:16:00 +0000

http://www.apple.com/itunes/whats-new/

New features:

Introducing iTunes Ping. Make your music more social.

Discover new music by going social with Ping. Learn even more about your favorite artists and friends starting with their bios. See what they’ve been up to — even listen to 30-second previews of music they like. Find out when and where artists and bands are on tour, and check out photos and videos they’ve posted. With Ping, a community of the world’s most passionate music fans is just a click away.

TV show rentals. Just 99¢ an episode.

À la carte television.

Watch what you want, when you want, without commercial interruptions, and in HD. iTunes 10 features thousands of your favorite commercial-free HD episodes available to rent for just 99¢ each. Watch TV rentals on your iPhone or iPod touch, iPad, the all-new Apple TV, or Mac or PC.¹ You have 30 days from the moment you rent an episode to start watching, and 48 hours to finish it. Plenty of time for you to be in the know for all those watercooler conversations.

AirPlay. Listen without wires.

Let the tunes flow.

iTunes 10 and AirPlay make it simple to play your favorite music in any room or everywhere in your house. Without a hitch. AirPlay wireless technology will be arriving inside speakers, AV receivers, and iPod accessories — making it possible to enjoy your entire iTunes Library — every song and every playlist — in every room.

Lots to see here.

The sleek new Apple TV has been completely retuned for your entertainment. It’s 80 percent smaller than the previous generation. Which makes is perfect for sitting neatly on a widescreen TV stand or squeezing into a crowded media cabinet. But don’t let its size fool you. Apple TV now gives you the world’s largest selection of HD movies and HD TV shows on demand. Hook it up and suddenly you’ve got instant access to new movies the day they’re released on DVD, commercial-free TV episodes, Netflix content, YouTube videos, photos, music, and more.

Improved syncing. Feed your devices, faster.

A simpler way to sync.

iTunes gives you even better ways to sync your media from your computer to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod. There’s a new capacity bar that tells you exactly how much space you have left on your device in real time. And it’s even easier to organize all your apps on all your devices because you do it right in iTunes. Shop the App Store on your computer, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Then connect to your Mac or PC and go to your iTunes library to arrange (and rearrange) your apps and add or delete Home screens that sync back to your devices automatically.

GET IT HERE:http://www.apple.com/itunes/

HOW TO FIX: Installing XP: STOP: 0x0000007B

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 21:08:00 +0000

If you see this message when trying to install XP on your computer, it can mean several things.. but the first thing that comes into mind is that you are trying to install XP on a computer that has a SATA hard disk, and XP does not recognize the controller that’s on your motherboard.

If you have not changed anything and you are using the same cdrom as you always have, see this microsoft article for more information, your hard disk may have a problem or virus: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324103

Below however is a much more common reason for the STOP: 0x0000007B error

You may remember using another XP cdrom disk fine, like one from DELL. If you used one from Dell before and you are using a different one now, the explanation is simple: Dell makes sure that they include the SATA drivers for your motherboard inside the XP cdrom…. while if you buy a new one, it does not have those drivers.

There is a setting usually to make the bios work in ATA compatibility mode, instead of SATA, this differs depending on which bios you have so I cannot give an example that will cover everyone but here is one I found in a forum:

1. On start up (Dell logo), press F2 to enter BIOS
2. Expand the "Drives" section
3. Go to "SATA Operation"
4. Change this from "RAID Auto/AHCI" to "RAID Auto/ATA"

The other way is while xp is starts the setup it says at some point to press the F6 key >

“Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver”

and insert the floppy that should have came with your motherboard. However not all motherboards come with a floppy disk, in that case you can create a new floppy disk by following the guide below: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org/how_do_i_install_windows_xp_on_a.htm

I realize that most computers now are sold without even having a floppy disk drive, in that case you will need to follow the option below:

[Advanced] You can also create a new cd rom by slipstreaming your sata drivers inside the cdrom. See this guide: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Install-Windows-XP-On-SATA-Without-a-Floppy-F6-47807.shtml

I hope this helps some people out there, please leave a comment.

Nice collection of free screensavers (virus free, malware free)

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 17:38:00 +0000

Click here to download: http://www.screenmeditation.com/freescreensavers/?1

Did you know: Microsoft Office is licensed for two PCs?

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:58:00 +0000

In a twitter reply by Microsoft Australia (MSAU) today, we were reminded of a Microsoft Office license term that many people did not know. The reply to a tweeted question stated that whilst the Home and Student edition of Microsoft Office is licensed for installation on up to three machines, all other versions of Microsoft Office are in fact licensed for installation on two machines. Specifically, the license terms state:

Extract from the MSLT.

