Monthly Archives: November 2009

Top Firefox add-ons

Computer Aid Posted on by

Since switching to Firefox, there are a few add-ons that I found essential to making Firefox quick and easy to work with.

I thought I’d share my list of addons, and explain how some work very well together.

First, to get the addons, you need to start Firefox, then go: tools -> add-ons

From the addon window (which I have resized to full screen height), click on the “get add-ons” button, then enter the add-on name in the “search all add-ons” box.

  • Adblock Plus abp blocks annoying advertising. Just remember that some websites rely on advertising to survive… so if you use Adblock Plus, you should feel a certain level of guilt… but not too much 🙂
  • Close Tab By Double Click. puzzle You don’t have to waste time closing a tab by aiming to click on the tiny “x”. Now you can close a tab by just double-clicking anywhere on the tab. This addon works well with the tab kit add-on (by activating: options -> tabs -> close buttons -> don’t show any close buttons)
  • Flashblock flashblock blocks flash objects, yet lets you re-enable the flash objects with just a click. Great for blocking ads that Adblock Plus cannot block. Also good for making a “busy” website look easier on the eyes.
  • Menu Editor. puzzle I’ve only used this to change the right-click on a link action to: popup the a menu that has the option: “Open Link in New Tab” option at the top of the menu.
  • QuickDrag: puzzle when you highlight a few words on a page, then drag the words a few pixels away, a new tab opens with the search results on those works (ie no need to copy and paste them into google). If you highlight and drag a url (eg: computer-aid.com.au ), then that url is opened in a new tab.
  • Remove New Tab Button puzzle will remove the annoying “new tab” button that hangs around at the end of the tab bar. Works perfectly with the tab kit add-on and the close tab by double click add-on.
  • SearchStatus searchstatus will display some ranking information about each site you visit. Once installed, I “move” it to the menu bar (at the top of the window), by right-clicking on the “q” logo, I select “highlight nofollow links” so all nofollow links show up as pink. I also enable pagerank, alexa, compete, mozrank.
  • Split Browser splitbrowserwork well on widescreen monitors. You can view 2 websites side-by-side, and I often enable the “sychronously scroll” option when comparing 2 versions of the same website.
  • Tab History Menu tabhistorymenushows the tab history. Its just like the drop-down list near the forward – back buttons on the top-left, but you get the list when you click on the tab instead.
  • Tab Kit tabkit is like a Swiss army knife of tab organisation. There is too much to explain here. I’ll probably make a separate post that shows my tab kit options and how they make firefox easier to use. In the mean time, you can install it and try it out yourself.
  • TabRenamizer tabrenameizer renames tabs to something more reasonable that what the website decides for you. This might not work well for most people. Why? I use it to automatically rename tabs based on my bookmarks. But when I create a bookmark, I give it a short name (eg If I bookmark computer-aid.com.au, I make sure I call the bookmark “ComputerAid”… but I suspect most people don’t rename any bookmarks that they save. Otherwise you can manually rename tabs, or even have them renamed automatically to a “random” name!
  • Undo Closed Tabs Button undoclosedtabs just makes it easy to recover a tab that you might have accidentally closed (I seem to do it often). its just easier than going to history -> recently closed tabs -> then pick the tab you want resurrected.

You will probably notice that some add-ons will duplicate some functionality (eg remove tab close button). I’m not sure if I should make sure these duplicated options should all be set the same way, or if only 1 add-on needs to have the option set… but so far, I’ve not seen any add-on conflicts.

Dell T5500 and Xeon E5502: is it good for anything?

Computer Aid Posted on by

A customer just purchased a Dell T5500 (for photoshop work), and asked me to configure it.

It had been upgraded to a decent amount of RAM and HDD space, So all I needed to do was install Vista 64 (she had mistakenly installed XP x64… yuck).

After Vista had been installed, I took a look at the CPU specs… hmmm, an E5502, 1.86 Ghz, dual-core CPU… that doesn’t sound right.

But it was correct.

