PC solution

Pop Out Chat Box on Facebook

2010-05-02T05:51:00.000-07:00

If you want to chat in a bigger chat box than the default chat below facebook or you just simply want to chat with your facebook friend in a pop out chat box, all you need to do is

First click on the bottom chat status bar.

Then Click on Options and click on Pop out Chat.

Now you will have a big chat pop out chat box to chat with all your facebook friend.

Appear Offline on Facebook Chat

2010-05-02T05:41:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when you visit facebook but doesn't want to chat with others or just want to appear offline, the trick is simple:

First click on the bottom chat status bar.

Then Click on Options and click on Go Offline.

Now you can be invisible as you wish.

Removing Ads on Windows Live Messenger MSN

2010-05-02T05:16:00.000-07:00

The bottom of the Windows Live Messenger will display ads to you, if you feel that it's annoying you time to time, there's a way to block it.

First go to Internet Explorer (or you could go to Control Panel), click on Tools --> Internet Options. Click on security tab and select restricted sites. Then click on sites and enter http://rad.msn.com
Click Add then Close and OK when finish.

This will restrict the Microsoft ads server and you won't see any ads in the future.

Facebook - How to stop new friends notifications posting to everyone

2010-04-15T18:10:00.000-07:00

How to stop new friends notifications posting to everyone

- Click on account, then privacy settings

- Click on Profile Information and choose family and relationship

- Click on customize and choose only me

Now when new friends you add only show up on your own wall and not in the general news feed.

Facebook Show Similar Posts

2010-04-15T18:06:00.000-07:00

To fix the new facebook show similar posts problem, all you need to do is:

- Go to Profile, click the button below SHARE

- Click on settings and uncheck the "combine posts" box in the "stories posted by friends"

The posts will be what they used to be.

Download Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta

2010-01-29T05:26:00.000-08:00

Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta is now available to download for free. All you need to do is click on the link below and fill in all the details.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/en/download-office-professional-plus/default.aspx

Once you finish with the form an activation code will be given to activate the products. Although it's beta version and may occurs some problems while using it, but it would be a great benefit for those who doesn't have the original microsoft office but wish to use it legally.

Download it while it still available.

Windows XP Setup Could Not Detect and Find Any Hard Disk Drive

2009-12-09T20:10:00.000-08:00

When installing Windows XP, Windows XP Setup Could Not Detect and Find Any Hard Disk Drive error appear and you won't be able install Windows XP. This error may due to SATA hard disk drive not detectable by the windows XP setup thus XP setup can't find usable physical disk and force to quit by pressing F3.

For some of the newer computer system, if the SATA hard disk drive is not running on RAID, older operating system like XP would be able to recognize the SATA drive without needed to install any drivers.

However, for those SATA hard disk drive which requires a driver, normally the motherboard manufacturers will provide a floppy disk (or you may need to copy the content from the motherboard cd driver to floppy disk), which you will be able to use F6 during Windows XP setup to add in the drivers.

The problems now is some of the computer system now doesn't come with floppy disk drive! Online there's a lot of method of using nlite to burn the drivers and create a new XP installation cd using the old XP installation cd.

There's another quick solution to solve this problem instead needed to go to all the hassle of doing that. The trick is by changing BIOS setting to disable AHCI (or RAID which includes AHCI in its functions) and use native SATA IDE emulation mode (SATA/PATA). In SATA IDE Emulation mode, XP setup could find the SATA drives and proceed to continue to install XP properly.

The method to change the BIOS settings on SATA mode is solely depending on which brand or model or even motherboard of your computer system. Check your system manual for more information.

Opensource Software

2009-12-09T18:58:00.000-08:00

Here's a list of opensource software. Opensource mean that it is a freely distributed piece of software that anyone can use.

