My Tech Adventures

It seems like Microsoft is trying to tell us that the time to shift to Vista is now! They have admitted that there were (still are) problems, but, they have taken care of most of the stuff. The first time I installed Vista, most of the drivers were in beta stages and Vista Certified software was hard to come by let alone the plethora of small utilities for everything on XP. Not necessary to say that it was a worst kind of OS upgrade experience ... it seemed like such a limiting platform. Then, Microsoft released SP1 and again I tried it ... at least the drivers were out there ... but there were still problems as I think the focus was still on XP ... developers were still getting to know the developing environment for Vista ... some relief was also there in terms of the UAC (you know ... the nagging msg box asking for your permission way too many times ... stupid really!). By this time I had hoped to find some good software and utilities, but to no avail ... people were fr...

I had been working on a project to edit a mpeg2/dvd encoded video and needed a quick and cheap solution ... remebered that I had tested out mpeg2vcr ... and liked it as well. Its "old" software, but, it gets the job done. I was quite amazed about how easily it let me edit the video and let me output it to disk quickly (as compared to other software that I tried) without the need for re-encoding ... truly deserves a place on your PC ... do try it out ... it has a free trial available ... just open/import/add to clips-list the file and you're set for editing ... you can even customize the display for faster response as you work ... and when you're finished ... you can save with presets available.

Well, I had an assignment in which you had to build a nice flowchart for the service(s) offered by the assigned firm. I thought that I would easily be able to use Word 2007 (I know ... but I don't need Visio ) to get the job done. However, I was way off and the tools offered by Word 2007 came up short ... you can get the job done ... but you have to go with the flow provided by the limited set of options ... they want you to get Visio ! So, I started to search online ... for small utilities ... mostly trial versions showed up ... till it dawned on me that with Web 2.0 all the rage ... somebody must have thought of this to kick Office ... surely enough there were a number of online suites ... flowchart.com (invitation only) being the obvious ... but I came across Gliffy and I must say I was amazed at the capabilities and ease of use of their flowchart tool. Go ahead, give it a try!

As usb drives get bigger & bigger, you tend to store a lot of stuff on them to carry around making use of the protability. But, I don't know if you have noticed or not, as you keep moving your drives around, the contacts start to attract a lot of dust and all sorts of stuff. The usb ports have no protection from dust and the way they are designed and positioned makes it difficult to clean them especially when using shared computers in libraries or labs. Naturally, dusty areas will complement the problem. This can lead to a very shocking situation, in which, if you start copying your files from the usb to any other place, you can recieve a message that the file cannot be found ... you navigate to the drive's folder and there's nothing there ... don't panic ... just safely remove the drive and re-plug it ... you'll find the files there. So, here's what you can do: 1. Always keep the contacts of the usb connectors clean ... you can use a contact cleaner...

If you have been using TFT LCD monitors for quite some time, you might have come across different short-comings of LCDs including the inability to produce quality black levels and the performance of the tubes (CCFL). A CCFL Assembly Although these problems are being worked upon including the move towards LEDs for backlighting, you can still improve the performance of your LCD and extend its life as well. First of all, CCFLs are just like the normal tubes used in homes for lighting, a high voltage inverter circuit is used to turn them on and operate them. Just like the "tubes", LCD backlights have two shortcomings; limited start-up cycles and reduction in brightness with age. An ordinary tube-light However, the way to extending their life, also comes from the way ordinary tube lights work: 1. Set the brightness and contrast to 80 % from monitor controls. This helps the lights to start-up easily. 2. Use software to control brightness, c...

Finally! If you still need dial-up support and cannot pay Linuxant ( http://www.linuxant.com/ ) for full-speed conexant soft-modem drivers, then, you can try out the drivers offered by DELL here (Ubuntu 7.04) or here if you know your stuff (latest ... recommended!). It might be old news to you, but, for me (broadband packages not attractive enough ... use on-campus net for my downloads), the lack of full-speed driver support was the biggest hurdle in adopting Ubuntu as my main OS. And sometimes, you just have to fall back to dial-up to troubleshoot your broadband! I downloaded and installed the drivers as per instructions given on the download page ... and I was able to surf the web with full speed , on dial-up of course! There are some stability issues ... let's see what I can do! ....

Hi Again! ASUS has launched the Essentio CS5110 MiniPC with full HD 1080p support. Packed with innovations, the ASUS Essentio CS5110 is a Mini PC that features exceptional graphics performance as its main focus – and is the world’s smallest Desktop PC equipped with a fully embedded discrete graphic card to give you high definition movie pleasure and smooth gaming fun. See the specs!