Computer Tips and Tricks

Got a laptop in today that had such an odd problem. The customer said that they rushed the shutdown process and went ahead and hit the power button to shutdown the laptop. When they went back in and powered it on, the touchpad did not work.This was a Compaq (or HP) laptop model cq50-139wm (one of the deals at Walmart).

I installed the latest drivers over at synaptics.com but that did not work. I went to hp.com and got the latest drivers for that machine but that did not work. The device manager didn’t eben show the touch pad at all. The mouse setup under control panel did not even have a listing for the synaptics touch pad driver.

Thinking that it was malware related, I installed atf cleaner, pcfixer, malwarebytes, ccleaner and there was a lot of crap to remove but did not take care of the touchpad.

A lot of sites on this issue were saying to do fn-f7 or some key combination to make sure the touchpad was not turned off. In this case, there is a small push button above the touchpad, that is amber if it is turned off, blue or white if it is turned on. In my case, it was on, but the touchpad still did not work.

Did a system restore back several days but the touchpad still no worky.

I finally came across a site where it mentioned powering the laptop off, popping the battery out and letting it stay disconnected for more than a minute. This did the trick. Special thanks goes to http://forums.techguy.org for that info.

Technorati Tags: compaq cq50, laptop, synaptics, touchpad

Check out this video over at woodywood245 on youtube

http://mozy.com/free?ref=451c76aa

You can use the Mozy backup utility to backup to 2GB for free and beyond that for a small fee. Check it out.

This Valentine’s Day you may want to think twice about opening any e-greeting cards adorned with cute puppies and vibrant red hearts or e-mail messages promoting hot new gifts for your sweetie.

There are good chances this precious e-greeting card may not be from the love of your life or secret admirer, but from a computer hacker, intent on stealing your identity, rather than your heart.

I found this article over here at Computerworld

Be careful out there.

You may have seen this on your laptop and it refers to a small port on the side generally that you can connect some high speed devices to such as a video camera or a hard disk. This is a firewire connection. Here is an explanation from Yahoo Answers from Nayiaf A:

FireWire, originally created by Apple and later standardized as IEEE-1394, actually preceded USB and had similar goals. The difference is that IEEE-1394 was originally intended for devices working with lots more data — things like camcorders, DVD players and digital audio equipment. IEEE-1394 and USB share a number of characteristics and differ in some important ways. Here’s a summary:
* Like USB, IEEE-1394 is a serial bus that uses twisted-pair wiring to move data around.
* However, while USB is limited to 12 megabits per second, IEEE-1394 currently handles up to 400 megabits per second.
* USB can handle 127 devices per bus, while IEEE-1394 handles 63.
* Both USB and IEEE-1394 support the concept of a isochronous device — a device that needs a certain amount of bandwidth for streaming data. This mode is perfect for streaming audio and video data.
* Both USB and IEEE-1394 allow you to plug and unplug devices at any time.

The designers of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) had several particular goals in mind when they created the USB standard:
* Low implementation cost, so that USB could be used in cheap peripherals like mice and game controllers
* Low cabling cost
* Lots of devices on the bus
* Good speed characteristics for things like printers
The idea was to create a system that would replace all of the different ports on computers (parallel ports, serial ports, special mouse and keyboard ports, etc.) with a single standard. USB achieved all of these goals very effectively, and there will come a day in the not-too-distant future when computers will have nothing but a set of USB connectors on the back.
Most digital video cameras have an IEEE-1394 plug. When you attach a camcorder to a computer using IEEE-1394, the connection is amazing. With the right software the computer and the camera communicate, and the computer can download all of the scenes on the tape automatically and with perfect digital clarity. As prices fall, home video production will become trivial!

Run MsConfig by going to Start > Run > type msconfig
Then selected startup and uncheck just about all the programs you can stand. If there is a program that is running and you are not sure what it is, you can google it by typing in “process “. Sometime it is obvious what the program is. Most folks don’t need to run MSN Messenger or Quicktime detector or all those programs resident in memory. You can always start them up manually and save your memory. Remember, you can always check the program back on if you need to. Just about the only programs you need to run is your antivirus or anti-spyware programs.

Technorati Tags: msconfig, slow computer, slow pc, slowdown, Startup

I received a machine the other day that had malware on it that got past the AVG Antivirus suite. I decided to go to 2 tools that removed the problems. The first is to go to Malwarebytes.org and download that scanner. Just look in the center of the page for the download link….

Also, I ran the Clamwin Antivirus Scanner and was able to remove a virus that was affecting this machine. The scanner runs very fast and in low memory also.

Check it out at Clamwin.com

MAC users have enjoyed a quick launch tool for programs that is intuitive and easy to use. Now XP and Vista users can too with Rocketdock

. When you mouse over the icon, it enlarges and takes an exaggerated shape that you can click on to launch that application. Check out www.rocketdock.com.

I wrote about this in Early August but am bringing it back up. The dreaded subject of disk defragmentation.

If you are diligent about keeping your machine running optimally, as I try to be, check out this screensaver which, when it runs, it defrags your hard drive. Don’t be alarmed by all the comments you will get on it, but it will surely get someone’s attention. Us this if you are constantly forgetting about defragging your drive.
http://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag/
Take the screensaver program and copy it over the system32 directory and then right click on your desktop > select screensaver and pick the JKDefrag screensaver and you’re done.

Technorati Tags: defragment