Originally this PC had a SATA raid plus a pata drive: but it had problems booting… removing the 200MB pata drive fixed the problem.

Now (a few months later) the owner has found some problems with installing some apps (games), and we both agree that its probably time to reinstall windows xp.

He then starts thinking that its about time to upgrade the 2 sata raid (striped) drives (37GB each), so we discuss a few options:

1. Keep the sata raid (reinstall winXP), and also install a sata-ii 250GB drive
2. Remove the sata raid drives and install a sata-ii 250GB drive (with windows)
3. Keep the existing sata raid (reinstall windows), and keep using the 200 GB ‘networked’ drive in his other computer.

My personal preference is to go with option 2

After a few hours research on the web, I cannot find any definite answer to whether a sata-ii drive will work with this MoBo.

Many people say a sata-ii drive will negotiate speed with a normal sata MoBo, others say older sata MoBos are not capable of negotiating, so you need to set a jumper on the drive to force it to ‘talk’ at the slower speed, and others say that this Mobo has so many problems with its disk controllers, that even a normal sata drive can be a problem.

Given all that, it looks like options 1 and 2 are not economically viable. (installing a sata-ii pci controller card is a way around this, but at extra expense.

Customer decides to go for option 3, and upgrade the PC at some point in the future.

Besides the slight inconvenience of having to install the scsi drivers onto a floppy, so that XP will recognise the drives during a reinstallation, everything works well.

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 10:56 AM EST

No Comments »

This seems to be a common occurrence: Computer refuses to start, and often makes beeping noise.

I open up the case, see that the CPU heatsink seems to direct a lot of air towards the RAM (and there is usual a buildup of dust on the RAM). So I pull out the RAM, wipe the RAM terminals, plug it into a different socket, and the problem is fixed!

Its amazing how dust can wedge its way into memory connectors and (presumably) cause a connection problem.

Then again, I’ve also seen similar symptoms when a power supply is about to fail: computer will either refuse to start (and may or may not beep), or will suddenly shut down, or suddenly restart (or only restart after a ‘rest’).

And in similar circumstances (computer will suddenly shutdown a minute or two after startup, and won’t restart unless it gets a ‘rest’): cause can be an overheating CPU (either the heatsink compound has dried up, or the heatsink is not making contact with the CPU).

Its just a process of elimination, until the fault is found.

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 11:52 PM EDT

No Comments »

This telstra ADSL installation seemed simple at first…

Plugged ADSL filters into the 1 phone, but still got no ADSL sync from the modem.

After some head scratching, the customer says: would foxtel interfere with it?

I say that I don’t think so… its a cable or satellite dish based system

At this point I’m told: no, there is a phone cable that goes from the wall into the foxtel box. Apparently its for some movie on demand system (I didn’t know it was available yet!)

I take a quick look, and yes, there is a phone line coming out of the wall, near the TV. I don’t trace it, as there are too many obstacles in the way… I just install a filter.

Now we have an internet connection!

I setup security and email, and answer a few minor questions.

I also ask that they test the foxtel connection… I wouldn’t want the line filter to disrupt the foxtel connection. but it all works well. Great!

The job is done, and I’m on my way again.

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 3:07 PM EDT

No Comments »

A customer has a Russian wife (who speaks very little english, and even less Australian ). Lately, she has been getting emails from relatives, which should be written using Cyrillic characters, but they show up as just a mess of western characters.

Since I don’t know much about this, I do some research, and find some interesting bits of information:

• an email (if written in cyrillic) should have a header field that states that the encoding is cyrillic. Thus ‘any’ email program that receives the email, should be ably to interpret the encoding field and display the correct alphabet.
• Occasionally an email program (I understand hotmail does this) will allow emails to be typed using a russian keyboard (and they will seem ok to the sender), but the email header will have the wrong encoding (western instead of cyrillic). This will stuff things up for the receiver!
• A possible workaround involves editing the email header (to correct the encoding)
• There a 4 different Cyrillic encodings ( Cyrillic (ISO), Cyrillic (KOI8-R), Cyrillic (KOI8-U), Cyrillic (Windows) )
• You can override the encoding by using the format->encoding menu (and try a few different cyrillic encodings until you find the correct one).