File compression/ archiver
7-Zip
features:
-Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
-Unpacking only: ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, DEB, DMG, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MSI, NSIS, RAR, RPM, UDF, WIM, XAR and Z.
-Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats
-Self-extracting capability for 7z format
-works in Windows 7 / Vista / XP / 2008 / 2003 / 2000 / NT / ME / 98. There is a port of the command line version to Linux/Unix
http://www.7-zip.org/

Image Manipulation Program
Gimp
features:
-Full suite of painting tools including Brush, Pencil, Airbrush, Clone, etc.
-Sub-pixel sampling for all paint tools for high quality anti-aliasing
-Extremely powerful gradient editor and blend tool
-File formats supported include bmp, gif, jpeg, mng, pcx, pdf, png, ps, psd, svg, tiff, tga, xpm, and many others
-Extensible
-Support multiple OS platforms
http://www.gimp.org/

Vector graphics editor
Inkscape
features:
-Capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.
-Supports many advanced SVG features (markers, clones, alpha blending, etc.) and great care is taken in designing a streamlined interface.
-Easy to edit nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps and much more.
http://www.inkscape.org/

3D content creation suite
Blender
features:
-Interface
-Modeling
-Rigging
-Rendering
-Animation
-UV unwrapping
-Shading
-Physics and particles
-Imaging and composition
-Realtime 3D/ Game creation
-Files
-Supported platforms: Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Mac OS X (PPC and Intel), Linux (i386), Linux (PPC), FreeBSD 5.4 (i386), SGI Irix 6.5, Sun Solaris 2.8 (sparc).
Full list of features can be found at http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/features/
http://www.blender.org/

Gnome Partition Editor
GParted
features:
-Partition editor for creating, reorganizing, and deleting disk partitions.
-Create a partition table on a disk device.
-Enable and disable partition flags such as boot and hidden.
-Perform actions with partitions such as:

create or delete
resize or move
check
label
copy and paste

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/index.php

Can't install msn live

2009-11-27T17:20:00.000-08:00

Sometimes related to service pack 3, msn live failed to install on certain system.
Try the following solution.

1. Go to Start --〉 Run2. Type in regsvr32 wups2.dll then click ok
3. Run the installer again. Hopefully that will solve the problem.

Rar/Zip archive of multiple subfolders into separate Zip Files

2009-11-27T05:00:00.000-08:00

1. Make sure Winrar is installed.
2. Select all the file, right click and select add to archive

3. Go to Files and tick on the put each file to separate archive (choose the format of zip/rar at general first)

4. Click OK and all the file will be zip/rar into separate zip archive.

Easy folder sharing in windows vista

2008-06-08T00:19:00.000-07:00

The method of sharing in windows vista is quite different from what it's used to be compared to windows xp.

Luckily, there's still a way to share out folder like what we do in windows xp.

1. Right click on the folder you want to share, select properties (don't select share...)

2. Select the sharing tab

3. Click on Advanced sharing button

4. Tick on Share this folder, provide a share name and set permission (if required)

Unable to rename, move or create folder in windows vista

2008-06-04T06:26:00.000-07:00

After installing updates for windows vista, some people experiencing problem to rename, move or create folder.

After some research on the web, it seem that one of the update KB938979 have cause this problems. The updates deleted some of the important registry entries needed by windows vista, thus uninstalling the updates won't do you any good.

The solution would be add the deleted registry back to its original place. However, it's complicated for those who are not well verse with registry editing and any mistake would be damaging.

BEFORE APPLYING THE FIX, PLEASE BACKUP YOUR REGISTRY
(Backup HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\FolderDescriptions)

1. registry fix for 32bits vista - http://www.vlite.net/files/fd32.zip

2. registry fix for 64bits vista - http://www.vlite.net/files/fd64.zip

After you unzip the files, double click on the registry file to add back the missing registry.

Unable to update Windows xp

2008-06-04T05:48:00.000-07:00

When you have an original windows xp and unable to run updates, try the solution below.

1. Go to Start --> Run

2. Key in iexplore http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=39204

3. Click open

4. Copy the LegitCheckControl.dll to c:\windows\system32. If the system prompt for overwrite existing file, click yes.

5. Go to Start --> Run

6. Type in regsvr32 LegitCheckControl.dll

7. You should able to updates windows

Format USB Drive to NTFS filesystem

2008-06-01T08:01:00.000-07:00

Windows XP by default only allow you to format your USB drive to FAT or FAT32 filesystem.

