The IT Doc Technology Consultants

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

Microsoft posts new Windows XP SP3 build, RC2 to the public

The Doctor — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:29:10 +0000

Two weeks after it last handed a new build of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) to several thousand invitation-only testers, Microsoft Corp. today posted that version for public downloading. Want to try it out? Here’s how: Uninstall RC1 if you have that first, download the reg patch from http://tinyurl.com/2mflo7 , then run windows update to get it.

read more | digg story

Wanna protect Windows from Hackers?…Set NO Password !!

The Doctor — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:27:14 +0000

I didn’t know about this…and its actually recommended by Microsoft. Your Windows XP computer is more safe if you don’t set any password at all than using some weak password like “abc123″ which can be easily guessed by hackers.

read more | digg story

RSS in plain English

The Doctor — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:24:02 +0000

A video tutorial explaining the basics of RSS, as simple and elegant as Common Craft’s inimitable paper-and-marker technique.

read more | digg story