The theory behind this not well-publicized license term is that many of today’s computer-users have both a desktop and a notebook (or other portable device), and thus it would be unjust for Microsoft to try to charge these users for both machines. Of course, a possible second reason for this license term is that more machines with Microsoft's Office installed equals less machines with competing productivity suites installed – and even if users aren't paying for both copies, that's still a win for Microsoft.

This license term applies to all Microsoft Office retail products, including the Academic editions.

Amendment: As iKenndac pointed out in the comments below, other productivity suites may have similar license terms (ie. Adobe products), so be sure to always check your license terms before shelling out for extra copies.

via http://www.neowin.net/news/did-you-know-microsoft-office-is-licensed-for-two-pcs?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+neowin-software+%28Neowin+Software+News%29

How to delete a power plan (scheme) in windows 7

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:55:00 +0000

If you created power plans that you no longer use or need, delete them. You can't delete any of the three default power plans (Balanced, Power saver, and High performance).

Warning

After you delete a plan, you can't restore it.

Open Power Options by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, and then clicking Power Options.
If the active plan is the one that you want to delete, make a different plan the active plan.
Under the plan that you want to delete, click Change plan settings.
On the Change settings for the plan page, click Delete this plan.
When prompted, click OK.

Solution: I bought a new VGA card but it has a small 2 pin cable. What do I do with that?

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:02:00 +0000

THis small cable allows your motherboard to send digital sound to your graphic card, so when you connect an HDMI monitor or screen, both video AND sound are transferred from the same 1 cable.

How to connect an HDMI-S/PDIF cable from your VGA card to your Mainboard.

The HDMI-S/PDIF cable allows you to route audio from your mainboard to your VGA card.
This allwos audio to be output from the HDMI connector on your VGA card as per HDMI specifications.
Note that audio can also be output to the VGA DVI connector that has a DVI-to-HDMI converter attached to it.

example:

Mainboard : Albatron PXP35 v2.0
VGA Card: Albatron 8600GT

1) Locate your HDMI-S/PDIF cable (as shown above).
Note: Shutdown your system before attaching the cable.

2) Locate the HDMI-S/PDIF connector on your VGA card
    (in this example, the J8 connector is the correct HDMI-S/PDIF connector for an Albatron 8600GT).
Note: The location of the HDMI-S/PDIF connector on your VGA card may differ depending on your specific model.

3) Attach one end of the cable to the HDMI-S/PDIF connector of the VGA Card.
    Note: Left side - HDMI signal, Right-side ¡V Ground
    Also , the pin definitions may vary depending on your specific VGA model.

4) Locate the S/PDIF out header on the mainboard.
Note: Refer to your mainboard manual for the exact S/PDIF header pin outs
(e.g. Albatron PX35 v2.0: Pin #1 - S/PDIF out, Pin #2 - Ground)

5) Connect the other end of the cable to the S/PDIF out header on the mainboard.

6) You have completed the HDMI-S/PDIF cable installation.
    You can now connect HDMI devices to your VGA card using the card¡¦s HDMI connector
    or DVI connector (DVI connector needs an DVI-to-HDMI adapter).

solution: video lan (vlc) disable fullscreen control transparency & fix video lag

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 22:19:00 +0000

Problem: video is slow when vlc is in fullscreen because of the semitransparent controls

solution: This problem seems this only occurs under Vista or Window 7. On Win7, and VLC is on fullscreen mode the controls are semitransparent and it has made it basically unusable - with very serious lag as soon as you pop up the control panel.
Fortunately, it can be easily solved by running vlc.exe in Compatibility Mode for Windows XP SP3. This disables the resource hogging (and totally unnecessary) transparency effect and retains video performance when the control panel is up.

To do that, right click on the vlc icon and select compatibility mode and xp sp3.

Flash Player 10.1 Now Available for Win, Mac, and Linux

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:02:00 +0000

By Paul Betlem on June 10, 2010 1:53 PM | No Comments

Today I'm thrilled to announce that Adobe Flash Player 10.1 is now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. You can get it now. Flash Player 10.1 for Android will be coming later this month - the beta 2 release is currently available in the Android market.

In this post, I'd like to share some of the top new PC-specific features, many of which have mobile implications as well, as I discussed in an earlier blog post about the engineering efforts behind Flash Player 10.1. In this post, I'll cover the work we did to improve performance, power management and video, and discuss the new multi-touch and private browsing capabilities, as well as our work to provide a better Flash Player experience for Mac users.

Performance and Power Management
With Flash Player 10.1 we aligned our development efforts to create a single runtime that works across desktops and devices. Performance and power efficiency was a huge focus since different devices have varying sized processors and memory, and we needed to ensure Flash Player 10.1 would work across all of them. So we made a number of changes to Flash Player that directly translate to faster execution and reduced resource consumption. We achieved some large gains in reducing the amount of memory used at runtime, particularly for bitmap-intensive apps. The ActionScript virtual machine received some targeted optimizations, which directly benefit typed AS3 code. And, our release wouldn't be complete if we didn't improve the garbage collector - where we tuned its behavior to run more efficiently and better amortize its processing over the application's lifetime.

