GuruNews, Volume 9 Number 23, 6-25-06

[Kevin-PC Gurus]

Welcome to GuruNews



Brought to you each week by the PC Gurus, a loose collection of volunteers from around the Kentuckiana region.

 

You can interact with the PC Guru team via our Web site, located at http://www.thepcgurus.com.  On our site you can post your computer questions, comments and rants on the forums, e-mail the PC Guru

team members and chat one on one in our nightly IRC chat beginning around 8:00 PM EDT.  You can also subscribe to our RSS feeds so you can get the latest news and forum updates from the PC Guru Web site directly on your computer.

 

If you're new to the Newsletter you can read back issues at Team member JP Durbin's website at http://www.jpdurbin.net.  There are links to all the old 84 Online issues as well as the new GuruNews missives.

 

The WHAS Crusade for Children provides year round support for needy children throughout the Kentuckiana region.  Visit http://www.whascrusade.org to make donations online.

 

USS Rover’s list of streaming computer shows is now available for download in Excel, Open Office and Linux ready formats from http://sheet.zoho.com/public/ussrover/shows. 

 

To subscribe to this newsletter just drop by www.thepcgurus.com and sign up!

 

Vol. 9, No. 23                           

6-25-09

 

1 Things to avoid   

2 Bad connection

3 MS goes green, Obama tech-smacks China, lawsuit brewing

4 Crosswording

5 Laptop woes

 

Last week and early this week involved a chore I had not planned for and could really have lived without, but it taught me a valuable lesson.  Namely:  Practice what I preach.

 

As you know, there was no newsletter last week and that was all on me.  Everyone else had either submitted content or asked what was going on before they wasted time doing anything.

 

To give you the whole story, I was running behind last week due to both a temporarily increased workload and my wait for an outcome of a trial involving the RIAA.  So late, in fact, that my lead article was still less than half written come Friday morning.

 

I banged out a couple of paragraphs Friday morning before work and neglected to close Word, which is what I use to do the original write and paste job.

 

Since I was at the PC I also had my email open, just to check for anything important that might have come in overnight.  In addition I had my webcam window open, which just serves as a window to the street and my driveway since I can’t see out from my chair.

 

I always preach the importance of frequent backups, and luckily I had those, but I don’t hammer on closing programs when leaving the PC enough.  Friday I learned that lesson the hard way when an electrician flipped the mains on my breaker box to repair a junction after I had gone to work.

 

Every program that was open and active was damaged when the power failed, as well as the open document and inbox.  I only lost a couple of Spam and chain-letter messages from OE but last week’s NL went up in smoke and the webcam just disappeared from the PC.

 

My backups run from 1:00AM-4:00AM so nothing from that morning was saved.  Even Windows suffered damage to some components by not being shut down in an orderly fashion.

 

I don’t have my main PC plugged into a UPS.  This would protect me from short power failures as well as fluctuations, but I only have one on my networking boxes (modem, routers and switch).  I even have the main PC run in sequence through two APC surge protectors, which the manufacturer cites as a reason to void the warranty (although I disagree with that policy).

 

Of course that doesn’t protect my equipment from brownouts and outright power failures but they are so rare in my neighborhood I’ve grown complacent.  Even last September’s wind storm and this February’s ice storm didn’t produce failures, although two days after the ice KU whacked my power while replacing a transformer a couple of blocks away.

 

After trying to fix things all evening Friday I gave up.  Saturday evening was for formatting and reloading Windows and security programs and Sunday was spent on various other programs like Office.

 

It will be weeks before I have everything reinstalled and back to my preferred configuration but at least I have communication.  Needless to say, after so much unbudgeted time put in I’ll be making some changes, namely incorporating a couple of big UPSs for my main box and DVR (which is also a critical PC for work related things involving media transfers and conversions).

 

I will also strive to remember to close programs when I’m going to walk away from the PC for any length of time.  I never really turn of the main machines since I remote into them from work and elsewhere if I need a document or email address, but the ancillary boxes not on battery backups will be shutdown when not in use.

 

Lot of time, lot of money but fortunately not too much pain.

