Bobs-Technology: 2013

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Administrator Account

Local (Hidden, Built-In) Administrator Account in Windows 7
1. First you'll need to open a command prompt in administrator mode by right-clicking and choosing "Run as administrator" (or use the Ctrl+Shift+Enter shortcut from the search box)
Run Command Prompt as Administrator

2. After that you only need to enter the simple command below to activate it.

net user administrator /active:yes
enable hidden administrator account

3. You should see a message that the command completed successfully. Log out, and you'll now see the Administrator account as a choice.
built-in windows 7 administrator account

You'll note that there's no password for this account, so if you want to leave it enabled you should change the password.

More can be found at this MS link

Thursday, December 5, 2013

I applied the hotfix to my Acer W3 running 8.1 several days ago, but I got the error again today.
The tablet has 32 GB internal SSD but I addes a 32GB Sandisk Extream micro card in the micro SD slot and moved mt documents and photos there about two weeks befor it happened the first time.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2792463

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

A supported hotfix is available from Microsoft. However, this hotfix is intended to correct only the problem that is described in this article. Apply this hotfix only to systems that are experiencing the problem described in this article. This hotfix might receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, we recommend that you wait for the next software update that contains this hotfix.

If the hotfix is available for download, there is a "Hotfix download available" section at the top of this Knowledge Base article. If this section does not appear, contact Microsoft Customer Service and Support to obtain the hotfix.

Note If additional issues occur or if any troubleshooting is required, you might have to create a separate service request. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for this specific hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Customer Service and Support telephone numbers or to create a separate service request, visit the following Microsoft website:

http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=support

Monday, December 2, 2013

Entering Bios

BIOS by Computer Manufacture

Acer - Aspire, Power, Veriton, Extensa, Ferrari, TravelMate, Altos

Press Del or F2 immediately after powering on.

The BIOS on the Acer Altos 600 server uses the Ctrl+Alt+Esc key and the F1 key for advanced options.

Older Acer computers may use also use the F1 or Ctrl+Alt+Esc keys to access BIOS.

Having trouble getting in to your computer's BIOS setup utility? If you've tried the basic steps for accessing your computer's BIOS and haven't had much luck, trust me when I say you're not alone.

BIOS Access Keys for Popular Motherboards

abit

ab9, an7, an8, av8, aw9d, be6, bh6, ic7, in9, ip35, kn8, kn9, etc.
Press Del while the PRESS DEL TO ENTER SETUP message is displayed to access the BIOS setup utility.

ASRock

- 4coredual, 775dual, 939dual, k7s41gx, p4v88, k7vm3, etc.
•Press F2 right after the computer starts up.

ASUS

p5b, a7v600, a7v8x, a8n, a8v, k8v, m2n, p5k, p5n, etc.
•Press Del right after starting the computer to enter BIOS. A few ASUS motherboards use Ins instead.

BFG

- 680i, 8800gtx, 6800gt, 7600gt, 7800gs, 7950gt, etc.
•Press Del when the ...enter setup message briefly displays at the bottom of the screen after powering on the computer.

BIOSTAR

6100, 550, 7050, 965pt, k8m800, p4m80, ta690g, tf7050, etc.
•Press the Del key while the full screen logo is showing on screen, immediately after starting the computer.

DFI

- LANParty Ultra, Expert, Infinity 975x, NF3, NF4, cfx3200, p965, rs482, etc.
•Press the Del key when the Press DEL to enter setup message appears, immediately after the memory test.

ECS Elitegroup

- k7s5a, k7vta3, 741gx, 755-a2, 945p, c51gm, gf7100pvt, p4m800, etc.
•Press either the Del or F1 key to enter the BIOS Setup Utility.

EVGA

- 790i, 780i, 750i, 680i, 650i, e-7150/630i, e-7100/630i, 590, etc.
•Enter BIOS by pressing Del immediately after powering on the computer.

Foxconn

- c51xem2aa, 6150bk8mc, 6150bk8ma, c51gu01, etc.
•Press Del to enter the BIOS Setup Utility.

GIGABYTE

- ds3, p35, 965p, dq6, ds3r, k8ns, etc.
•Press Del during POST, right after the computer is turned on.

Intel

- d101ggc, d815eea, d845, d850gb, d865glc, d875pbz, d945gccr, d946gtp, d975xbx, etc.
•Press F2 during the initial boot process to enter the BIOS setup utility.

