Author Archives: Richard

A new machine

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

So I have finally done it.

I bought a new laptop, so that the Missus can inherit my old one.

It is a rather nice machine – a Packard Bell EasyNote LJ71

I have spent the last twelve hours transferring gigabytes of data onto it from the old one.  Not a joyful task. 

It has one or two quirks that will take a little getting used to – a very flat keyboard, that actually feels like a keyboard and not a slab of rubber, a smaller screen (same width as my old one but widescreen, so shorter) and keys in places I don’t expect.

The one major difference though is that it runs Windows 7. 

I have never seen Windows 7 in operation before.  Of course I have heard a lot about it, but as I didn’t have it on any machine, I didn’t pay that much attention.  Now I am learning the hard way.

First impressions?  On the upside, it is extremely fast.

On the downside, I find it terribly fiddly finding my programmes.  I confess I always set my Vista to ‘Classic view’ menus, but this little feature is no longer available.

I suppose it is something I’ll just have to get used to?

The wheel was perfectly round.

Why did they have to reinvent it?

Updating the BIOS

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I had an interesting problem on the spare laptop the other day.

There were two symptoms – the screen would go blank and the laptop would lock up, or else the Windows bar would develop streaks, as if it had been wiped with steel wool.

My first reaction was that the video drivers had become corrupted, so I replaced them.  No luck.  It was during that process (when I had to reboot a couple of times) that I noticed that the problem extended beyond Windows.  On boot up, the laptops loading screen was badly streaked with horizontal thin red lines.  As Windows hadn’t even started loading at this stage, it had to be something more radical.  Either the screen was on the way out, or the BIOS had developed a fault.

I wouldn’t have minded the screen failing too much, as it would have been a fine excuse to buy an upgraded laptop, but I decided to tackle the BIOS first.

I don’t like updating the BIOS for the simple reason that it is the core of the machine.  Screw that up, and the whole machine is screwed.  Also there is no rolling back.  However, I took the plunge, and found an updated BIOS file.

In fact, the whole process was quite uneventful.  The new BIOS loaded, and since then the laptop has been running smoothly.  No more lock-ups.  No more streaks.

It just goes to show – weird problems can easily be fixed with a bit of courage.

Now I have to think up a new excuse to upgrade my laptop!

Is the recession over?

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

I have been running advertising on Head Rambles for the last three years.

Growth in ad sales was quite spectacular up to March of last year, but then the recession hit.  Since then, revenue has plummeted month by month.

Sales for last month were up on the previous month (only by 1% but I’m not complaining), and forecasts for this month show another slight rise.

Are we finally out of the storm?

recession
Monthly sales.

Media Player will not run

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

As I said in my last post, I rebuilt the operating system on this laptop.

It was a straightforward restore from the factory backup, which I had done before and had no problems with.  This time however, I noticed a couple of strange things happening.

The first thing I noticed was that the Vista Sidebar wasn’t working properly.  That didn’t unduly worry me as I don’t consider it an essential feature.   Maybe something had become corrupted during the install, but it wasn’t worth the effort of redoing the procedure.

Later, I noticed that I was having a strange problem with my Live Writer – it would work for a short while and then literally, just disappear.  A little irritating if in the middle of writing an article?

Later again, I was messing with some sound files, and tried to launch Media Player.  It wouldn’t run.  The icons and shortcuts were just so much useless decoration and nothing would induce Media Player to give so much as an error message.  It was as if it didn’t exist.

One error is irritating but three is more than coincidence.

I did some research on the Media Player problem and ran into loads of solutions about upgrade problems and compatibility problems, but they were of no use, as it had worked before and I knew it was compatible.

Eventually I found the solution. 

  • Click Start.
  • Click Accessories, then right click on Command Prompt and choose "run as administrator".
  • In the command box, type regsvr32 jscript.dll, and then hit enter.
  • Type regsvr32 vbscript.dll then hit enter.

Exit from Command and that should fix the problem.

Media Player ran straight away.  Similarly the Vista Sidebar was now displaying its Gadgets correctly.  Windows Live Writer is performing exactly as it should.

I don’t know why this procedure should have been necessary, as I have never had to do it before, but at least I’ll know what to look for next time….

Rebuilding my Operating System

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Every once in a while, I think it is a good idea to rebuild the operating system on a PC.

This machine has a partitioned hard disk, with the Primary partition holding Windows and all the programmes.  The Secondary partition holds all the data and all the other junk that accumulates over time.  Rebuilding is therefore quite a simple operation, provided it is planned in advance.

The first thing I do is to back up everything on the secondary drive (just in case).  Then I copy the User directory, both to the secondary drive and to backup.  This is the key to a smooth restore of everything.

A couple of nights ago, I rebuilt this machine.  I formatted the Primary partition and installed the operating system.  I then installed fresh copies of all my essential software.

The problem now would be that I have lost all my settings.  For example, my FTP software would have lost all its saved passwords and connection settings; my mail would all be lost and all my browser bookmarks would be gone.  This is where the saved User directory comes in.

For example, I use Firefox and Thunderbird for browsing and mail.  All I had to do was copy the profile contents from my saved directories into the new ones.  Bingo!  All my mail is back.  All my plugins are restored along with my bookmarks and saved passwords.  The same technique applies to my other software including FTP.

It took about six hours to restore the machine.  For most of that time the machine can be left to do its own thing as it installs or copies files. 

It is now running like the clappers.  It reboots in a quarter of the time.  I am no longer getting errors.  Programmes that had ceased to work are now in full working order.  I was getting the occasional Blue Screen of Death.  I haven’t seen one since.

For the time involved, it is worth every minute.