Once I’m onsite, I find the problem is exactly as I thought (although the wife insists on showing me websites that have programs for translating western characters into cyrillic (not needed in this case).

I first start looking at altering the header (as I’d like to automate fixing the header)… but changing the header using notepad seems to stuff up the whole message (I’d like fix it using some unix tools… but I have limited time).

I then look into the outlook format->encoding menu, and it seems to work very well… it even saves the changed encoding, so that subsequent viewings will be correct.

The only difficulty is trying 4 different cyrillic encodings, until the correct one is found (and it turns out some emails use KOI-R, while others use ISO, etc etc). So its a bit of trial and error for each email, but its the best solution given the timeframe. And she doesn’t mind some extra pre-work, as long as she can read the emails.

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 7:08 PM EDT

2 Comments »

A customer calls, saying he ran spy sweeper, and it found some spyware infecting his system. He got spysweeper to remove the infections.

He was then prompted to restart his laptop, and now he gets: windows starts (mostly),  but eventually complains about a corrupt or missing msgina.dll … This seems to happen after the GUI has started, as he can move his mouse pointer for a few seconds before getting the errors, and then having to reboot.

The best I can do, is start BartPE, and notice that the file is still there (but probably corrupted).

He doesn’t mind if windows gets reinstalled, as long as I backup ‘my documents’ first.

So I take the computer away, backup “my documents” by connecting the laptop HDD to my main PC.

While the HDD is connected, I do a scan, and find lots of spyware files. I also run ewido and find further infections.

Once cleaned, I put the HDD back into the laptop, and do a repair install of XP. It all goes well, and once I’m back into windows, I do a few more scans, and remove a few more infections (mostly registry-based).

I also install antivir, spywareblaster, and winpatrol, do all the latest windows updates, clean out all the temp areas & do a defrag…then return a much improved laptop to its owner.

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 7:13 PM EDT

No Comments »

Customer has an odd problem with MS Outlook: some emails will not send correctly.

Incoming emails work fine, but some outgoing email will get ’stuck’ in the outbox… then never get fully sent, yet the recipient gets multiple copies (until customer deletes the email from the outbox).

I saw this customer a few weeks earlier, with a similar problem (I disabled Trend Internet Security (TIS) from scanning outgoing emails, in order to fix the problem, but it was intermittent, so I couldn’t be sure that the problem was fixed).

I experiment a bit, and I can reproduce the problem with an email that had a 2MB attachment… it seems to be related to the attachment size, as the customer said he sent a 5MB attachment without a hitch, and smaller emails got through also.

Anyway, I’ve seen outlook do strange things before, so I thought I’d try Outlook express instead… after importing all the Outlook emails and address book, I setup the 3 email accounts, and I try sending a similar email to myself (ie with approx 2Mb attachment)

But OE also seems to struggle with the attachment. My first thought is: It can’t be the email software, as OE and outlook are actually different programs (although I’m not sure how much common code they have nowadays).

Since OE actually gives an error message (0×800CCC19) then I can google it, and then I notice a worrying trend: the error message relates to both Outlook and OE, and to problems with MANY well known antivirus and firewall software… some names mentioned are: Norton, Trend, Panda, McAfee, AVG, Zonealarm, Sygate, and many others!

I disable incoming and outgoing email scanning by trend, then restart OE, but the problem re-occurs when I send a similar email.

I then shutdown trend completely, and the previously stuck email now gets sent normally!

At this stage, since I already used up my allotted 2 hours. The customer is happy to uninstall trend, and then install antivir.

I check a few days later, and everything is working well.

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 9:22 PM EDT

5 Comments »

I’ve finally found a supplier that has reasonable wholesale prices, which doesn’t sell to the public.

I’ve modified their excel data in order to generate my own price list in pdf format.