JetWay - jm26gt3, ha04, j7f3e, hi03, ji31gm3, jp901dmp, 775gt1-loge, etc.
•Enter BIOS setup by powering on the computer and pressing Del immediately.

Mach Speed

- Viper, Matrix, pm800, 917gbag, v6dp, s755max, etc.
•Press Del after the boot process begins to enter the BIOS configuration utility.

MSI

(Micro-Star) - k8n, k9n, p965, 865pe, 975x, k7n2, k9a2, k8t neo, p7n, p35, x48, x38, etc.
•Press Del while the Press DEL to enter SETUP message displays on screen after powering on the computer.

PCChips

- m810lr, m811, m848a, p23g, p29g, p33g, etc.
•Press Del or F1 to enter the BIOS utility.

SAPPHIRE

PURE CrossFire 3200, a9rd580Adv, a9rs480, CrossFireX 770 & 790FX, PURE Element 690V, etc.
•Press Del after powering on to get into BIOS.

Shuttle

"bare bones" and motherboards including ak31, ak32, an35n, sn25p, ai61, sd37p2, sd39p2, etc.
•Press Del or Ctrl+Alt+Esc at the Press DEL to enter SETUP message that appears right after turning on the computer.

Soyo

•Press Del during POST.

Super Micro

- c2sbx, c2sbm, pdsba, pdsm4, pdsmi, p8sc8, p4sbe, etc.
•Press the Del key at any time during the boot process.

TYAN

- Tomcat, Trinity, Thunder, Tiger, Tempest, Tahoe, Tachyon, Transport and Bigby motherboards including K8WE, S1854, S2895, MP S2460, MPX S2466, K8W S2885, S2895, S2507, etc.
•After starting the system, press the Del or F4 key to start the BIOS setup utility.

XFX

- nForce 500 Series, 600 Series, 700 Series, etc.
•Press Del during the boot process, immediately after the computer is turned on.

BIOS Access Keys for Major BIOS Manufacturers

Acer - Aspire, Power, Veriton, Extensa, Ferrari, TravelMate, Altos
•Press Del or F2 immediately after powering on.
•The BIOS on the Acer Altos 600 server uses the Ctrl+Alt+Esc key and the F1 key for advanced options.
•Older Acer computers may use also use the F1 or Ctrl+Alt+Esc keys to access BIOS.
Acer Inspiron Tablet
Power button and the volume up button

Compaq - Presario, Prolinea, Deskpro, Systempro, Portable
•Press F10 while the cursor in the top right corner of the screen is blinking.
•Older Compaq computers may use the F1, F2, F10, or Del key to give access to BIOS.

Dell - XPS, Dimension, Inspiron, Latitude. OptiPlex, Precision, Vostro
•Press F2 when the Dell logo appears. Press every few seconds until the message Entering Setup appears.
•Older Dell desktops and laptops may instead use Ctrl+Alt+Enter or Del to enter BIOS.
•Older Dell laptops may use Fn+Esc or Fn+F1.

eMachines - eMonster, eTower, eOne, S-Series, T-Series
•Press Tab or Del while the eMachine logo displays on screen.
•Other eMachine computers may use F2 to enter BIOS.

Fujitsu - LifeBook, Esprimo, Amilo, Tablet, DeskPower
•Press F2 once the Fujitsu logo appears.

Gateway - DX, FX, One, GM, GT, GX, Profile, Astro
•Press the F1 key repeatedly after restarting the computer.
•Some older Gateway computers use F2 to access the BIOS Setup utility.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) - Pavilion, TouchSmart, Vectra, OmniBook, Tablet
•Press the F1, F10, or F11 key after restarting the computer.
•HP Tablet PCs may use F10 or F12.
•Other HP computers may allow access to BIOS using the F2 or Esc keys.

IBM - PC, XT, AT
•Press F1 immediately after powering on the computer.
•Older IBM computers (including some laptops) may utilize the F2 key for BIOS entry.

Lenovo (formerly IBM) - ThinkPad, IdeaPad, 3000 Series, ThinkCentre, ThinkStation
•Press F1 or F2 after powering on the computer.
•Older Lenovo products allow access to BIOS using Ctrl+Alt+F3, Ctrl+Alt+Ins, or Fn+F1.

Micron (MPC Computers) - ClientPro, TransPort
•Press F1, F2 or Del immediately after powering on the PC.

NEC - PowerMate, Versa, W-Series
•Press F2 to enter the BIOS Setup.

