It’s that time of year again, and as always, when I visit the family over xmas there are various PC issues to resolve. This year there were blessedly few issues, but there was 1 problem that it took me quite a while to track down and resolve. One of the families PCs was failing to install Windows 7 service pack 1. It’s a fairly new PC and came with an OEM install of Windows 7 x64 Home Premium, all legit and activated. It also has up-to-date anti-virus protection, and other than the SP1 install problems it seemed to be in excellent working order.… Read Full Article
I recently tried installing AMD StoreMI on my Windows 2022 server. Big mistake — it immediately failed to boot with a BSOD. And this was just after installing — I hadn’t even run the program. So the first lesson is not to trust AMD’s software — absolutely shocking! … Read Full Article
Since I upgraded my HTPC to an AMD A5400 series (from the old E350) I have had a problem where on wake from sleep the resolution would be set wrong (1024×768 I think) instead of the full 1920×1080 that the TV supports. Exiting media center would trigger a resolution correction and then media center could be reloaded without issue. This was not satisfactory as a solution. … Read Full Article
Update: Catalyst Mobility drivers are now available for many cards from ATi. (as of Catalyst version 10.3)
It seems to be very difficult to obtain reasonably up-to-date drivers for the ATi graphics chips in many laptops. This is because the OEMs have asked ATi not to provide generic drivers direct to the end user, ostensibly to reduce support requests from users with drivers not tested by the OEM’s. This seems perfectly reasonable, but the sad fact is most OEM’s only update the drivers for a new laptop model a few times and soon abandon it as they concentrate on the next generation release. For those people trying to update their drivers to address a problem or to gain access to new features there are no clear options. Fortunately there are ways around this problem. … Read Full Article
In recent months I’ve encountered several problems where people have contacted me asking for help getting their USB scanners working on new PCs. In each case the new PCs have come with Windows 7 x64, and the scanners have been USB devices produced by Canon and Nikon. Both of these imaging specialists have seriously dropped the ball on supporting products, including some quite expensive premium kit from not all that long ago. … Read Full Article
I’ve had a very long standing problem where mapped drives on Windows PCs are shown as disconnected after a PC wakes from sleep or after a reboot. Clicking to open the drive results in a delay of several seconds and then the share opens. I had this problem with Windows 7 right through to Windows 10 1909. Today, thanks to a different issue, I finally cracked it. … Read Full Article
I recently had a problem where the entire comments area was missing from all the posts on this blog. When I switched back to the default twentyten theme they reappeared and at first I thought it was a problem with the mystique theme. I switched back to mystique and disabled all of my plugins and the comments came back! A simple process of elimination identified the culprit — The WP SEO Pager Plugin. This plugin isn’t really necessary with the mystique theme, so I have simply removed it. If you encounter the same problem with mystique, check you haven’t got this plugin enabled.
In addition to this site I have a personal blog where, amongst other things, I post recipes. I’ve recently discovered google’s new recipe search, and have been looking to implement support for microformats / microdata. Google provide a tool for checking your markup, called the “rich snippets testing tool”. When I tried validating one of my recipes, I encountered various errors, which have taken me a while to track down and resolve. … Read Full Article
I’ve previously written about rich snippets code for [intlink id=“2948” type=“post”]Mystique 2[/intlink]. There are also [intlink id=“1520” type=“post”]generic instructions[/intlink] and code for the themes [intlink id=“3015” type=“post”]twenty eleven[/intlink], [intlink id=“3017” type=“post”]me gusta[/intlink] and [intlink id=“2468” type=“post”]thesis[/intlink]. Below is updated code for Mystique 3
The title of this article almost reads like click-bait, but that isn’t the intention. I’d just rather it sounded like click-bait than the rant that it really is. … Read Full Article
Resolving Google’s Rich Snippets Testing Tool errors(334 views)Please note! This article has now been superceded by a new article, which has been updated to use MicroData (schema.org) instead of MicroFormats. If you still wish to use MicroFormats read on, but I recommend ...
The search for a 12 bay 5.25″ full tower case(311 views)I have an original CoolerMaster Stacker case (STC-T01-UW) that I use for my server. It is great because it has 12 5.25" external drive bays. Strictly speaking it has 11 useable as 1 of them ...
Fix Windows Update or Service Pack error 80073712(39k views)Quick guide to resolving error 80073712 when running windows update or installing a service pack. Applies to Windows Vista, 7, 2008 & R2.
The search for a 12 bay 5.25″ full tower case(24.4k views)I have an original CoolerMaster Stacker case (STC-T01-UW) that I use for my server. It is great because it has 12 5.25" external drive bays. Strictly speaking it has 11 useable as 1 of them ...
Resolving Google’s Rich Snippets Testing Tool errors(63 comments)Please note! This article has now been superceded by a new article, which has been updated to use MicroData (schema.org) instead of MicroFormats. If you still wish to use MicroFormats read on, but I recommend ...
Download TV episodes automatically with SickBeard(32 comments)Download TV Episodes for free: A step-by-step guide to installing and configuring SickBeard to automatically download TV series from torrents.
JSJon Scaife on Copy files from Humax PVR 9200T to PC “Hi Roger That is frustrating. I assume you're on windows 10 or 11? This was from the Windows 7 days…”
“Hi James I realise it has been a long while, but I just checked this on windows 11 (build 23H2)…”