I thought it might have been a really old computer, but the Intel E5502 had only been released in early 2009.

The CPU does have the same QPI technology found in the i7, i5 and i3 CPUs, but the low clock rate and “only” 2 cores (when the other e55xx CPUs have 4 cores and range from 2Ghz to 3.2 Ghz) means that the computer seems like a white elephant before it even arrived on the desk.

At least she had a fast video card and a 27″ monitor, but when I told her that the CPU seemed slow, she didn’t seem to mind. Since I didn’t really want to sound critical of her new purchase, I just dropped the topic.

But I (once again) wonder what the salesman was thinking when selling this PC… the customer upgraded many components (eg vista 64, bigger HDD, more RAM, bigger monitor and fast video card… I’m sure trading off a slightly slower video card for a significantly faster CPU (eg a quad core E5504 at 2Ghz, or even a non-xeon CPU!) would have been the best option.

Get rid of unwanted programs

Computer Aid Posted on by

There are programs that are installed in your computers without you knowing it. It might be part of other programs you installed which you approved of or it could be part of a malicious program that you’ve downloaded accidentally. These programs could get annoying because some of them may slow down your computer. The first thing that one should do to get rid of unwanted programs is to find out why those programs got installed in the computer.

Here are some examples of unwanted programs and how they are installed in your computer.

Programs that are bundled with your computer

There are programs that are already in your system when you bought your computer. If you buy a branded computer system, the manufacturer has already installed programs in your computer. They are not really harmful but it might not be useful to you. Some of them are for trial periods and expires after a while.

Software components

There are applications that are part of bundled software. You could choose to include this component or not by clicking its box during installation of the application.

Add-ons and enhancements

There are applications that come with a program either as an enhancement or add-on. They are not really part of the program. They are optional components that you could take out without affecting the performance of the program.

Adware or spyware programs

There many ways to get these programs. They are sometimes included in freeware or shareware programs that you’ve installed in your computer. They sometime infect the system causing it to slow down, freeze your computer or crash.

How to get rid of the unwanted program? There are many effective ways to successfully remove unwanted programs in you computer. Once you know how the unwanted program gets into your computer the next step is fast and easy.

Windows add/remove program feature

Windows has an uninstall feature. You can find that feature in the control panel or in the left side of the window when you open My Computer. Click add/remove program. Wait for the list of programs to load. Look for the unwanted program in the list and click change/remove. Sometimes the program will automatically uninstall. There are times when an uninstall window will appear. Just follow the instruction.

Uninstall using the uninstaller that comes with the program

Some applications come with separate uninstaller. You could see that uninstaller in the folder where the program was installed. If the uninstaller is not there, you could search the internet for the program uninstaller. There are programs that put an uninstaller shortcut in the start menu. Go to start menu and look for the program you want to uninstall. The uninstall shortcut is usually located below the program shortcut.

Program tool/help

Program add-ons, toolbars and plug-ins are removed effectively using this method. The tool and help option is located in the task bar. You can remove plug-ins and add-ons by following the instructions.

Spyware/adware removal

These programs are sometimes difficult to remove. You need to search and download a spyware detection and removal tool to get rid of them. Look for the best antispyware available in the internet. Some antispyware are free. If you are willing to buy an antispyware you have to look for a trusted vendor to avoid further problems.

online advertising for the computer repair industry

Computer Aid Posted on by

Since starting Computer Aid, I’ve suspected that online advertising is ineffective, when compared to most other industries.

The reason is quite simple: most people will call a computer technician once their computer is broken (or is so badly incapacitated, that it barely works).

So for most people, when the computer breaks down, they can’t use the internet to find a computer technician… so why advertise online for business if most of your target audience just can’t find you?

I admit, there are some people that will find a computer tech on the internet. These people will usually have a second computer, or another way to access the internet (mobile phone, work PC, friend, neighbour, etc).

I recently had Yodel Australia contact me, and they were very keen for me to give their online advertising (via google) a go. They were sure they would be able to deliver customers to my phone.