At this stage, I can’t use their data more directly, nor use their data to create my own online shop… maybe one day I can automate the process, and convert the supplier spreadsheet into an online shop. (its not easy to automate, as they have some $0.00 items and other “place holder” items that I don’t want to duplicate).

Posted by Computer Help as Business at 8:22 PM EDT

No Comments »

As part of my efforts to promote my business I do regular searches on google, yahoo, and msn, just to see where my site ranks, compared to my competition.

There is nothing wrong with doing some research (or so I thought).

But in the last 3 or 4 months, I’ve noticed my msn searches always return with a page that starts with:

We are seeing an increased volume of traffic by some malware software …

The page then goes on to mention phpBB flaws.

I figured: ah, microsoft are struggling with this vulnerability, so they have gone the heavy-handed approach, and have been blocking LOTS of searches. I believe they are only harming themselves by forcing people to use other search engines… not an intelligent way to run a search engine.

Well, after many months, I’m starting to wonder whats going on?

I also noticed that if I do a search from a customers PC, I get valid search findings… so why don’t I get any results from home?

I start to suspect that maybe my IP address is blocked for some reason. So I start looking at anonymous proxies, so I can bypass any block I might have.

In the process, I find an excellent site called Proxify. It allows me to surf the internet anonymously. If you want to see if it actually works, just use it to load up ipchicken.com, and you’ll see a different IP address from what you would normally get from your browser.

So, I can now do MSN searches again (via proxify), but it doesn’t explain why I’ve been banned.

I don’t run any php sites (or any other server applications that I know of) from my local computers.

It has been mentioned, in some forums, that msn are blocking anyone who does ‘excessive’ searches.

But that still doesn’t make sense, as I’m sure that a site like proxify would be much more likely to qualify as performing ‘excessive’ searches, compared to all the manual searches that I am capable of doing (yet proxify is not banned).

For the moment, this will remain a mystery, and maybe one day, MS will un-ban my IP address.

But then, should I really care?

Just looking at my website stats for September, I see google accounted for 348 page hits, yahoo: 45, msn: 32. Yahoo and msn seem to be a very distant 2nd and 3rd (even though my site ranks higher in yahoo and msn).

Since I’m the only person affected, its just a mild annoyance.

Has anyone else had this problem?

Update: shortly after this post, my msn searches started working normally… what a coincidence!

Posted by Computer Help as Business, Hints, Technical at 2:56 PM EDT

2 Comments »

Without really knowing it, I’ve actually been using RSS feeds for the last 3 years.

Of course, there is a lot more fanfare now (particularly with ie7), and every man and his dog are rushing to provide RSS support, and make is easy to subscribe to RSS feeds.

I must admit I’ve tried using the RSS features built in to a few browsers, but it never feels right.

It always feels like browser-based RSS ’viewers’ are forcing me to view RSS feeds like a large collection of web pages… and it just doesn’t work for me.

Since I learnt about the internet during the early 1990’s (before browsers), I’ve just gotten used to the idea of using different applications for each type internet ‘media’.

As an example: I use a web browser to view web pages, an email program to read emails, and a usenet reader to read usenet… So I also use an RSS reader to view my RSS feeds (It feels, to me, that there is an odd resemblance between usenet and RSS… but I can’t quite put my finger on it).

There have been a few apps (eg netscape) which tried to integrate email and browsing, but nobody seems interested (probably because a program that does on one job and does it well, is better than a jack-of-all-trades program).

So, about 3 years ago, I stumbled over a nifty program called desktop sidebar. It was nice, in that it stayed hidden on the left on my screen, yet it had many useful plugins that I could use without having to run 6 different applications. Apparently you can get a similar tool from google (the google sidebar, which is part of the Google Desktop).

There is a good comparison between the two, at: Hmm.

Here is what my sidebar looks like:

Although I have added a clock, an internet slideshow (which is automatically refreshed when new images are available… you could call it an image RSS feed), winamp controls… I also have a ‘newsroom’… which is just a different name for RSS feeds.

And although adding new feeds is not totally smooth and polished, reading the feeds is just effortless!

