Ed Pilarczyk wrote last week to ask:

Hey Terry,

As a long time subscriber, I have to say that you continue to do a GREAT job. Thanks for all your hard work!!

Two things. First, I can find no way to register for any of your blogs. I found the link to log in…but not sign up. Please advise.

Second, my OS is Vista Ultimate x64 sp1, on an HP with a Core2 Quad, with 6gb ram. which I have be using for almost one year without any problems or complaints. Several days ago my windows updater said sp2 is available to upgrade. What I have found on the web is mostly negative, or at best inconclusive.

What is you take, should I or shouldn’t I upgrade to sp2? Thanks again, Ed P.

I wrote back to tell Ed…

Continue reading Blog questions & Vista SP 2

Sometimes, I can read and understand the problem, but I’m not using the software that the subscriber uses, and can’t give a good answer. Even then, I try to steer them to an answer.

Such was the case with the first question from Chet Norris recently:

Hi Terry,

Weird problem..I’m running vista home premium (32 bit) on my HP LAPTOP and I just noticed the icon for my wireless program is missing from the task bar.

Usually it sits next to the HP power plan icon but now it’s gone. I’ve gone to “network and sharing” in control panel and played around for 30 minutes and can’t find a mention of the icon.

I was able to click on it and know the signal strength etc and if I was connected thru it or the dsl modem.

Any thoughts?

Continue reading Icons Missing From Vista Status Bar

One of the differences between inkjet printers and laser printers has to do with handling of the data to be printed.

An inkjet printer gets its commands for each printed line, one at a time, from Windows. It prints the line and gets the data for the next line. Sometimes they buffer a little of the data so there’s no hesitation, but Windows is talking to the printer thoughout the whole print job.

That’s not the way that laser printers work. A laser printer has to get all the data for a whole page before it starts to print that page.

What happens if there is so much content, shapes or colors, that the printer’s memory can’t receive the entire page? You can’t print it. You have to add memory.

That happened to me one time with my LaserJet 1200, so I had upgraded its memory a long time ago.

Now, with the new printer, I needed to think about that possibility. Surely it wouldn’t be a problem, but it shouldn’t have ever been a problem with the LaserJet 1200, either.

HP offered extra memory for the Color LaserJet CP1518ni printer, which has an easily accessible side door so the user can pop extra memory into it.

Continue reading Adding Memory to the HP Color LaserJet CP1518ni

Sometimes, we don’t want to hear the answer, so we look for an easier fix. Such was the case recently with this email from Arjun:

Hello there Terry ! To begin with,I’ve to say I’m incredibly impressed for the way you recommend applications,settings,software reviews.

Recently I ran into a problem,my hard drive LED was glowing solid and all the applications I tried to open up used to show up after ages for which I contacted my laptop manufacturer,HP.

Continue reading Hard Drive Problems

I’ve been asked several times about Microsoft Silverlight — what is it and do I need it.

Silverlight is Microsoft’s competition for Adobe Flash Player. It’s designed to play videos and allow interaction with the program.

My initial thoughts were that I didn’t need it. I had no application that areqired it and I did not need yet another video display system on my computer. I already had Windows Media Player which could handle video streaming. I already had JavaScript and ActiveScript (Microsoft’s name for its JavaScript interpreter in Internet Explorer). I already had Adobe Flash Player. Wy did I need Silverlight?

I managed to do without Silverlight all through the first version, which was released in 2008. However, in early 2009, I finally had to install it — it was required for one of my new applications.

Continue reading What is Microsoft Silverlight?

Subscriber JNC wrote to me to say that he’d been using Acronis True Image for a while and wanted to know about keeping old backups:

I have just completed a total backup via Acronis on my external hard drive. Is there any reason to save previous total backups?
My external (500) hard drive is over 2/3 full.
jnc

I wrote back to JNC to say that I wouldn’t get rid of all of them. I suggested that he keep some recent ones and one or two full backups from the past — including the oldest one he had.

I find that, most of the time, I’m reaching for a backup file or backup image file because my brain messed up, not because of a hardware failure. It’s too easy to change a file and not realize that we haven’t done the change correctly. We find it out later when we try to use the file, or that part of the file. It might be days, weeks or even months later.

Continue reading Keeping Old Hard Drive Backup Files

Reader Olle wrote to ask a remote access question:

Hi! I read your article about editing videos remotely with GoToMyPC. I\’ve tried doing that but it doesn\’ work. I cannot even play a vidoe and see the video remotely. But I can do everything else like trabsfereing files and more. Is it a setting issue? I would Like to ask you kindly to guide me on this issue. I appriciate an response.
Thank You Kind regards Olle

Remote access to your own PC, or to other PC’s you manage on your own home network, can be a great way to do many tasks.

On my home network, since I use firewall programs on each PC (all are using Sunbelt Personal Firewall) and the home network is segregated from the Internet by my cable/DSL router (a Linksys BEFSR41), I don’t hesitate to use non-encrypted remote control software within my network. I use the free versionn of RealVNC to do this.

On the other hand, for remote access across the Internet, I think you’d have to be crazy to do that with an unencrypted connection (which possibly could be monitored by someone else!). For remote access across the Internet, I’d choose GoToMyPC because of its speed and encryption. You can try a 30 day free trial of GoToMyPC (for one PC) or GoToMyPC Pro (for multiple PC’s). There are also paid versions of RealVNC that include encryption, so they’re another option.

Continue reading Remote Access Software Question