The I.T. Doc Computer Consulting » General

Windows 7 has finally arrived!

The Doctor — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:27:52 +0000

Windows 7 was officially released to the public on October 22, 2009. I’ve been fortunate to have been running it since its beta release back in February. Since then I have formed a personal and professional opinion about the new OS from Microsoft and I have to say that they seem to have finally gotten this one right. This is the OS to finally upgrade to.

If you are currently running Windows XP and have been afraid to upgrade to Vista, fear no more because this upgrade will be worth it. It is faster, runs smoother, boots up faster and shutsdown quicker as well. Its loaded with tons of great features that provide a really nice user experience.

I have been recommending Windows 7 to my friends, family, co-workers, peers and my clients. Even if you have older hardware, Windows 7 just may be the ticket to breathing new life into that old PC. Send us an email or give us a call if you would like to discuss Windows 7 for your computer.

Rumor: iPhone to Get a Premium App Store | Gadget Lab from W

The Doctor — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 17:30:21 +0000

As Apple gets ready to preview its new software developers’ kit and an updated iPhone operating system next week, there could be some changes to the company’s App Store too.

read more | digg story

Moving from a windows mobile world to the iphone

The Doctor — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 16:27:58 +0000

For years I have been using a windows mobile device for my emails and web browsing. I started off initially with the AT&T 8125 which was a mobile device with a slide out keyboard. This phone I liked but then as technology progressed it was upgraded to the 8525 model which had a faster processor. Finally the last phone I just ended up was the tilt aka htc tytn ii. This phone was probably my favorite windows mobile phone to date, but I felt that something was missing.

At about the time I had moved to he tilt I had bought my wife the first generation iPhone. Now this is a person that is not tech savvy and felt like she wouldn’t have a use for such a phone, but she went along. After using her iPhone for about a couple of weeks she couldn’t believe how easy it was to use and how functional it was for her.

After experiencing this and noticing how responsive the user interface was, I decided to get one for myself and after two months of using it, I think I actually like it better than windows mobile. I think mostly because the interface is more responsive plus looks cleaner, and I love the on screen keyboard. In fact, I just wrote this whole post from my iPhone. Has anyone else had a similar or better experience moving from another mobile device to the iPhone? I’d like to hear about it!

Backing up your Firefox bookmarks in real-time

The Doctor — Tue, 13 May 2008 16:59:19 +0000

I thought I would share a quick little favorite of mine that I always use. It’s called Google Browser Sync. If you are like me and have collected hundreds of bookmarks over the years, this is a perfect backup for your bookmarks. This little plug-in works using a Gmail account and backs up and saves all your bookmarks in Firefox as well as saves the tabs that you had open just before you close your browser. The next time you open your browser, Google Browser Sync asks you if you want to open the tabs from your prior session.

Another bonus is if you have multiple computers with Firefox installed and Google Browser Sync, your bookmarks and tabs follow you!

Here is a link to the site where you can download the plugin: http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/browsersync/

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Trouble with Service Pack 3? Here’s some tips that might help

The Doctor — Mon, 12 May 2008 17:14:20 +0000

Disable AV software

It seems that some antivirus (AV) software causes the SP3 install to
hang, while the installer seems fine with others. Disable AV software
before beginning the install process.
Uninstall beta/RC versions of SP3
It’s a good idea to get rid of these earlier versions. If
you’re having problems removing them, try ininstalling previous
versions through Safe Mode.
Uninstall IE8
SP3 won’t play nicely on systems that have IE8 installed.
Update drivers
Might help, especially if your system is running really old drivers.
Disable unnecessary startup applications
It’s not just AV software that can cause SP3 problems. If
you’re having problems getting SP3 to install then disabling as
many unnecessary startup applications as you can might help.
Possible solution to endless reboots
Windows blogger Jesper Johansson offers some advice for thiose suffering endless reboots when trying to install SP3.

After multiple attempts on installing XP3 on my system, the trick for my computer was to disable my antivirus software.

If you are getting any of the following errors then this page on the Microsoft KnowledgeBase site might help:

Service Pack 3 Setup Error

You do not have enough free disk space on %SystemDrive% to install Service Pack 3.
Service Pack 3 Setup Error
You do not have enough free disk space on %SystemDrive% to archive the uninstall files.
Service Pack 3 setup error. Access is denied.
Service Pack 3 setup error. Service Pack installation did not complete
You do not have permission to update Windows XP. Please contact a system administrator.
Digital Signature Not Found
The Microsoft digital signature affirms that software has been tested
with Windows and that the software has not been altered since it was
tested.

The software you are about to install does not contain a Microsoft
digital signature. Therefore, there is no guarantee that this software
works correctly with Windows.

Name of software package

If you want to search for Microsoft digitally signed software, visit
the Windows Update Web site at http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com to
see if one is available.

