When is 4GB of RAM not really 4GB? When you use 32-bit Windows…
When is 4GB of RAM not really 4GB? When you use 32-bit Windows… Anybody who’s ever tried to max out memory on a PC motherboard has probably had their share of grief. For a long time, in fact, I...
View ArticleCCleaner Cleans Up Windows Vista and XP
Check out this free, handy tool to help you get rid of unneeded Windows files and objects, and to keep your Registry clear of orphaned and unnecessary entries. CCleaner is a free Windows utility that...
View ArticleAsus Eee PC: Small but Potent
The Asus Eee PC represents a new type of machine on the notebook landscape: it’s neither a conventional, full sized budget notebook with a 12-15″ screen, nor is it a so-called ultra-mobile PC (UMPC): a...
View ArticleSmart Use of DriverAgent Improves Driver Update Results
I’ve been a fan of and subscriber to the Driver Updates Web site at www.DriverAgent.com for over two years, and have found it to be a reasonably safe and workable way to keep PC drivers up to date....
View ArticleRepair a dropped Vista Wi-Fi Connection
Blogger Rick Fairlie at ZDnet has posted a story that outlines a strategy for dealing with Wi-Fi links that come up and work, however briefly, but then go down and refuse to come back up until you...
View ArticleLasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrate: Upgrade to Vista!
The gibberish in the title of this blog is from Dante’s Inferno, and is usually translated as “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” Like many others, until I looked this up I was under the...
View ArticleMy Love-Hate Relationship with Vista Reliability Monitor
One of the more interesting features built into Windows Vista is the Reliability monitor that appears as part of performance monitoring. Though you can launch this tool by working your way through this...
View ArticleTJmax: it’s more than just a clothing outlet!
TJ stands for thermal junction, and represents a measure of the temperature of a circuit or electronic package at the point where the part radiates the most heat (usually from the top surface). TJmax...
View ArticleSystem Builder’s Blog for June 24, 2008
From time to time, I want to share experiences building Vista systems with our readers. In the last month, I’ve built (and rebuilt) at least three Vista systems, one an upgrade on my Dell Latitude D620...
View ArticleUsing the Problem Reports and Solutions Applet
Before I jump into this topic, let me explain its title. In keeping with some no-doubt hoary and outdated Windows terminology, I like to call entries that appear within the Windows Vista Control Panel...
View ArticleInteresting Notebook Upgrade Shenanigans
I’m in the process of upgrading my 14-month-old Dell D620 Latitude notebook. As shipped from the factory, it included 1.0 GB of RAM (2 x 512 MB DDR2-667 SO-DIMMs), a 40 GB HD, and a T2300E 1.66 GHz...
View ArticleInside Windows Internals: Thanks to Sysinternals
Sysinternals has long been renowned as one of the best sources for Windows tools and utilities. You can still see it at work under the Microsoft umbrella by typing www.microsoft.com/sysinternals into...
View ArticleSolid State Drives Benefit Notebook PCs
Why would you — or should you — consider a solid state drive (SSD) for your notebook PC? Most important, an SSD can save time and stretch battery life nicely. For some, those benefits may outweigh the...
View ArticleHelp yourself to cool shortcuts!
If you’ve run Vista for a while, you probably know you can get to many programs by looking them up in Help and Support. This typically produces a list of help pages, among which you can usually find a...
View ArticleIs Blu-Ray Worth It?
Now that the high-definition DVD options available to home theater and PC users have narrowed to Blu-ray only, it might be worth posing the question as to whether or not Blu-ray has any relevance to...
View ArticleWarning! Volume Shadow Copy Service Sometimes Eats Excess Disk Space
The Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service exists to produce clean snapshots of disk volumes, and to create shadow copies of data or files that are consistent, readable, and associated with some specific...
View ArticlePost SP1 Cleanup, Part 2
When I started developing problems with a couple of SP1 Vista installs recently—application crashes, system instability, system software components shutting down—I started my troubleshooting by...
View ArticleeSATA Drive Dock Offers Handy Outboard Storage
If you’re anything like me, you’ve got more disk drives than you have installed in your systems at any given moment. Until recently, I accessed these drives using an Antec MX-1 Hard Drive Enclosure...
View ArticleRevo Uninstaller: Fast, Good, and Free
Back when I still did software engineering, one catchphrase I learned that has stuck with me is: “Fast, cheap, and good: Pick any two, and you’ll probably get them. Pick all three, and you probably...
View ArticleUniblue Process Scan Tool
After spending some more time at the Uniblue Process Library site, I discovered that they also offer a free process scanning tool that offers another, possibly more usable and expeditious way to...
View Article
