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Palm Coupons
- Palm Store - Save up to 50% on top-selling accessories (Posted on 5/10/08 and Expires on 5/14/08)
- Palm Store - Free Bluetooth headset w/ purchase of select Palm smartphones (Posted on 5/10/08 and Expires on 5/14/08)
- Palm Store - Save $100 on all AudibleReady Devices (Posted on 1/2/08 and Expires on 12/31/08)
Registry Mechanic Coupons
It’s time for another exclusive coupon! This time we’ve arranged for a special 25% off coupon code for Registry Mechanic 7.0 for Windows.
25% off Registry Mechanic using coupon code AlexsCouponsRM25
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Registry Mechanic uses a high-performance detection algorithm to quickly identify missing and invalid references in your Windows® registry. These problems can occur for many reasons including being left-behind after the un-installation or incorrect removal of software, by missing or corrupt hardware drivers, or orphaned startup programs.
With a few easy steps Registry Mechanic will scan your entire registry for any invalid entries and provides a list of the registry errors found, you can then choose to selectively clean each item or automatically repair them all. For your convenience and protection Registry Mechanic can also make a backup of any repairs made so that you can easily recover any changes if required.
coupon, coupon code, coupon codes, coupons, pc tools, promo code, promo codes, promos, registry, registry mechanicMicrosoft Desktop Keyboard Review
Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes
http://live.pirillo.com/ - I’ve been anxiously waiting for Microsoft to release their newest wireless keyboard and mouse. It’s been quite awhile since they’ve released a keyboard with USB ports in it, and believe me… you can never have too many of those.
The new Wireless Entertainment Desktop keyboard and mouse came today. I’ve been using this same mouse for about a year now, and I love it! I’ve been using the keyboard for a little under an hour now. It’s definitely slim and lightweight, and the backlit keys are awesome. But, there are some issues I’ve come across. I’m a touch typist, and this keyboard definitely wasn’t designed for touch typers.
- The Windows key has been moved. It now resides underneath the space bar. For someone like me who uses the Windows key for a variety of shortcuts, this spells disaster. I have to teach myself how to find these from fast touch again.
- There is a track (touch) pad on the right side of the keyboard. However, the button for “left click” is on the left side of the keyboard.
- With this new design, some of the keys… such as Function keys and ESC key… are no longer actually keys. They are these little nubs. Now, if you sit with your keyboard at a desk or workstation like I do, this is frustrating. You have to kind of feel your way around in order to find the right one. I’ve accidentally hit the ~ key many times without thinking in the past hour, thinking I was hitting the ESC key.
In my opinion, this keyboard was designed to be used by someone sitting away from their monitor, maybe even across a room. It wasn’t really designed to be used right at your desktop.
On a funny side note, take a close look at the logo on the mouse. The letter Ris missing from the word Microsoft. So, this mouse was made by a company named Mic osoft. Interesting…
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Adobe Flash Privacy Settings
Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes
http://live.pirillo.com/ - If you’re watching this video, then you’re probably using Flash player. David wrote in wondering how to adjust the privacy settings, and whether his personal history is viewable by Adobe.
Adobe’s Flash Player is a widely used program that allows you to watch videos on any number of websites. It can also be used to play online games, as well.
You can easily check your Flash privacy settings by going to this video, or any online video, and right clicking on it. This will open up a small settings box, and from there you should click the “Advanced” tab. This will take you to Adobe’s site, where you can adjust your privacy settings, and view your history. On that page, it will straight out tell you that all information is stored locally… on YOUR machine… and not on their actual site. They do not access it for any reason, nor do they use it in any way, shape or form.
Instead of asking “who here uses Flash?”, the question of the day is… who doesn’t?
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What is COM Surrogate Crash Error?
Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes
http://live.pirillo.com/ - When I used to use Vista, I would have random crashes that were related to a COM Surrogate error. What the heck? I thought I owned my computer? You mean it’s a surrogate?.
A COM Surrogate error is caused by video codec that is not Vista compatible and when Vista tries to bring up the first frame of the video file it causes the Com Surrogate .dll extension to shut down. As we’ve discussed before, a .dll is a software component that an application links to at run time.
There are a couple of solutions that I’ve found for this problem:
- Check DivX If this program isn’t updated to the newest version, it can cause the COM Surrogate error.
- Check Nero Again, check out what version you have. Older versions have been known to throw out this error. Always make sure you’re updated.