Do you want to continue the installation?
Microsoft Windows
The signature on the software package you want to install is invalid. The software package is not signed properly.
Name of Update Package
The cryptographic operation failed due to a local security option setting.
Name of Update Package
Setup could not verify the integrity of the file Update.inf. Make sure the Cryptographic service is running on this computer.
Failed to install catalog files.
The software you are installing has not passed Windows Logo testing
to verify its compatibility with Windows XP. (Tell me why this testing
is important.)
This software will not be installed. Contact your system administrator.
The software you are installing has not passed Windows Logo testing
to verify its compatibility with this version of Windows. (Tell me why
this testing is important.)
Service Pack 1 Setup could not verify the integrity of the file. Make sure the Cryptographic service is running on this computer
The software has not passed Windows logo testing and will not be installed.
Service Pack 3 installation did not complete
An internal error occurred
This Service Pack requires the machine to be on AC Power before setup starts.
Service Pack 3 Setup has been canceled because Microsoft Shared
Computer Toolkit for Windows XP is not compatible with this version of
Windows. Before you can continue, you must: 1) Uninstall Microsoft
Shared Computer Toolkit 2) (Optional) Install Windows SteadyState, the
newer version of Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit. For more detailed
information, go to the Shared Access page on the Microsoft Web site.
Service Pack 3 Setup has been canceled because Windows XP SP3
cannot be installed over RDP 6.0 MUI PACK (Update for Windows XP
(KB925877)). Before you can continue, you must Uninstall KB925877.
Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 cannot be applied
to Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs (WinFLP). A unique SP3 update
package for WinFLP will be made available at download.microsoft.com.
Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 cannot be applied
to Windows Embedded for Point of Service (WEPOS). A unique SP3 update
package for WEPOS will be made available at download.microsoft.com.
Setup cannot continue because one or more prerequisites required to
install Service Pack 3 failed. For More details check the Log File
Drive_Letter :\windows\svcpack.log.
Setup has detected that another update is in progress. Please complete that installation or removal and try again.

Does anyone else have a different experience? We would like to hear from you.

How you can read hundreds of web sites in just a few minutes a day.

The Doctor — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:51:29 +0000

I’m sure most people have a few websites that they visit on a weekly or even a daily basis only to find out that there is nothing new to read. Going from site to site, typing in each website address or clicking on your bookmarks or shortcuts. Instead of going out to 10 or even 100 different wesbites to see what is new and exciting, how about if you could see all your favorite websites all on one page and only one place to visit for all the updates on your favorite websites that you would normally be visiting manually?

Let me introduce to you a technology that you may have not heard of, its called Really Simple Syndication or RSS for short. Its everywhere, and most likely available on all your favorite sites.

Here’s how it works:

First get a RSS reader, this part is easy. Lets start of with some choices that are free and pretty effective. There is Google’s Reader application, Bloglines, and Yahoo. There are other free readers, many online versions and many that you install on your computer. I am only mentioning these three just to keep it simple and give you a general idea on how RSS works and how you can try it out without costing anything but a few minutes of your time. I already have a Google email account, so I mainly use Google’s Reader, its simple, quick and gets the job done. Plus I can view my RSS feeds via my Windows Mobile device, so I have it on the go if needed.

So you’ve picked one and signed up, now all you have to do is add your feeds to your reader or what the industry calls "subscribing". You may have seen a logo like the ones below:

Click on an icon respective to the reader you have signed up for and your browser should ask you to login to your feed reader site. After which you can organize your feeds into categories or folders or anything that makes sense to you. Now when the web site author updates their web site with new information, that will automatically be displayed in your feed reader for your reading pleasure and all in one location.

Here is an pretty good video explanation on RSS feeds that I found a while back:

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Toshiba Preps 128GB Solid-State Notebook Drive

The Doctor — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:23:54 +0000

Toshiba this week said it plans before April to ship a 128 GB solid-state drive that will appear first in Toshiba notebooks sold in Japan. The drive, which has no moving parts, achieves the unusually high capacity at a lower cost than most SSDs through the use of multi-level cell NAND flash technology.

read more | digg story

Vista SP1 officially released

The Doctor — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 15:06:14 +0000

Looks like all those rumors yesterday were true — Microsoft has just posted up the official standalone version of Vista SP1

read more | digg story

Firefox 3 goes on a diet, eats less memory than IE and Opera

The Doctor — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 15:05:29 +0000

Benchmarks show that Firefox 3 uses less memory than Internet Explorer 7 and Opera. A number of significant fixes and improvements have brought down the open-source browser’s memory footprint and could make it a more viable choice in mobile environments.

read more | digg story

It’s official: HD DVD is dead, the format war over

The Doctor — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:33:35 +0000

Toshiba just made a statements saying, “It will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders.” Finally.

read more | digg story