This laptop gives a blue screen while starting
The error seems to revolve around srtspl64.sys
Fortunately, the PC starts fine in safe mode.
A quick search shows that the error is most likely due to norton / symantec security problems.
So I disable all symantec and norton services and automatic startup routines, and then manage to start windows normally.
After that, its easy: uninstall norton, and install Microsoft security essentials
While setting up google services for a customer who owned an iphone and an ipad, I had some strange problem making google contacts synchronise with the idevices.
Since I have setup countless android devices, I assumed that setting up accounts would be similar, and would also be logical.
It wasn’t!
I thought that setting up the email account would also take care of contacts and calendar.
Here is what you see when setting up an email account on an iphone:
The obvious choice for a google account would be to pick gmail.
But the correct choice, if you also want to synchronise google contacts and google calendar, would be to pick Microsoft exchange instead!
For full instructions on how to setup your google account on an iphone or ipad, take a look at:
or: iphone about
Most people running a small business in Australia will know that times are difficult.
For me, its been quieter than usual since around June 2011
However, there was a sudden boost in the number of new customers around May this year (2012), and for a few weeks, I thought: wow, this is great, maybe the small business environment is improving.
After about a month, I realised the real reason: A local computer repair and sales company had suddenly closed down.
The company (YCD – Your Computer Doctor in Burpengary) had a shop, and many local people would go there to buy computers and to have their computers fixed.
So now, I’m getting the benefit of extra customers that would have gone to a competitor.
This effect could last a year or two, but eventually, I will need to change the nature of my business.
As some of you already know, I am diversifying into many different areas, and I’ll see which one works out best.
Currently, the most promising areas for me are:
– Website design and SEO (but I don’t seem to be doing well in this area, as it seems to be a very crowded market, with many experts spending big dollars.
– Selling tech gadgets like computers, laptops, PC parts, tablets, smart phones, etc. This seems more promising, but with lower margins than a purely service only business, and with the need to constantly keep up with changes, but there is also the possibility of large volumes, and large profits.
I had a customer that had a few different email accounts, as well as an iphone, ipad, and MS outlook running on a laptop.
She tried to merge everything together (emails, address book, and calendar) using icloud, but couldn’t get it to work, so I decided to sync using googles cloud services (which I have been using successfully for over 2 years!).
All 3 systems had their own little problems.
But in this case, I found it difficult to get the iphone and ipad to synchronise all the shared calendars… the Apple devices only showed the main calendar entries… but none of the other linked calendars.
I re-created the i-device accounts a few times, waited 24 hours, checked the settings, but the iphone and ipad just wouldn’t show the other shared calendars.
Until I discovered this little hint:
After the google account has been setup on the i-device, and has synced at least once…
From the iphone (or ipad), you use the built-in Safari browser to go to:
m.google.com/sync
At that point, sign in to your gmail google account, and select the iphone / ipad to which you want to sync extra calendars, then select the calendars you want to appear on your iphone.
Now when you go into the calendar and take a look at the different calendars available, you will see all the calendars that you selected previously. Now just tick the ones you want to make visible.
I wish there was an easier way to do this…
While setting up a QNAP NAS server, I cam across an unusual problem.
Apparently its quite common to have the server generate warnings that say:
This happens every minute, so it makes it difficult to monitor for “real” problems.
At first, I decided to just re-install the firmware, and that got rid of the warnings until I restored the configuration backup file… then it was generating the usual of warnings again.
I didn’t want to re-enter all the settings manually, so I tried deleting and re-created the RAID system (didn’t help)
I saw a brief mention on a forum, that a bad RAID setup can cause these errors.
So I tried the following:
That worked!
It looks like I might have done some important configuration changes while the drives were initialising… I guess patience is the key in this case!
Another confusing day for customers of Bigpond internet services.
This time, it seems that Bigpond have decided that providing webmail services for customers is just too hard (or too expensive), and they seem to be re-directing new customers to using Microsoft Live Mail for online access to their email accounts.
Obviously I can see whats happened here:
Bigpond are paying Microsoft to transparently hold bigpond webmail, and to use a branded version of the Live Mail front end.
Its probably cheaper for Bigpond to farm out this service, than to continue to provide it in-house… particularly when it comes to software updates.
But this is an area where tech-naive customers (ie many of them) are already finding it difficult to understand whats happening with webmail… so the sudden flip from bigpond to live mail will make them even more confused.
Which is exactly how I discovered it…
I was showing someone (with a new bigpond account) how to check webmail for large attachments, and I found myself on Live Mail.
I thought I had clicked the “wrong” button, so I went back and tried again, and this time I saw that they are actually telling you that you will be redirected to live mail.
Get set for more confused customers!
So here I am, struggling to make a living at repairing computers, so I decide to diversify into selling computers, smartphones, and Android tablets via No Nonsense Computers online.