Now that I’m back on XP, I’ve had the same problem once. I went through and uninstalled all of the Codecs on my system, and I haven’t encountered the problem again. If you recall, a codec is a device or program capable of performing encoding and decoding on a digital data stream or signal. So that’s something else to look into.
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Scanning Documents with OCR
Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes
http://live.pirillo.com/ - I received an email the other day from someone wondering why documents they scan into their computer rearranges the text and doesn’t retain formatting. Well user-whose-name-I-can’t-pronounce, what you’re asking about deals with OCR.
OCR, or Optical Character Recognition software allows you to scan a document and edit it. If the OCR software isn’t very good, then it probably won’t retain the layout that the original document had. You are probably using whatever software came with your all-in-one machine, and I don’t know what brand that is.
The problem is, you’re not really going to get really good OCR software unless you pay virtually hundreds of dollars. Probably the best I know of is OmniPage. OmniPage Professional 16 is the fastest and most precise way to convert high volumes of paper, PDF and forms into files you can edit and search.
Unfortunately, I don’t know of any open source or cheaper software titles that are on the same level with OmniPage. Do you? If you use something that works just as well, without the price tag, I’d love to hear about it. I’m sure that user-whose-name-I-can’t-pronounce would love to hear your suggestions, as well.
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A Microsoft Windows / Linux Conspiracy Theory
An anonymous user has an interesting Vista conspiracy theory:
conspiracy theoryI think Microsoft has given up on Vista behind the scenes. I’m sending this via email because well, I know it sounds like tinfoil hat time, but I think there’s some validity to it.
Microsoft realized with XP that the NT kernel’s days were numbered, which is why they talked of the complete rewrite that was to be Longhorn / Vista (and be wonderful and ship in 2003, etc). Well with all of the efforts that went into that, and Vista basically becoming what would’ve happened to Apple if it truly had shipped Copland, Microsoft finds itself in a bind. Obviously they need to support the product they shipped, which is where SP1 and its successors come in. However, I think we’ll see some behind the scenes action regarding their fight against OSF and the Linux folks and we’ll see how this evolves into the next version of Windows.
It’s been long suspected (and pretty much a given at least circumstantially) that Microsoft as well as others have propped up the SCO group in their varied and sundry attempts to milk IBM / RedHat / Novell / AutoZone / the average Linux user, etc. out of an excessive amount of money based on code they thought they owned. Obviously in the last few months, it has come out that indeed SCO did not own said code, that indeed Novell owned it, was owed money by SCO, and we see where that went.
Coincidentally, at that time, Microsoft paid for their “license” and apparently immediately set out on a cross licensing agreement with various Linux manufacturers over some IP they claim to have patents for, but won’t show the code (the SCO maneuver). Oddly enough, one of those vendors who they are working with on cross licensing is *Novell* who owns SUSE Linux and the UNIX source code. Now Microsoft has worked directly with two companies who at the very least claim to hold the UNIX code. Microsoft has also been known to throw money about on a whim when it suits them (read original Xbox and Zune… sometimes they even make some money from it). Microsoft also has need of a much more stable Code Base for the next major iteration of Windows.
Do these tie together? Only time will tell - but it does seem quite interesting.
Anyway, sorry to hear you’re having the Vista woes. Myself I’m waiting for Leopard and FreeBSD 7 for the servers. I’m pretty happy with Feisty Fawn running on the workstation.
Chkdsk and Defrag
Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes
http://live.pirillo.com/ - One of our community members recently attempted to run a defrag on his computer. During the defrag, he received a message that chkdsk wanted to run. He’s not so sure what this means, or if he should allow it.
If your computer tells you that it needs to run Chkdsk, then you definitely want to listen. A chkdsk scans your hard drive, and verifies the integrity of file and folder structures. Sometimes, it can even recover corrupt data.
When you experience a hard drive failure, it’s not always the entire HD. Often, it may be just certain sectors. In this case, the Operating System shouldn’t write to those sectors. Chkdsk is built into Windows, and it can be used to scan those sectors, and even fix them when possible.
To run a chkdsk, you need to:
- Open My Computer
- Right click on your hard disc (often the C: drive)
- Choose properties
- Click on the Tools tab
- Under error checking, click “check now”
- When the box pops up, check the box for “automatically fix file system errors” or “scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors”
- Let the scan run. This can take quite awhile, depending on the size of your hard drive.
