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Tips, Tricks and Traps from the Tong’s

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Windows machines can’t use more than 3GB of real memory

September 3rd, 2008 · No Comments · Geek

Who would have ever thought we’d run into the 32-bit limitation. The long and short is that with all versions of Windows, 750MB at the top of memory is useless because it is used for I/O and if you have a 1GB video card, that is memory mapped, so that means you can use at [...]

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Boot Camp

July 22nd, 2008 · No Comments · Geek

John, Sam and Louie were wondering exactly how to install Base Camp on their computer. Chris Pirillo explains it well:
How to Install Boot Camp on OS X ~ Chris Pirillo

Use Spotlight to search for Boot Camp Assistant. Ah, there it is. The first thing it will do is ask if you want to print the [...]

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Windows Boot Drive Crash

July 1st, 2008 · No Comments · Geek

Even when on vacation, you find computers everywhere. Someone asked me, “what do I do? when I try to start my computer, I get a boot drive not found”.
Microsoft has a good discussion about what happens if you get Operating System Not Found or Missing operating system. The long and short of it is that [...]

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Punkbuster is hard to remove

June 18th, 2008 · 2 Comments · Geek

This is some sort of anticheating software that you can’t really remove called Punkbuster
Removing Punkbuster « Bucking the Trend
For those who want to really uninstall Punkbuster, the file PnkbstrA.exe is located in the Windows\System32 folder in Windows XP. Before deleting it, go to Start Menu -> Run -> type msconfig, then look at the [...]

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Happy Fathers Day

June 15th, 2008 · No Comments · Geek

OK, I must be the only person who gives a visit to fix a computer as part of a Father’s Day gift, but some quick notes for making things easier for people who don’t want the hassle:

Autologon enabled. Before Windows got secure, with Windows 95, you didn’t have to worry about logons. Mac OS X [...]

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Wallpaper Changer

May 30th, 2008 · No Comments · Geek

I love how Mac OS X changes the wallpaper automatically. With Windows XP, there is a Creativity Fun Pack PowerToys Wallpaper Changer that does the same thing essentially.
Like the Mac one, the main drawback is that it won’t search through lots of directories to find lots of wallpapers, so everything has to be in a [...]

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dBpoweramp audible backup

May 23rd, 2008 · No Comments · Geek

If you want to backup your audible .aa files because you are worried about being away and not activating properly, here is what to do. I had forgotten how to do this but needed to remember because I lost my Windows XP installation:

Find an old copy of the Audible Manager. The one I have is [...]

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C Drive is failing!

April 28th, 2008 · No Comments · Geek

Yikes, one of our machines has a faiilng C drive. It is a great 74GB Western Digital 10,000 rpm drive, but I can’t defrag it. It won’t completel. Norton Ghost fails on reading sectors. When I try to chkdsk, it comes out fine, so something is wrong. Time to figure out how to migrate to [...]

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Windows XP Product Activation Key

April 13th, 2008 · No Comments · Geek

Ok, I’m trapped away from my Windows XP CD, what do I do?

If you want to know the current Product Activation Key, you can download the Magical Bean Key Finder (current version 2.01). As Mike Devlin points out there are a couple of key viewers pre-SP2 and post SP2.

If you want to change you [...]

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ASUS M3p

March 31st, 2008 · No Comments · ASUS M3p, Calvin

Dad gave me an old laptop to use. It is from 2004! So it needs lots of updating. First up is to get:

Java. So that I can write programs
Dr. Java. Which is a simple editor and program
Intel 2200 BG. I couldn’t connect to Apple’s latest Time Capsule and my drivers haven’t been in updated in [...]

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