With the tablets and smart phones, I research various suppliers, and obviously I cannot compete unless I buy from China.
I then start to import small amounts of good, to check for quality problems, and gradually increase my purchases.
The last shipment I ordered cost me $1500 (plus $180 in freight cost, plus 3.3% ($50) for paying via paypal).
Since I’m ordering something thats over $1000, customs jumps in and hits me with $241 for Duty and GST.
So, I’m now paying an extra $471 (31%) extra for the goods!!!
Now, who am I competing against?
Lets see: If an average person buys the exact same stuff from ebay, direct from china, they pay no duty (the goods are less than $300 each), no GST, and often the shipping costs are reduced due to economies of scale by the seller in china.
I now have to try to sell my goods for an extra 31% (just to break even, and make no profit!!)
So what options do I have?
I’m left with attempting drop-shipping, so that each individual item is shipped directly to the customer, and I avoid paying 14% in GST and duty costs… I also cannot check the goods for quality and cannot do any value-adding (like install software, and extra configuration).
It doesn’t sound legal, but you could look at it as me acting as a “facilitator” between the manufacturer and the end-customer…
So, does this sound like the Australian Government cares about encouraging small businesses? Not if the business needs to start by importing goods for resale, and particularly when people can buypass government taxes by buying direct from overseas.
This is probably going to fall on deaf ears in Camberra, but the $1000 limit before you get hit with duty and GST should be raised to $5,000 or even $15,000
This will encourage small businesses to start and then establish a local market before then they can start paying duty and GST.
Even a sliding scale (similar to income tax) would be great: up to $5000 per shipment is tax free, then every dollar over $5000 is taxed at 25% up to, say $100,000, and every dollar over $100,000 is taxed at 35%
If the government was serious about encouraging small businesses, then they need to change how they implement import duty and taxes.
I’ve started using google tasks (via google calendar, but it can also be accessed via Gmail), so that I can keep track of my ever-increasing workload.
Yet, I cannot find a way to view the tasks from my android phone…
I eventually found a way of doing it, but not via a dedicated Android App (its done via the browser instaed… but at least it works)
I’ve recently changed my mobile to a dual sim android phone.
This way, I’ll have both my work number and my personal number active on the same phone.
But at one point, I was working at a customers premises, and I noticed the phone kept showing error notifications along the top:
Restricted Access changed.
I also noticed that I couldn’t make any calls, even though I would get a signal strength of 1 or 2 bars.
Eventually, when I finished and got in my car to head back to the office, I got a stronger signal, and the error messages just disappeared.
I still get the error on some occasions, but now I know that its just the phones way of saying: I can’t get a good signal.
Got a laptop with a failing hard drive (Windows Vista).
Customer had no recovery disk… so she gave the go ahead to replace the HDD and to install Windows 7 Home Premium.
So I installed a new Seagate 320 GB HDD, and went through the usual procedure to install Windows 7
However, partway through the installation, I got an error message (0x8007045D)
A quick check on the internet doesn’t give any meaningful answers, so I try installing W7 again.
Now the logical amongst you will say: if you got an error the first time, youre gonna git it again!
But I know computers can be mysterious and temperamental.
Sure enough, the second time, Windows installs without a single problem.
I also do a full suite of updates, install an antivirus, and run the windows experience index test, all without a single problem.
Sometimes its worth trying again.
I built a new system, but a few days after delivery, the customer told me that sometimes (about 5 – 10% of the time) the computer would ask him to insert boot media (and then would not start).
Then, he would switch the PC off, then on, at the wall outlet, and then the computer would start (sometimes)
I’ve seen similar problems in the past, and a bios upgrade would usually fix it.
So I upgrade the gigabyte motherboard bios to the latest available, but 2 days later, the startup issued re-surface
So I then try changing the power supply (in case it couldn’t supply enough power to the hard drive at start time… which is when a hard drive needs the most power).
After a few more days, I found that didn’t work either.
Next I tried changing the sata cable… but still no go.
At this point, I took the PC back to the office for more test.
I connected a second hard drive on the same power cable, and after 15 cold boots, the first drive refused to be recognised by the bios, yet the second drive started normally.
So now I have no doubt. The problem is with the seagate st1000dm003-9yn162 hard drive (and not the power supply).
A search of the internet uncovers others with similar problems, with this exact model drive.
The good news is that its a fixable firmware fault (not a warranty hardware problem)
So a quick download of firmware cc4h from seagate HERE, flash it to replace the existing cc47, and after a few days of testing, the problem was gone.
Around the same time, I was also configuring some raid NAS drives, and I had a similar problem. It wasn’t as problematic, since NAS drives are rarely restarted.
I soon figured out I had more seagate st1000dm003-9yn162 drives to update.
I’ve now found that firmware up to and including cc4c needs upgrading, while firmware cc4d (and presumably later) refuses to update.