UPDATE! - This morning, I got the laptop to the office, powered it up, plugged in the ethernet cable and just like the warp drive at a time of need on the Millenium Falcon, THE “LIMITED CONNECTIVITY” sign showed up again! Fortunately, my wired connection lasted throughout the day “without a hitch”. (is that a cliche?)

“Back to the drawing board” (Now that’s a cliche! any non-cliche users better start running now.)

Now back in the “good old days” when Windows 98 ruled the computer world, there used to be a built in utility called “System File Checker” A.K.A. “SFC” It would scan all the operating system files and restore the ones that were corrupt back to their original state. Being a bit of a fanatic when it comes to running a clean, lean system, I used to run that at least once a month when using Windows 98.

After googleing the phrase “Limited connectivity”+ethernet for a few minutes… I couldn’t believe my eyes! One of the posts mentions The System File Checker utility which still exists in Windows XP!

‘Run’ sfc /scannow, which replaced the corrupted Windows files and viola, it worked!

Note: You will need your original Windows XP Operating system CD to successfully run the SFC utility.

I learned my lesson, the final test will take place at the office on Thursday.

It’s all fun and games until the computer guy’s computer craps out! Yes, I spent far too much time trying to fix my laptop but 4+ hours later! The following procedure fixed my problem:

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. In Registry Editor, locate the following keys, right-click each key, and then click Delete:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Winsock
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Winsock2
4. When you are prompted to confirm the deletion, click Yes.
Note Restart the computer after you delete the Winsock keys. Doing so causes the Windows XP operating system to create new shell entries for those two keys. If you do not restart the computer after you delete the Winsock keys, the next step does not work correctly.

Step 2: Install TCP/IP
1. Right-click the network connection, and then click Properties.
2. Click Install.
3. Click Protocol, and then click Add.
4. Click Have Disk.
5. Type C:\Windows\inf, and then click OK.
6. On the list of available protocols, click Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), and then click OK.
7. Restart the computer.

Maybe it will save someone some day.

We all know that home automation will be commonplace in the near future. But this caught my eye… Someone actually wired his home with all kinds of stuff!

Over at www.bwired.nl they made a reality of this today!

Some of the things logged and measured are the telephone calls (including recordings), motion sensors, energy consumption (gas and electricity), water consumption, lights on off. There are also a bunch of live webcams of the surroundings.

You have got to see this!

I recently read about not having any shortcuts on your Windows desktop. (I used to have about 2000. ) Instead of using desktop icons, you pin the programs you need to the Start Menu. I have recently adopted this practice and I couldn’t be happier. My desktop is completely free of icons (except for the Recycle Bin which I can’t seem to get rid of). Plus, I can get to the programs I need much faster. When you have a bunch of applications open, going to the desktop for an icon is a real pain. Instead, I can just press the start button and get to the program I need directly with one more click. It doesn’t interrupt my window placements so it is much less distracting.

Anyway, it’s not like this is any big secret. I just thought that I’d pass along the tip.

You may have seen the original movie quiz, where you are given a snapshot of a scene from a movie and have to identify the movie based on that alone. It’s back, with version 2, and I’ve spent a good while trying to figure some of them out. How well do you know your movies?

Notice the Skyline Diner in the backround? I hear they have burgers that are out of this world!

Complaint Letter Templates

You can complain easily online using this website by simply entering the company or organisation name in the ‘complain to’ box and following the instructions (for more information on howtocomplain.com and how it works please click here). However, if you wish to send your own letter rather than complain online you can use the following complaint letter templates to help you draft your letter.

sorry , but the following was deemed in-appropriate viewing by a few of our members, but if your like me and would like to continue …..

UPDATE! 2-25-2006 THE LINK CONTAINED WITHIN HAS BEEN TAKEN OFFLINE DUE TO TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. WE ARE SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE .

- “Now let’s go kick some ass!”

Christoph Hörmann, 2-23-2006

It has been a long, long, long, time coming but I think I may be able to disclose, (unofficially of course) the identity of the official purchasers of the company that I work for. Officially I must inform you that if anyone asks you who the Official buyers are you can’t tell them until it’s Official. Officially, this post is an Un-Official bulletin of the big news of the new buyers. So if anyone asks you where you got this information, just remember that you haven’t heard anything from me Officially!

If you are giving away a computer or just need to wipe your hardrive clean without any chance of data being recovered from it, Use this utility.

Download and burn DBAN to a CD, boot the CD, and wipe the hard drive.

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

This does a very nice job, whatever your reason for wiping your hardrive clean.