By adjusting some setting, you may now enable USB drive to be formatted to NTFS filesystem.

Advantages to have NTFS filesystem on USB drive would be:
1. Able to use file encrytion function (Windows 2000/ 2003 domain network)
2. Use of file compression
3. Permissions setting for files or folders

Disadvantages to have NTFS filesystem on USB drive would be:
1. Additional data writes on USB drive
2. Windows 98/ME and some other OS unable to read NTFS filesystem

Follow the steps below to enable format USB drive to NTFS filesystem:

1. Right click on My Computer (in desktop or Start menu) and select manage.

2. In Device Manager, select Disk drives and select the USB drive. Right click and select properties.

3. Go to Policies tab and select Optimize for performance.

4. Now you can format your USB drive to NTFS filesystem.

Use Firefox as default to open email links (Windows XP)

2008-05-30T19:16:00.000-07:00

If you likes firefox and you want firefox to open everytime you click on the hyperlinks of your email, follow the steps below:

1. Go to Tools --> Folder options (in my computer or any folder)

2. Click on File Types, highlight URL: HyperText Transfer Protocol and click on Advanced

3. Highlight Open in the Actions and click Edit

4. Untick Use DDE checkbox and click Browse

5. Find the firefox folder (default would be in c:\program files\mozilla firefox)

6. Select the firefox.exe

7. At Application used to perform action, add -url "%1" at the back. After that click OK.

8. Repeat the same steps with URL: HyperText Transfer Protocol with Privacy

Vista didn't show filenames

2008-05-30T06:35:00.000-07:00

For certain folders in hdd, usb thumbdrive or external hardrive, sometimes windows vista didn't show the filenames for the files, in this case you could only see icon.

This is cause by windows vista mistakenly assumes that you want to hide the filenames as a pictures and videos folder

To solve this:

1. Right click on any blank area on your folder and select customize this folder

2.Select Pictures and Videos as folder type

3. Hold Alt key on the keyboard, untick Hide File Names

Icon in folder keep changing

2008-05-30T06:14:00.000-07:00

If sometimes the icon in folders keep on changing, it's because you didn't set to remember the folder view setting.

1. Go to Tools --> Folder options

2. Go to View tab, make sure that the remember each folder's view settings is tick.

Windows Vista Taskbar - show desktop

2008-05-29T19:22:00.000-07:00

If you want to customize the taskbar to enable show desktop in windows vista, follow the step below:

1. Right click on the start menu, select properties (or control panel --> appearance and personalization --> taskbar aand start menu

2. Click on Toolbars and tick on Desktop.

Using USB (external device) in Safe mode

2008-05-29T07:53:00.000-07:00

Sometimes due to certain windows problem, you can't seem to boot up normally in windows. However, it's possible for you to boot up in safe mode.

The problems is when in safe mode, when you plug in the usb drive/ usb external devices, device manager detect the device but the file system doesn't recognize it (possibly is because there's no drive letter assign to the usb)

To enable usb in safe mode, you just need to assign a drive letter in disk management.

1. Go to start --> control panel

2. Switch to classic view (if you haven't switch to classic view - only for windows xp)

3. Select Administrative Tools

4. Select Computer Management

5. Select Disk Management

6. Assign a drive letter by right click on your device

Lastly, backup all your important data to your usb devices and reinstall windows if needed

How to enable task manager

2008-05-29T06:26:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, when a computer has been infected with viruses or spyware, the task manager will be disable.

To solve this problem, follow the steps below:

1. Click on Start --> Run

2. Key in REG add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v DisableTaskMgr /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f and press enter

Make sure you run antivirus to check on your computer to ensure that your computer is free from viruses.

Msn error code 80070005 - Service Temporarily Unavailable

2008-05-29T05:31:00.000-07:00

If you are using windows vista and having the service temporarily unavailable error code 80070005 when signning in to msn, most probably is cause by the permission problem (bear in mind that for some the error code may be the same, but the cause of the problem could be different.)