 

On a parting note, there won’t be an issue next week due to the run up to the July 4th weekend.  Have a good time celebrating Independence Day, grill out, blow things up etc. but above all else stay safe.

 

We’ll see you in a couple of weeks.

 

Kevin Mefford, Editor

pcguru at microdome.net

 

 



 

Terry Wise

www.ratland.com

 

 

Tech News of the Week
 

Microsoft on Wednesday announced online tools that could help consumers reduce energy consumption costs, and said it had big plans for products in the pipeline:

http://tinyurl.com/lp6ks2

The Obama administration lodged a formal protest on Wednesday with the Chinese government over its plan to force all computers sold in China to come with software that blocks access to certain Web sites:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/world/asia/25censor.html?hp

Kayak, the popular multi-airline airfare search engine, thinks Microsoft Bing’s new travel search engine looks so much like its own that it’s confusing Kayak users:

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/06/kayak-bing/

Copy us on the good stuff 

 

Matthew Dattilo
thepcgurus at gmail.com 
www.mattstodayinhistory.com

 

 

Download of the Week
 

Lots of tech and non-tech folks enjoy puzzles.  Crossword puzzles tend to interest those who like to write or who have an interest in language.  The real challenge isn't solving crossword puzzles, but creating them. That's where EclipseCrossword comes in. This freebie will help you whip up impressive crosswords. You'll have to come up with the words and the clues; after all, you have to do some work.  If you want to give it a try, get it here:

 

http://www.eclipsecrossword.com/ 

 

Note: This program is donationware. It is free to try, but the author accepts and encourages donations towards further development.

 

Carlita Lupino

Cards57 at gmail.com

 

 

Email Question of the Week
 

Q:  HELP! I was on my compaq laptop last night, minding my own business. All of a sudden the screen when black. I was able to restart it, but now it says it can detect no network (wireless). I know a little about computers so I did the things I thought would help, but it still didn't work. This morning I tried again and it still didn't work. I hold down the wireless button on the top and it shows I'm connected. As soon as I let go of the button it goes back to orange and no network. I just held down the button and I could surf the internet (as long as I kept holding it down). As soon as I let go, no internet again. I have VISTA on this computer. I am on this laptop day and night. PLEASE HELP!

 

A:  This isn't guaranteed to help, but it never hurts to try.

1. Turn off your laptop.
2. Take out the battery.
3. Disconnect the power adapter from the laptop.  Make sure there is no power getting to the laptop at all.
4. Press the power button once on your laptop while the battery is out and the power adapter is disconnected.
5. Leave the battery out for 5 minutes.
6. After 5 minutes have passed, plug in the battery.
7. Turn on the computer and go back into Windows.
8. Try the wireless again and see if it works.  At this point, you can also plug back in the power adapter.

I've run into similar issues in the past where this ended up resolving the problem.  I hope it helps.

 

Ed Engelking

ed at thepcgurus.com

 

 

Contact info and legal stuff
 

If you have tech support questions or ideas and/or submissions for our newsletter please submit them by visiting www.thepcgurus.com and click on the “Email the Team” icon. 

  

Copyright 2001-2009 The PC Gurus, all rights reserved.  Publication, rebroadcast or storage is prohibited without prior consent, however you may freely forward this publication to friends as long as A) it is forwarded in its entirety and B) no fee is charged.

 

Information provided in this publication is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied.  Although the information provided is known to work on most systems, it may not work on ALL systems.  Make use of any information supplied at your own risk.

 

The PC Gurus are a group of volunteers who provide support for the PC, Mac and Linux users in the Kentuckiana region.

 

To unsubscribe from this newsletter visit http://thepcgurus.com/mailman/listinfo/newsletter_thepcgurus.com or send an email to microdome at seidata.com with the words “unsubscribe newsletter” (without the quotes) at the top of the body of the message.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://thepcgurus.com/pipermail/newsletter_thepcgurus.com/attachments/20090625/ff6e89e4/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 19109 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://thepcgurus.com/pipermail/newsletter_thepcgurus.com/attachments/20090625/ff6e89e4/attachment.jpe>