GuruNews, Volume 9 Number 40, 10-29-09

Thu Oct 29 18:21:53 PDT 2009

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Vol. 9, No. 40                           

10-29-09

1 More on Windows 7 

2 Backups?

3 Google GPS, Black Friday, Mac emulator, bundled downloads, standard phone charger, airbags for airplanes

4 Blue screen decoding

5 Inaccessible drives 

WINDOWS 7 THOUGHTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

By now, you probably know that Microsoft released Windows 7 on October 22nd. This latest version of the operating system is said to be more lightweight and responsive than Windows Vista or even Windows XP. We have used Windows 7 for testing since earlier this year and, for the most part, the product has lived up to the promises. However, this does not mean that everyone needs to upgrade right away. 

Listed below are a few common scenarios and a recommendation for each:

-If you have a PC running Windows XP and it is serving your needs, there is no reason to upgrade. Microsoft will continue to support XP for at least five more years. This means that you will continue to receive security updates as needed until that time.

-If you have a PC running Windows Vista and you have had no problems, there is no reason to upgrade. Windows 7 has a slightly different look, but the feature set is not remarkably different in terms of everyday use.

-If you have a PC running Windows Vista and it has been slow or experienced compatibility issues with the software you use, it may be time to upgrade to Windows 7. Vista became infamous as a “resource hog”, a problem that Microsoft claims to have eliminated with Windows 7, along with many software incompatibility issues.

-If you are in the market for a new PC, definitely buy one with Windows 7 installed. Some stores (but not many) will still have Vista machines on their shelves; please do NOT be tempted to save a little money by buying one of these surplus PCs.

A note on buying a Windows 7 PC: make sure it has at least 2 GB of RAM installed. This is pretty much the minimum these days, but occasionally PCs with only 1GB show up in smaller retail chains.

A note on upgrading to Windows 7: make sure you have all of your important files backed up prior to any major upgrade. Although the upgrade from Vista to 7 is all but painless things can still go horribly wrong.  

As always, feel free to contact us with any questions you have.  

Matt Dattilo

thepcgurus at gmail.com

Terry Wise

www.ratland.com

Tech News of the Week

Google announced Wednesday that they are going to offer GPS turn by
turn directions free for users of their Android phones, including any
and all updates of maps and directions.  Stock prices of TomTom and
Garmin plunged on the news, as most of their recurring revenue is
selling map updates every year:

http://tinyurl.com/yfhkse5

As Thanksgiving is approaching and yours truly will roll out of bed at
2AM still in a turkey and football hangover and head to stores in
order to get in line for the rock bottom prices on gifts for the
holidays, I'll have a companion with me this year, and that's a guide
I've used several years running that lists some of the best deals of
the morning of Black Friday.  BFAds.net somehow finds the ads before
they're circulated, posts them and indexes them, and gives them to the
world:

http://bfads.net

Pystar, the company that was building computers out of off the shelf
parts that would run Apple's OS X has now created software the
emulates the EFI (think like the BIOS you see when you first start
your computer) and allows you to install Mac OS X on ANY computer.
While I don't think it's anywhere near stable enough to run, and I
have a feeling Apple is not happy, it's sorta cool:

http://tinyurl.com/yhly7re

As team member JP Durbin shared with the team this week, there is a
very handy little site called Ninite that offers a way to download
lots of applications that you use in one handy bundle.  Go to the
website, check the boxes for the applications you want to download and
install, and you get a small executable that downloads each of the
installers and installs them for you.  It's great for setting up a new
PC or a PC that you have just reformatted:

http://ninite.com/

Tired of buying a new phone charger with every new phone?  Get ready
for that to change in the next couple of years as the International
Telecommunication Union (part of United Nations) has ratified a
measure that would force phone makers to equip every phone with the
same port for charging, and that port is a micro USB port, of which
you probably already have at least one cable lying around:

http://tinyurl.com/yz7jmlw

Airplanes are going to start coming with airbags on the seatbelts in
order to brace passengers who would hit what is in front of them
during a crash situation:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114115635

As always, the best of the web's right here.  E-mail me if you have
some of the best to share!

Daniel A. Williams
daniel at thepcgurus.com

Download of the Week

If you've used Windows for any length of time, chances are you've seen a Blue Screen of Death. Unfortunately, a BSOD is usually cryptic. Factor in the fact that Windows usually reboots itself--with no assurance that you won't get the same error--and you can see the need for BlueScreenView. 

This utility will help you identify which drivers may have caused the crash.  

It's a bit geeky, but it might come in handy.  Get it here:

http://tinyurl.com/ykdl823 

Carlita Lupino

Cards57 at gmail.com

Email Question of the Week

Q:  I am useing XPsp3 had a harddrive C crash all files are on secondary drive After replaceing and clean install all secondary drives are readonly can not remove readonly attrib local store has never heard of this have tried drives as ide and on a usb interface Also copied over to CD & DVD when installed on new formatted drive it is readonly and no luck changing do you have any clues of a work around

A:  OK, first you'll want to reboot the PC.  Always best to start fresh with 
these things.

Once back up, open My Computer and click Tools and Folder Options. 
Click the View tab and at the bottom of the visible window tick next to Show hidden files and folder.  Right under that uncheck the box for Hide file 
extensions for known file types.  Now scroll all the way to the bottom and 
uncheck the box for Use simple file sharing.  Click Apply and OK.

Now right click on the problem drive and choose Properties.  Click the 
Security tab and you should see a window listing Names and Groups at the 
top.  You'll probably see Administrators and maybe one or two other but not 
Administrator (singular) or your name.

Click the Add button and then the Advanced button on the next window. 
Click the Find now button and look through that list for your user name.  If 
you don't see it scroll back up and find Administrator.  Click on the one 
you have to use and click OK, then OK again on the window behind it.  Now 
you should be back to the original window.  The name you added should be in the box and already selected.  Click on any of the boxes in the Permissions window and they'll all auto-check.  Click Apply but nothing else yet.

Now click the Advanced button under the Permissions window.  Click the 
Owner tab, select the name you used, check the box to Replace owner and 
click Apply.  You'll probably get a box warning you that you don't have 
access and asking if you want to continue.  Just click Yes or OK and you'll 
see the progress one file at a time.  If you get any errors saying something 
couldn't be done just click OK and it will carry on.  This may take some 
time.

When that finishes click the Permissions tab, select the name, check 
Inherit from parent and Replace permissions boxes and click Apply.  From 
there it's basically identical to the last step.

When done click OK, OK again, close My Computer and reboot.  When it 
comes back up you should have full access to all your files.

Hope that helps and keep us posted...  

Kevin Mefford

microdome at seidata.com

Contact info and legal stuff

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