There are, of course, other shortcuts and ways to get to the chkdsk. You can get there from a command prompt, for one. What other shortcuts do you have for running a chkdsk scan on your computer? Have you ever had to use this, and did it help? Let me know!
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Vista Rants
Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes
http://live.pirillo.com/ - Last night, I tried to install a Beta of SP1 for Vista. To put it mildly, it didn’t go so well. Coincidentally, two viewers have written in to ask me how I feel about Vista.
Okay then. Here we go.
First and foremost, I do NOT base my opinion on Vista solely on the failed upgrade using the beta of SP1. That was just the second straw that broke the camel’s back. Yes, it’s beta code - but I’ve long contended that Vista itself is still very much acting like a beta. If you have watched any of my previous videos about Vista, you’ll see that I’ve had issues and concerns from the beginning. Why should you listen to my opinion? It’s not necessarily an opinion. It’s based on facts - and with plenty of supporting evidence.
So I install the service pack. The machine reboots a couple of times during the install… and suddenly I’m at a black screen, with nothing other than my mouse cursor on it. O-kayyyy. Reboot a couple of times. Nothing. Reboot into safe mode. Oh! That worked. Tried rebooting normally… black screen of nothing. Repeat this process several times.
Fine, whatever. Get out the Vista disc and go into the recovery console. Great! I can roll back to yesterday, before I began this mess. So, I tell the machine to do so! Uhm… what do you mean there is no space left on my HD to perform this operation? That’s not a Vista beta problem - that’s a Vista final shipping version problem.
Boot into XP, which was already residing on this machine. Delete some useless files to free up space. Go back into recovery console. Holy hell you’re kidding me!!!! Going into XP deleted all the restore points in Vista!
I am now left with a crippled and useless Vista. Did I reinstall it? Absolutely not. I am running Windows XP again now. Yes, I miss the look of Vista, and maybe the way the desktop is handled. But… XP is running. It’s faster. It WORKS!!
Do I recommend Windows Vista [for everyone]? Not a snowball’s chance in… I’m waiting on Apple to release Mac OS X Leopard. As far as I’m concerned at this point, Microsoft is taking a huge hit. The future of Windows, in my opinion, is inside a Virtual Machine or Boot Camp on a Mac. Understand, too, that I’m still in love with my Xbox 360 (and I think they’re doing amazing things with Popfly) - so this rant should not be taken as an all-out Microsoft-bashing diatribe.
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Thank you for all of your emails, videos, and comments. Let me address some of those now.
From the beginning, Vista has had issues. In many instances, we’re not talking minor problems. Driver incompatibility, hardware incompatibility, software not running, programs or the computer itself randomly crashing… all just the tip of the iceberg. For many people, the software incompatibility issue was a nightmare. They installed Vista, only to find a very long list of programs that simply would not work. For other people, they simply did not have the proper hardware to run Vista. Upgrading your hardware can be quite expensive, as you well know.
Some of the feedback I have received today has been phenomenal. It’s interesting to see what other people are saying… and finding it to be much of the same things, over and over again.
From schagg311:
The EXTREME lack of x64 driver support for a multitude of things. For example, I have a Belkin N1 wireless desktop card (F5D8001 v1.0). They (Belkin) tout their products as ‘vista compatible’ yet this is misleading because there are NO Vista 64-bit drivers for ANY of their products. Although I’m only concerned about the one I have. There are two things that really bother me about this.
- Vista was supposed to include so many drivers (native support) for a great many things but this apparently doesn’t include Vista x64. and
- )not only is it misleading for a company like Belkin to say they’re ‘vista compatible’ when that’s not completely true (false advertising anyone?) but for MS to allow companies to say that when it’s not entirely true is just as bad.
From PyroPictures:
Another minor irritation is that I have 2 MS Mouse 3000 input devices and both are Vista certified/approved/whatever. About twice a day Vista loses track of my input devices. I have 3 USB ports, so it’s not the port. I have 2 mice, so that’s not it either. I’m big on re-booting to maintain contiguous blocks of free memory but twice a day is a bit too much, particularly since I have 4 GB.
From Akula:
i bought vista home premium, my scanner, fax and printer do not work, my Ethernet wireless does not work and also i am having problems with my laser printer!
From hardasfeth:
upgraded to vista from XP nothing but problems mainly with drivers freezing or vista telling me not compatible when they are all vista approved drivers and programs.