Packard Bell - 8900 Series, 9000 Series, Pulsar, Platinum, EasyNote, imedia, iextreme
•Press F1, F2, or Del to enter BIOS.

Samsung - Series 'x' laptops
•Press F2 to start the BIOS setup utility.

Sharp - Notebook Laptops, Actius UltraLite
•Press F2 after the computer starts.
•Some very old Sharp PCs require a Setup Diagnostics Disk to access BIOS.

Shuttle - Glamor G-Series, D'vo, Prima P2-Series, Workstation, X Mini XPC, Surveillance
•Press F2 or Del on startup.

Sony - VAIO, PCG-Series, VGN-Series
•Press F1, F2 or F3 after turning on the computer.

Toshiba - Portégé, Satellite, Tecra, Equium
•Press F1 or Esc after powering on to access BIOS.
•Press F12 on a Toshiba Equium.

The following companies are either closed for business or no longer manufacture or support mainstream computers systems so verifying the following BIOS access information is nearly impossible. I have included what I could dig up for anyone who might be interested:

ARI / ALR / AST (Advantage) - Press the Ctrl+Alt+Esc or Ctrl+Alt+Del keys.

Cybermax - Press the Esc key.

Tandon - Press the Ctrl+Shift+Esc keys.
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abit - ab9, an7, an8, av8, aw9d, be6, bh6, ic7, in9, ip35, kn8, kn9, etc.

•Press Del while the PRESS DEL TO ENTER SETUP message is displayed to access the BIOS setup utility.

ASRock - 4coredual, 775dual, 939dual, k7s41gx, p4v88, k7vm3, etc.

•Press F2 right after the computer starts up.

ASUS - p5b, a7v600, a7v8x, a8n, a8v, k8v, m2n, p5k, p5n, etc.

•Press Del right after starting the computer to enter BIOS. A few ASUS motherboards use Ins instead.

BFG - 680i, 8800gtx, 6800gt, 7600gt, 7800gs, 7950gt, etc.

•Press Del when the ...enter setup message briefly displays at the bottom of the screen after powering on the computer.

BIOSTAR - 6100, 550, 7050, 965pt, k8m800, p4m80, ta690g, tf7050, etc.

•Press the Del key while the full screen logo is showing on screen, immediately after starting the computer.

DFI - LANParty Ultra, Expert, Infinity 975x, NF3, NF4, cfx3200, p965, rs482, etc.

•Press the Del key when the Press DEL to enter setup message appears, immediately after the memory test.

ECS Elitegroup - k7s5a, k7vta3, 741gx, 755-a2, 945p, c51gm, gf7100pvt, p4m800, etc.

•Press either the Del or F1 key to enter the BIOS Setup Utility.

-----------------------------------------

BIOS by BIOS Provider

AMI (American Megatrends) - AMIBIOS, AMI BIOS

•Press Del when after powering on the computer.

•Some older motherboards that use AMIBIOS may prompt for the F1 or F2 key instead.

Award Software (now part of Phoenix Technologies) - AwardBIOS, Award BIOS

•Press the Del key to enter the BIOS Setup Utility on nearly all AwardBIOS powered motherboards.

•Some older systems using Award's BIOS software asked for Ctrl+Alt+Esc to enter BIOS.

DTK (Datatech Enterprises) - DTK BIOS

•Press the Esc key to enter BIOS, right after powering on the PC.

Microid Research - MR BIOS

•Press F1 to access the BIOS setup utility.

Phoenix Technologies - Phoenix BIOS, Phoenix-Award BIOS

•Press Del during the Power On Self Test, immediately after the computer starts.

•Many older Phoenix BIOS systems required Ctrl+Alt+Esc, Ctrl+Alt+Ins, or Ctrl+Alt+S to access BIOS.

If you're still having troubles entering BIOS or can't figure out what company supplied the BIOS on your motherboard, here are some keyboard commands you might want to randomly try in addition to the any of the ones listed above:

•F3

•F4

•F10

•F12

•Tab

•Esc

•Ctrl+Alt+F3

•Ctrl+Alt+Del

• Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Del (using Del from the keypad)

•Ctrl+Insert

•Ctrl+Shift+Esc

• Fn+[any "F" function key] (on some laptops)

SkyDrive troubleshooter

Run the SkyDrive troubleshooter – which it always just ticks the “SkyDrive restart and Maintenance” – no other issues found

Sign in to http://skydrive.live.com
In the navigation pane in SkyDrive, click your Computer (the one with the problem)
Click Disconnect
Run your SkyDrive App
Click Get Started
Enter your login information and click Sign In
Click Next and choose Use this location.
Click Done.