As noted above, the team invested a lot of time in memory optimization. Tabbed browsing is common for PC users, who often have many pages open in their browser at the same time. This is a great timesaver but also uses up lots of RAM. With Flash Player 10.1, we added new functionality that detects when memory is running low. Now, content that runs in Flash Player will automatically shut down when the available memory is running low.

The Flash Player team made a number of improvements to conserve resources, reduce power usage and extend battery life. For example, Flash Player can now automatically reduce the power consumption for content running in the background on a non-visible browser tab to improve performance when users are multitasking. In cases where audio is playing in the background, playback fidelity is maintained.

Some significant changes were made to Flash Player 10.1 to re-architect the system for managing timers and events. Without going into the details here (Tinic Uro will share a post next week that covers this topic more comprehensively), the end result is that apps for Flash Player and Adobe AIR will use significantly less CPU when the content is idle and consume less power in the process. These improvements are most pronounced on Macs.

Video improvements
From hardware decoding to better buffering, p2p video, multicast and http streaming -- there are many improvements in Flash Player 10.1 with regards to web video delivery and playback. For desktops, Flash Player 10.1 introduces hardware-based H.264 video decoding to deliver smooth, high quality video with minimal overhead across supported operating systems. Using available hardware to decode video offloads tasks from the CPU, improving video playback performance, offering smoother frame rates, and reducing system resource utilization.

The addition of HTTP Dynamic Streaming expands the delivery options for high quality live and on-demand media with full adaptive bitrate functionality. This new option enables media publishers to leverage standard HTTP networking infrastructure to help increase capacity, reach, and quality of service for video delivery using standards-based MP4 fragments. Using the Open Source Media Framework, Flash developers can easily leverage this new technology to deploy your video much more quickly. You can download the free tools for HTTP Dynamic Streaming here.

Peer-assisted networking and Multicast is available for Flash Player 10.1 by leveraging Real Time Media Flow Protocol (RTMFP), which enables peers on a network to assist in real time communication and content delivery over the web. Flash Player now supports peer-assisted networking groups, which allows an application to segment its users and send messages and data between members of the group. Application level multicast allows for one (or a few)-to-many streaming of continuous live video streams as well as real-time audio/video chat applications.

Enhanced RTMP streaming and buffering features will also greatly improve the video viewing experience for Flash Player users. Stream reconnect lets Flash Player 10.1 allow an RTMP stream to continue to play through the buffer even if the connection is disrupted, thereby making media experiences more tolerant of short term network failures and enabling uninterrupted video playback. When a connection is re-established, the stream resumes playback. Developers can add stream re-connection logic in ActionScript to re-establish server connection and resume streaming with limited disruption in the video.

New to Flash Player 10.1, Smart seek can easily make using Flash Player a DVR-like experience. Smart seek allows the video viewer to seek within a new "back" buffer so viewers can easily rewind or fast forward video without Flash Player calling back to the server, thus reducing the start time after a seek. Smart seek can speed up seeking performance of streamed videos and enable the creation of slow motion, double time, or "instant replay" experiences for streaming video. With buffered stream catch-up, developers can set a target latency threshold that triggers slightly accelerated video playback to help ensure that live video streaming stays in sync with real time over extended playback periods. Finally, Fast Switch benefits Dynamic Streaming with RTMP to improve switching times between bitrates, reducing the time to receive the best viewing experience for available bandwidth and processing speed. Users no longer need to wait for the buffer to play through, which can result in a faster bitrate transition time and an uninterrupted video playback experience, regardless of bandwidth fluctuations or client computing power.

Multi-touch
Many companies are beginning to rollout touch enabled devices, and not just smartphones, but tablets as well as PCs like the HP Touchsmart. With Flash Player 10.1, you can take advantage of the latest hardware and operating system user interaction capabilities using a new set of ActionScript 3 APIs for multi-touch and native gesture events, creating the ability to interact with multiple objects simultaneously or work with native gestures, such as pinch, scroll, rotate, scale, and two-finger tap. Multi-touch may be one of the most important features for developers and designers creating new content with the Flash Platform, knowing your implementations may be easily extended to devices with touch capabilities. To get started using multi-touch with Flash Player 10.1, check out this ADC resource.

Browser Privacy mode
Flash Player 10.1 abides by the host browser's private browsing mode (where local data and browsing activity are not cached on the local system) providing a consistent private browsing mechanism between SWF and HTML content. Private local shared objects (LSOs) behave like their traditional variants as long as Flash Player is in memory, and LSOs created during private browsing are removed when the user returns to conventional browsing mode. Existing shared objects are preserved but inaccessible until private browsing is turned off.