Wait, back up. What’s that you said? You are having driver issues with Vista-approved drivers? You’re not alone, unfortunately. from Mark Kaelin:
Drivers seem to be the most pressing problem for Windows Vista right now. If you are lucky enough to have equipment and peripherals that have updated drivers or old drivers that don’t cause problems you are probably wondering what all the fuss is about. But for those of us with problem drivers, this is just not acceptable. Vista has been coming for five years - make the darn drivers for it already.
I have already blogged about the SP1 features, as written by Microsoft. My question is, why are these issues being resolved in a service pack? Many of these issues should have been addressed long before Vista was released. You knew this was coming for five years, Microsoft. Why release an operating system that truly wasn’t ready to be unleashed on much of the computing public? Larry Dignan made an excellent post surrounding Vista SP1. He says it best:
When you look at the sheer volume of additions / fixes / etc. in SP1, you’d be a dunce not to wait for it before pondering Vista. In some corners, the SP1 is an indictment of the first Vista, which you could argue wasn’t ready for prime time in the first place.
There you have it in a nutshell. THIS is why I’m fed up with Windows… and I’m not alone. Microsoft dropped the ball in a very big way when they released something they never should have. They left themselves wide open to losing a very large number of people. I stand by my earlier opinion… the future of Windows… at least in MY house… is likely to be inside of a Virtual Machine.
Every OS has its problems - OS X had problems when it started, too (as did Windows XP). But this is 2007, and consumers demand more from their experiences (and rightfully so). This is why Apple mindshare continues to expand… which is more an indication of Microsoft Windows failures than Apple’s successes, I believe. Are we supposed to sit idly by and wait… and wait… and continue to wait after we wait some more?
Sure. Whatever.
Let’s play the blame game, instead? Let’s blame the user, let’s blame the OEMs, let’s blame the hardware vendors, let’s bl… why does it matter who is to blame? At the end of the day, we’re still left wrestling with a cavalcade of quirks and a questionable future. We still get the runaround.
Microsoft can succeed with the next version of Windows, provided they…
- Shove backwards compatibility for software into virtual machines.
- Make those quality seals and “compatible” labels mean something FOR ONCE.
- Come back to a single Windows SKU for consumers.
- Hire a marketing team that understands the product they’re pitching.
- Listen to their most passionate users instead of giving them the middle finger.
- Abandon the notion that UI doesn’t matter.
- Pay as much attention to average consumers as they do the enterprise market.
Ed Bott wanted less whining, and more complaining - but that line is incredibly fine. These issues aren’t petty, and our decisions aren’t always based on logic. Human beings are emotional, and it’s okay for them to be upset about being handed a product that… well, here’s what Microsoft claims Vista does:
The computer stops responding or restarts unexpectedly when you play video games or perform desktop operations.
Case closed.
boot camp, leopard, os x, virtual machine, vista vista sp1, windows, XPRip DVDs to your iPod or PSP for Free
Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes
http://live.pirillo.com/ - Ponzi recently walked into an Apple store, and asked to buy something that would allow her to rip her DVDs to be able to watch them on her iPod. The sales guy told her to just go home and search online. So, of course, she asked yours truly what to do…
I started thinking about it, and right away knew the answer. HandBrake is open source, and multi-platform. You can use to in Windows, OS X and Linus to rip DVDs and turn them into mp4 format. This will allow you to watch your DVD content on that PSP or iPod quickly and easily.
Some may argue and say this isn’t quite “right” to do. Let me say this… when you purchased that DVD, didn’t you purchase the right to watch it? You’re not selling it. You’re not broadcasting it elsewhere. You simply want to watch a video you purchased legally on a different medium. Why is that so wrong?
I don’t think it is. And, I’m saying HandBrake is the way to go.
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Thunderbird or Outlook for Email?
Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes
http://live.pirillo.com/ - I have been using Outlook since it came out in 1998. Until recently, I wouldn’t have recommended using Thunderbird, but that has changed. Both are good clients, but it depends on what exactly you’re looking for, and your preferences are.
The first email client I ever used was VMS. After that came Elm (via Unix), Eudora, Pegasus, and finally Outlook Express. When Microsoft Outlook became available in 1998, I switched to that, and have used it ever since. I currently run Outlook 2007 on Microsoft Exchange 2003 .
racedude from our live chat channel asked me today which email client he should be using… Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird. He says that he doesn’t use any of the features that come with Outlook, he just reads email with it. Until recently, I wouldn’t recommend Thunderbid, as it seemed to have been left behind while Firefox was developed further. However, Mozilla has recently begun updating Thunderbird, and it’s a pretty good email client now.