You may also try reinstalling your SkyDrive using a fresh installer and to increase the syncing performance of your SkyDrive, please do the steps below.
At the far right of the taskbar, in the notification area, right click on the SkyDrive icon. (You might need to click Show hidden icons to see all of your icons.)
Click on Settings
Click the Performance tab
Uncheck the box next to Improve upload speed by uploading files in batches.

If the issue even persists after reinstalling your SkyDrive, clarify if you've used "selective sync" option after installing SkyDrive and if you can see recycling blue arrows on your files, and specify which files are not syncing (Office files, photos, etc.).

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Add Window 8 tiles to your Blogger blog

Introduction

In the Windows 8 Modern Internet Explorer your viewers can set you blog a a favorite and then pin it to the start menu.
With a couple minutes of work you can make your blog show an active tile with the five most recent posts on your blog and control how the different sizes display.

How to make your blog so it pins to the windows 8 start screen.

Step 1 - Create four pictures exactly the right size.
Step 2 - Load them on the web so they have a URL
Step 3 - Add some meta data to your page.
Step 4 - Tell readers how to pin your blog.

Before we start.
Try pinning this blog so you can see how it works.
On windows 8, go to the modern start screen and click on the explorer tile. ( This does NOT work in the desktop version of explorer. )

Create four pictures exactly the right size.

You will need four pictures, these can be modern style logos or simply any pictures you trim and re-size to the required sizes. They can have transparent areas if you like.
The sizes needed are:
70 x 70 - tiny.png
150 x 150 - square.png
310 x 150 - wide.png
310 x 310 - large.png

Load them on the web so they have a URL

You will need to upload then to a web server where they are shared publicly and have a URL.
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One easy way to do this is to post all four of them in a post on your blog.
Click "New Post". Name it something like "Perminate draft (DO NOT DELETE) Win 8 pin images".
Upload the images using the "insert Images Icon in the blogger editor. Save the post as a draft.
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You do not need to publish the post, just save it as a draft.

These are the pictures I used for one of my blogs. These are an example of what not to do. Notice that the background is white. Bad idea. Windows is going to put white text in the lower left corner of each tile.
Here is a better way to make the starting image for your active tile.

This solid background will work better, it uses a darker color background and it leaves a little space below the image for the text.

Once you have the images tucked away in your blog in a draft page, you will be able to right click on them, select properties, and copy the URL you will need for the code.

If you right-click the top image on the right then select Copy Image URL,. you will have something like:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pW9Q..../wide.png
in your clipboard, Then you can paste it in the code in step 3

Add some meta data to your page

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Presentation Mode

You don't need a projector to do a presentation. If a friend drops by and your desktop is sort of cluttered, you can simply go to presentation mode and show your friend the nice clean desktop.

Presentation mode only shows up on laptops. but you can turn it on on a desktop.

Presentation mode activated by going to the mobility center;

Press the Windows + R keys to open the Run dialog, type mblctr.exe

Turning on the Presentation mode lets have a separate wallpaper and other features.

More info here:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/6552-windows-mobility-center-enable-desktop-computer.html

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Constantly getting connectivity issues with the Windows Store

A reader asked:
I'm constantly getting connectivity issues with the Windows Store and some Metro apps.

OK, that is common. you MAY have a HARDWRE problem.
Not in your PC. but your router or Internet provider.
Other newer browser often exhibit those problems too.
IE 11 and all the apps use the latest standards to speed up internet access. Many older routers did not support those features completely or correctly.

You can:

Buy a new router.
Install the latest firmware update in the . (go to the MFG site to see if it is available) or,
Bypass the DNS lookup in your router.

You can do that in the windows desktop control panel. Set the first DNS lookup ip address as 8.8.8.8 and the second one as 8.8.4.4
(those use Googles DNS instead of your ISP's.
That will bypass your router's problem.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Chrome - Get url from other PC's

A recent update to Google Chrome added a few new features and tweaked the Internet browser a bit. The main alteration was the change to the new tabs page. Gone is the old page where you could find links to your Chrome apps and links to recently closed tabs or pages open on other pc's

Enter chrome://flags in your address bar.
Hit “Ctrl+F”
search for “Enable Instant Extended API”
select disable once you've found it.
restart your browser and you’ll find the old new tab page back and ready to go.

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