Mac-specific improvements
Our Mac engineers, with some help from the Safari team, made significant changes to Flash Player for Macs. Here's a partial list of the work we completed for Argo. First and foremost, Flash Player 10.1 is a full-fledged Cocoa app (though legacy Carbon support remains for some browsers that require it). We now leverage Cocoa events, use Cocoa UI for our dialogs, leverage Core Audio for sound, Core Graphics for printing support, and use Core Foundation for bundle-style text.

Mac performance was also an explicit focus for us. One improvement we made is the use of a double-buffered OpenGL context for improved full screen playback efficiency. We also investigated a number of compile-time optimizations using Xcode to improve our overall execution speed of Flash Player on Macs. Rendering performance was improved by our use of Core Animation. For Macs running OS X 10.6 or greater, we leverage the hardware acceleration in Core Animation to dramatically improve the efficiency of displaying web pages which combine both SWF and HTML content. The details and performance implications of the Core Animation work are outlined in Tinic's blog post . The overall performance improvements of Flash Player for Mac users will result in faster video playback, more efficient CPU utilization, and greater battery life.

As you can see, don't let the version number fool you! Flash Player 10.1 is more than a "dot upgrade." It was a monumental undertaking including some significant architectural improvements and a long list of enhancements that will help the more than 3 million Flash designers and developers continue to move web innovation forward. We can't wait to see what you develop. Be sure to check out the new Flash Player 10.1 product pages and ADC content to learn more.

Additionally, today we announced the immediate availability of the Adobe AIR 2 runtime. Starting today, you can download and install the new version at get.adobe.com/air/. Developers can now deploy applications built for AIR 2 on Mac OS, Windows and Linux. Read more about AIR 2 on the AIR Team blog.

Paul Betlem
Flash Player Engineering

Via > http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Disable the Firefox 3 "awesome bar" (how to)

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 10:40:00 +0000

With firefox 3.x one of the things you'll notice is the "Awesome Bar," a new feature that drops down a list of sites from your history and bookmarks as you type. For example, you could type "f," and your bookmark for facebook.com would pop up, along with flabbergasted.com, if you've recently visited it.
For some people, this is going to be handy, but others are going to hate it.

How to turn it off: In the address box type about:config . Click past the warning message, and search for browser.urlbar.maxRichResults. This sets how many recommendations the Awesome Bar will display. 12 is the default, but you want to change it to 0 so you wont have those pesky addresses there anymore.

SOLUTION> iPod touch (and possibly other apple devices) not recognized by itunes

noreply@blogger.com (computerboom) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 17:41:00 +0000

Ok this was very annoying… I knew the iPod was fine because it worked on my netbook. However my desktop computer refused to “see” it on iTunes.

I tried uninstalling iTunes and reinstalling it, with no luck…
Swapping ports, turning the iPod on and off, had no effect.

When I was plugging the iPod in the usb port I could hear a bonk sound on windows, then after a little another bonk. So I went to see what was going on in the device manager.

After opening the device manager I plugged in the iPod once again and I saw this>>>

Apple Mobile Device USB driver with a yellow triangle and exclamation mark!

The strange thing is that after the second BONK it would vanish!

After googling a bit I found the solution. I had to manually reinstall the drivers.

So I plugged it in again, saw that yellow triangle, right clicked on it before it would vanish and selected update.

For windows Vista and windows 7 32 bit you need to direct the driver update to this folder>

C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Apple\Mobile Device Support\Drivers

If you have Vista 64 bit or windows7 64 bit AND you have installed the 64 bit version of iTunes then you must direct it to this folder

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Apple\Mobile Device Support\Drivers

after that the driver was reinstalled and the yellow triangle was gone as you can see below

After that it was working as it should!

more info can be found on step 2 of this page > http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1538

Hope this helps! Leave comments please!

computerboom

How to make gamebooster from iobit work with win2k, and other gdi problems that some programs have

Evernote for 4.5.3 > updated version with pdf improvements

updated version with pdf improvements Evernote for 4.5.3 GA Release Notes

ComputerBoom is coming back in 2012, new and improved!

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Let the tunes flow.

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How to delete a power plan (scheme) in windows 7

Solution: I bought a new VGA card but it has a small 2 pin cable. What do I do with that?

solution: video lan (vlc) disable fullscreen control transparency & fix video lag

Flash Player 10.1 Now Available for Win, Mac, and Linux

Disable the Firefox 3 "awesome bar" (how to)

SOLUTION> iPod touch (and possibly other apple devices) not recognized by itunes

updated version with pdf improvements
Evernote for 4.5.3 GA Release Notes