Both programs will do essentially the same thing. Take a look at the features and previews of each, and see which better fit your needs and lifestyle.
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Brother can you Spare a CPU Cycle?
Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes
http://live.pirillo.com/ - A community member at large wonders what my opinion is on “E-charity”, such as seti@home. Do I think they are a passing fancy? No… I don’t. I feel this is the wave of the computing future.
seti@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data. When you run SETI@home on your computer, it will use part of the computer’s CPU power, disk space, and network bandwidth. You can control how much of your resources are used by SETI@home, and when it uses them.
Another excellent and popular E-charity is Folding@home. Their goal is to understand protein folding, misfolding, and related diseases. Much like seti@home, Folding@Home is a distributed computing project. People from throughout the world download and run software to band together to make one of the largest supercomputers in the world. Every computer makes the project closer to their goals.
Yeah, I think this is an absolutey great theory, and honestly believe it’s the wave of the computing future. Just think, creating a video takes up a serious amount of hardware resources. But as “crunching” becomes more popular, you’ll be able to use any unoccupied computer on your network to do that work for you. This is what crunching is all about… making things work faster, to achieve better results.
What other E-charities are you involved in? Do you believe the work these places are doing is above excellent and the wave of the future? Leave me a comment, video or email and let me know your thoughts!
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Clear Search in IE History
Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes
http://live.pirillo.com/ - I have been trying for years to get my parents to switch to Firefox. They still use IE, even though they complain about it a lot. Mom was recently wondering how to get rid of all those saved searches in IE 7.
My mom has a new blog. She does a lot of researching to find things to help her in her writing. Apparently, her search history in IE7 has gotten quite large, and she’s wanting to clean it out some.
Being me, I figured this is a simple matter. Open IE, go to Tools>Internet Options>General tab. Under browsing, click the delete button, which opens up the dialoge box. There you have options to clear cookies, cache, form data, passwords…. but no search history? What the heck?
Apparently, in order to clear that search data in the box, you have to delete all form data. This includes websites you’ve asked to save your name, usernames, etc. You know… that whole “auto complete” thing we all use to save us time. What if I don’t want to delete all that though? In that case, I can manually go through that form data, and delete things I don’t want one by one. This will, of course, take a very long time if there’s a lot there.
Well, mom… just one more reason you should be using Firefox.
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Graphing Social Patterns Conference Discount
My friend Dave McClure is putting on a conference that I hope to be participating in… Graphing Social Patterns: The Business & Technology of Facebook. It’s a conference for marketers & developers on how to build and distribute apps for the Facebook Platform. The conference will be held in San Jose, CA from October 7th-9th. Monday 10/8 and Tuesday 10/9 are the main conference sessions; an optional pre-conference workshop is Sunday, 10/7. If I’m able to participate, it’ll be on Tuesday.
A special discount of 30% off normal registration is available to my friends (you!) thru midnight tonight; please register using this link. I am not getting a cut from this - I’m just trying to help Dave with what is sure to be yet another successful venture for him.
This event is for both business executives & technical developers who want to learn more about the Facebook environment, and how to reach online communities using social networking platforms and applications. Conference keynote talks will be presented by Reid Hoffman, founder/CEO of LinkedIn, and Tim O’Reilly, founder/CEO of O’Reilly Media. Other speakers include representatives from Facebook, Microsoft, Slide, SocialMedia, RockYou, ClearSpring, Forrester Research, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, InsideFacebook, and Charles River Ventures, among others.
social mediaUbuntu How-To Videos
We’re giving away that Ubuntu computer next week (to one of our lucky YouTube subscribers, if you’re one of ‘em). Setting up that PC gave rise to a new series of questions that Matt Hartley helped answer.
I’m still not so sure I’d recommend the OS (or any Linux distribution) to anybody who considers themselves less than an “average” user. OS X has geeky underpinnings (in UNIX), but Apple has rightfully gone to great lengths to hide inadvertent access that power.
For Ubuntu to succeed in widespread adoption, it must gain wider hardware support and become a lot less… Linuxy. ;)
Setting The Default Sound Card - USB Headset:
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