I was sceptical, since my own google adwords advertising campaign was resulting in hardly any “clicks”… which is good, in a way… as the advertising costs me next to nothing.

So they offered a special offer: they would not charge their fee for the first month… I would just pay for the google campaign itself (up front…).

When it comes to advertising, I’m willing to try new techniques, but I ruthlessly cull any advertising that doesn’t pay its own way.

Well, there was a slight hiccup during the first month… instead of targeting Sydney people who were looking for computer techs in Sydney, they targeted Brisbane people who were looking for computer techs in Sydney!

Needless to say, no-one clicked.

So, after fixing their mistake, Yodel ran the corrected campaign for a second month. Although I got a hard-copy performance report for the first (mis-managed) month, I got no report on the second “more successful” month.

Just a phone call asking if I’d like to continue the campaign, as the money is all used up, and I really need to run a campaign for at least 3 months in order to start seeing results…

Sorry Yodel: no results means you don’t get any more of my limited budget. I’ll go back to my own adwords campaign ($10 per month), rather than pay $200 per month for the same results.

So why do I continue to advertise, run a website, and keep writing these blog posts?

A few reasons:

  • Brand awareness: If people see my website often enough (even if they fix their own problem with my information), they are more likely to call if/when they have a problem they cannot fix themselves.
  • I enjoy writing
  • Income: the tiny income from google adverts on computer-aid.com.au pays for hosting and domain names.
  • It gives Computer Aid a professional and trustworthy “feel”. We all need to feel we can trust the people we hire to work for us (eg plumbers, builders, etc).

Apple Mac: don’t lose your OS X recovery disks

Computer Aid Posted on by

I was recently asked to re-install OS X on an older iMac G5.

Problem was that the owner had lost the recovery disks.

He had a mate that lent him the recovery disks to a slightly later model of iMac… but he couldn’t get it to work.

I had a quick go, but booting from the recovery disk gave the error:

OS-X cannot be installed on this computer

I decide to check the net, and I find out that you need to use the exact same version of recovery disks that you get with the computer.

It seems like recovery disks are computer type specific.

The moral of the story is: if you own a Mac computer, don’t lose the recovery disks, otherwise fixing some problems can become very difficult… or you can try installing yellow dog linux!

Some laptops are just not worth fixing

Computer Aid Posted on by

A customer dropped off a laptop at the office.

It seemed ok at first. Just a noisy fan and a slow startup.

Well I take the fan out, clean it, but its obvious that it has shifted, and is constantly rubbing against the casing…

It only has 256Mb RAM, so it will be slow to start… but it seems to run like it only has 128Mb RAM… much slower than I would expect.

I then notice that some keyboard keys are not “springy”… they stick and feel like someone has spilt a sugary drink over the keyboard…

And the “trackpad” also doesn’t work well.

I’m also suspecting that the extra slowness might be due to other hardware faults, and / or a malware infection.

At this point, I decide its time to stop.

To fix all the problems, will take time to get replacement parts, a lot of time, and cost the customer more than getting a new “netbook”.

So I call the customer and arrange to get the laptop back to her.

Its funny, but I feel disappointed when I don’t fix a problem… I know I can fix it, but I still have to abandon the work just because of the cost.

netfirms hosting and cgi concurrency limits

Computer Aid Posted on by

I find hosting a confusing area, so I’m sure other less less technical people will really struggle to understand some of the problems that you can encounter.

I started off hosting this site on a small shared hosting server… but as traffic grew, I found problems with shared hosting.

The biggest problem was that shared hosting is that you share all the computers resources with other websites.

This shouldn’t be an issue, except for the way most hosting servers split their resources.

Eg lets say the server is a 3000 Mhz, quad core processor (ie a totaly of 3000 X 4 = 12000 Mhz (12Ghz)

Now, if the server has 60 websites on it, then each website is effectively running on server that runs at 200Mhz.

So, as traffic builds, you start hitting all sorts of limits.