I don’t care if adding new feeds is a little awkward, since I only do it every few months, but I read RSS feeds every day, so it needs to work with a minimum of hassle.

Its really nice to be able to just browse the RSS titles, and as soon as I see one I like, I can either hover my mouse over it (to get a popup of the full article, or I can click on it, and have a new browser window open up with the article in it.

If I decide to change browsers, I won’t have to learn any new RSS tool that is built into the browser… Desktop Sidebar and google sidebar work with any browser.

So what are you waiting for? give it a go!

Posted by Computer Help as Hints, Technical at 6:17 PM EDT

3 Comments »

I just got my first look at this beast today… Its slightly bigger than an ADSL filter.

It also has just 2 connectors:

• A usb connector (where it also gets its power)
• A standard phone socket

I don’t like it when modems don’t have ethernet connectors… it eventually leads to problems (although I shouldn’t complain, as it means more work for me)

Anyway, the ISP (Dodo) just ships the modem, with no instructions on what to do.

I just follow the dlink install CD & install the usb driver… then after experimenting with the settings (Dodo didn’t say what the VPI/VCI etc settings should be), and installing filters, I eventually get a solid ‘link’.

But how do I enter the ADSL username and password?

With most modems, its easy enough to figure out the modems IP network address, and then point a browser at this address (ie something like: http://10.0.0.138). After that, you just browse the modem menus and complete various details (particularly the username and password).

There is no indication, in the manual, on how to do this. Calling Dodo would be as exciting and useful as watching grass grow (and emailing them is not much better).

So I tell the customer (a neighbour) to try to contact Dodo, and I’ll do some research and get back to him.

I quickly find an excellent guide on the dlink website: dlink technical support. It even has hints for most major ISPs in Australia!

The bottom line is: the modem is setup like a dialup modem! You need to enter your username an password on the dialup window, with a weird ‘phone number’ (0,35)

I’m not sure I like this… It’s probably ok for people who are used to dial-up networking, as there is no learning curve. But I don’t like the lack of firewall, filtering, security, etc

However, I’m comfortable connecting to the internal configuration pages of most ADSL modems, and having complete control over all the modem features… this is just so different… but its probably dirt-cheap for dlink to make, so I guess I’ll be seeing more of these wacky modems in the future

Anyway, the customer gets the modem going, but spend a few days “connecting and disconnecting” just like using a dial-up modem, until someone tells him he doesn’t need to do that… just leave it connected all the time… this is just another confusing aspect that most dial-up users will encounter with this modem.

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 9:20 AM EDT

No Comments »

This is another of those ‘I wonder why?’ situations:

Having spent some time going to school both in Italy and Australia, I’ve noticed some language peculiarities in the english language, which are puzzling, yet virtually everyone takes for granted.

The one I find most annoying goes like this:

As far as countries are concerned, Italians are from Italy, Turks are from Turkey, Chinese are from China, etc.

As far as continents are concerned, Europeans are from Europe, Africans from Africa, etc.

But this all starts to fall apart when you look at America. ‘Americans’ include Bolivians, Mexicans, Canadians, Brazilians, and that peculiar country between Canada and Mexico

So, logically, if Canadians are from Canada, then who comes from the United States of America?

This is where I love the Italian language. In Italy, they use the word ‘Statunitensi’, which I guess, translates to ‘United Statians’ (or something like that… I’d like to know what is the correct word to describe someone who is from USA)

So its at this point that it gets annoying: if a US ’important person’ make a sweeping statement like ‘we will defend all americans’ or ‘americans will defend timbuktu from terrorists’ then is he also speaking on behalf of the people of Peru, Argentina, etc?

Of course not, but if I was a non-US American, I would take offence at a nation that verbally tries to represent 2 whole continents.

I wonder how this situation came about, since everyone takes it for granted. Some might say ’typical US arrogance’, but its been ongoing for so long that there are probably other reasons (as an Australian, I would believe a certain amount of linguistic laziness is the easiest answer).

Anyway, back to technical talk on the next post!

Posted by Computer Help as Politics, Rant at 3:01 PM EDT

6 Comments »