Try the following method to solve the problem (for those who set a password on the pc):

1. Close Msn completely (make sure is exit completely)

2. Go to Start --> control panel --> user accounts

3. Remove the password of your account

4. Open Msn and sign in (you should be able to sign in).

5. Go to Start --> control panel --> user accounts and set password again (Don't sign out msn, make sure msn is signed in when you set the password.

Msn key ports error solution

2008-05-27T07:50:00.000-07:00

When you encounter msn key ports error as above, follow the steps below:

1. Go to Start --> Run

2. Type cmd

3. Type netsh winsock reset catalog then press enter (to reset winsock entries to installation defaults)

4. Type netsh int ip reset reset.log then press enter (to reset tcp/ip stack to installation defaults)

Show thumbnails for pictures on windows vista

2008-05-27T04:32:00.000-07:00

Sometimes in windows vista you only able to view the pictures in icon but not in thumbnails view.

To solve this, just follow:

First go to any folder, click on the organize drop down menu and select folder and search options.
Then go to view in folder options and untick the Always show icons, never thumbnails.

You will be able to view thumbnails now.

Show hidden files and folder option missing in vista

2008-05-26T07:57:00.000-07:00

When you want to show hidden files in windows vista, just go to any folder, click on the organize drop down menu and select folder and search options.

After that, go to view tab, click on show hidden files and folders to unhide all hidden files and folders.

However, sometimes you may encounter missing show hidden files and folder option as shown below.

To solve this problem, go to start --> search (or run), type in regedit and press enter

Then find the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer
\Advanced\Folder\Hidden

Then, Change the value of Type to group as shown below (if the key Type is not existed, just create a new string with Type as name and group as value)

After that, when you go back to organize drop down menu and select folder and search options, you will see that now you can select show hidden files and folders.

Outlook express can't receive attachment

2008-05-26T02:01:00.000-07:00

Sometimes outlook express block us from receiving any attachment for security purposes.
To enable outlook express to receive attachment, follow the steps below:

1. Go to Tools --> options

2. Go to security tab, make sure that the Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus is untick.

Desktop icon missing solution

2008-05-26T01:04:00.000-07:00

When mistakenly hide the desktop icon, to show desktop icon again, right click on the desktop and select arrange icon by --> show desktop icon

NTDetect missing or deleted solution

2008-05-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

If you mistaken deleted NTDETECT.COM, you won't be able to boot up the computer because it is used during the hardware recognition when boot up.

To solve this problem:

1. Insert Windows XP installation CD (bootable).

2. When system prompted to press any key to boot from CD, press Enter (make sure that your bios is set to boot from CD first).

3. In Windows XP setup, press "R" key to repair windows in the recovery console.

4. Log in to the windows installation by pressing "1" key and enter.

5. When prompted for administrator password, enter the password you set.

6. Copy 2 file from the CD-ROM to the root directory of your primary hard disk (For example: e is the drive for CD-ROM)
copy e:\i386\ntldr c:\
copy e:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\

7. After finished copy both the files, remove the Windows XP CD and restart computer.

Msn can't sign in (error code 81000306) - Windows Vista

2008-05-25T00:29:00.000-07:00

If you encounter "error code 81000306" when signing in for msn messenger, try the following tips (bear in mind that for some the error code may be the same, but the cause of the problem could be different.)

For Windows Vista, you need to disable the Auto Tuning Networking. Followings is the step to disable it:

1. Go to Start --> All Programs --> Accessories, right click on the Command Prompt and choose Run As Administrator

2. Click continue when windows ask for permission to continue.

3. At the command prompt, type netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled

Msn can't sign in (error code 81000306) - Windows XP

2008-05-24T23:17:00.000-07:00

If you encounter "error code 81000306" when signing in for msn messenger, try the following tips (bear in mind that for some the error code may be the same, but the cause of the problem could be different.)

1. Go to Start --〉 Run

2. Type in regsvr32 Softpub.dll then click ok

3. Go to Start --〉 Run, this time type in regsvr32 Mssip32.dll and click ok

4. Go to Start --〉 Run, this time type in regsvr32 Initpki.dll and click ok (you have to wait longer for this command - i think about 35 seconds)