So, after guessing that my site will gradually increase traffic, but probably won’t have an exponential increase in traffic, I started looking at dedicated hosting (ie 1 computer per website), but that was too expensive considering the type of site that I had.

I then heard about clustered servers. These sounded like the the best of both worlds (and the way I initially thought servers worked): resources get allocated to your website as needed.

Ie during quiet times, your website uses minimal resources, which are then allocated to other websites. If your website suddenly needs more resources, they are allocated.

Obviously there needs to be limits, so that websites don’t abuse resources.

Despite some negative comments, I eventually settled on netfirms.com as my new website host, and I went with the “advantage” plan (ie, middle of the road… not the cheapest, but not the most expensive.

After a few months, I realised that there are some limits that are not mentioned on the website, that can affect a reasonable busy website like mine (average of 1800 page requests per day… which varies between 1100 and 3000 pages per day).

The first I noticed was that the control panel was not a standard CPanel found with most linux hosts. It took some getting used-to, and applications like wordpress were not at the most current version (usually many version “behind”).

Secondly, while making filesystem and domain-related changes, nothing seemed to happen. So I fired off a support request. A few hours later, I noticed my changes took effect… ah, so some changes take a long time to make their way through the system… that ok, now that I know what to expect…

But what happened to the support request?

A few days later, I got a terse reply, saying something like: oh, you seem to have fixed it yourself…

I also had trouble moving my forum to netfirms. Although they tried to help (in their slow way), I eventually had to give up, and remove the Computer Aid forum (no big loss, as it didn’t get much traffic anyway), but it shouldn’t have happened.

Thirdly, during the first 12 months after changing to netfirms, I would occasionally get computer-aid (and even netfirms) disappearing off the internet, and usually everything would go back to normal after 5 – 20 minutes…

Recently, it seems Netfirms have moved to a bigger datacentre… I wonder if they shouldn’t have done this sooner?

Nevertheless, I have noticed that my website occasionally displays the following error message: “CGI concurrency limit of 10 exceeded”.

Now I start to wonder: the “advantage” plan includes amazing limits like: 2,000 Gb of monthly bandwidth, 25-Gb of disk space, 30 mysql databases… but most of that is actually meaningless if a website can only have 10 CGI database connections at a time.

Of course if I want to increase the limit, I need to move up to the next plan.

If I knew that the limit existed, then at least I could have planned a move to a bigger plan… but I don’t like finding out about hidden limits… particularly when I find out because of errors on the website.

Since I have another 12 months to go with netfirms, I’ll use the time to research hosting companies, with the new knowledge that I also need to keep an eye on CGI concurrency.

I like the idea of VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting, so I’ll look at that closely.

If I can’t find something suitable, then I might bite the bullet, and go with a dedicated server… but I still think its overkill for a site like computer-aid.

How To Fix Common Printer Errors

Computer Aid Posted on by

Printer errors occur usually due to a number of reasons. Here, we shall discuss some of these common errors, as well as the troubleshooting you can do to fix them.

Error:  “Windows cannot initialize the device driver for this hardware. (Code 37)

This would either mean your printer is not connected to the computer or you may have a faulty device driver software that prevented your printer to “communicate to your computer. In these cases, we first make sure that the printer cable is connected properly both to the printer and the PC and that the printer is powered on. If everything is fine and the error is still there, you may have to do an update or uninstall reinstall the existing driver to fix it.

To do this, at Start > Run, type sysdm.cpl and press Enter. The System Properties dialog box opens so we go to the Hardware tab and click the Device Manager button. In the Device Manager window, locate your printer, and double-click on it. Go to the Driver tab, select the Update Driver button to install the updated driver files or select the Uninstall button to remove the current driver.

Error: ˜Spoolsv.exe – Application Error. The instruction at “0x77fcc2c0” referenced memory at “0x00000000. The memory could not be written.’

This happens when a large number of .SHD and .SPD printer spooler files accumulate in the printer’s spool folder. You can resolve this by cleaning up the spooler folder with the steps below:

At Start > Run, type Services.msc and press Enter.
Right-click on the Print Spooler services in the Services management console window, and select the Stop command.
Open Windows Explorer and go to C:WindowsSystem32SpoolPrinters printer spool folder.
Select all files contained in this folder and delete them.
Go to the temp folder and delete all unnecessary files from it.
Open the Services management console window again and restart the Print Spooler service.

Error: “Could Not Find the File Hpzr3207.dll on the HP CD”.

This occurs when you try to install the Hpzr3207.dll (an HP printer driver) on your computer. Conflicts between the language of the driver you are installing and the regional settings of your computer is behind this error. So you would need to ensure that the language of the driver and your regional settings match by doing one of the two methods below.

On the first method, We go to Start, then Control Panel and select the Regional and Language Options option to change the regional and language settings of your computer to match the language of the printer driver. After doing so, you must reinstall the driver. If that does not work, you can do the second method by opening the HP Website of your region or country and download the driver in your computer’s language to resolve the error.

Registry problems and malware infections may also cause printer errors. Therefore, it is a good idea to run a registry scan using a registry cleaner tool to detect and repair registry errors and to perform a full system scan using an updated antivirus and antispyware tool to ensure that your system is free of all malware information.

viewsonic va2013wm cannot display native resolution

Computer Aid Posted on by

I’m a big fan of Viewsonic monitors.

But all monitor manufacturers manage to produce the occasional faulty unit.

In this case, I got a brand new VA2013wm, but once connected to a PC, the display seemed blurrier than usual.

I look at the windows display properties, and I see its set to 1440 X 800.

Hey, it should be simple to fix.

I move the slider to the right, and I can choose from 1600 X 800 or 1600 X 900

Since the highest resolution is the monitors native resolution, it will result in the clearest display…

But when I select it, the desktop shows 2 horizontal black bars (top and bottom, about 2 cm high), and the left and right edges of the desktop are “off the edge” of the monitor (ie I cannot see them). With this amount of distortion, the desktop & screen fonts are almost unreadable.

viewsonic

I play with the monitors “auto adjust”, and the manual adjust settings, but with no improvement.

OK, I’ll try it on 2 other PCs, with different video cards… but the results are no better.

So I take it back to the supplier.

They test it out, and it mis-behaves for them as well (sign of relief).

They then try another new VA2013wm, and it also fails to work properly… hmmm, this is looking like either a faulty batch of monitors, or, possibly even a faulty design!

So what did I do?

I spent a bit of extra money and got a 22″ Viewsonic (which worked perfectly)

HP FW660AA monitor won’t resume from standby

Computer Aid Posted on by

Customer buys a new computer, but continues using the old monitor (a HP FW660AA).

Since the new PC has a DVI plug, I decide to connect the monitor using DVI (previously it was using the analog VGA cable).

Everything works well for about a day, and then I’m told the monitor say “going to sleep” and then goes blank. No matter what buttons are pressed, it just goes blank.

I ask the customer to use the VGA cord, and everything is OK, but I’m soon told that the display is “wavy”.

I go out thinking its probably something strange with the standby settings, or maybe the BIOS needs updating.

I get there, and I find restarting the PC fixes the problem, but I can force the problem to occur by setting the XP power properties to “system standby” in 1 minute, and then waiting 1 minute.

Sure enough, after 1 minute, the system goes to standby, and the system seems to be “off”. I move the mouse, and the system resumes, the HDD light flickers, but the monitor remains dark.

Oddly, this is not a problem while using the VGA cable.

OK, I download and install the latest intel motherboard BIOS, but that doesn’t help.

Since the customer has a spare Dell S2009Wb monitor, I plug it in, and I find it works perfectly using the DVI cable/plugs… and more importantly, it resumes from standby correctly.

So the HP monitor had a very specific fault: Only while using DVI, if the DVI signal indicated “go to standby” the monitor would shut down, and then be unable to detect when the DVI signal was available again…. weird.