Getting Another Computer

My husband called me last week and is very excited. He said our neighbor who is going to move abroad is selling their computer that they bought last December for only 10k. I haven't seen the full specs but he said it has an intel dual core processor, it comes with 17" monitor LCD, DVDRW, original OS and a computer table. We are planning to buy a motherboard for our broken computer, my budget is around 4k. We are supposed to buy it after getting my Christmas bonus. Our neighbor will leave I think at the end of this week so they are in hurry selling the computer.  Our Ninang Malou asked Robin to asked the owner if they would give it for 8k. To his surprise the owner agreed. Its been more than a month since our computer got broken and Robin is really excited. Our Ninang Malou said she would lend us the money instead so that we can get the computer. She agreed to get paid once I get my bonus which probably before the end of November. On Thursday or Friday we will find out if Ninang Malou will have the money, Robin told her we would pay her some interest instead. 

I guess its a good deal. Our monitor is still a CRT and buying a new LCD would cost probably 8-10k. I would ask him later to ask for the full specs so that I can verify other details of it and see if its really a good deal.

Pros and Cons of not Having a Computer

Its been more than a month since our computer motherboard finally give up. I don't a budget yet so I haven't replace it. I guess having no computer at home do have some advantages and disadvantages and here they are:

Pros:

• I have better sleep because I no longer spend hours and hours of my time in front of the computer especially after work
• Our electricity bill went down (P1000 difference from the previous bill, wew!)
• I was able to watch cartoons with my kid
• I realized that I can live without PC, (@_@)

Cons:

• I cannot pay my bill online
• I cannot check my cc / ATM status
• I cannot check my email for important updates
• I cannot do blogging which is my sideline
• I cannot read chikas and do social networking... missing my Facebook

Haayss... its really a hassle for me. I guess I just need to control the usage of it once I buy a new motherboard.

Mobo or Proc Problem

After eating lunch yesterday, my husband helped me in checking our broken computer. It was not turning on so I thought it is the power supply. What I did was I removed all the cards (video and modem), disconnected all the drives (hard drive, floppy and DVDRW), disconnected power to the processor, take out the memory, leaving only the mobo and power supply. When I tried to turn it on the fan on both the power supply and proc will spin for a few seconds then would go off. I am already thinking of getting a new power supply. Our neighbor says they have 2 computers at home that currently they are not using. My husband took it so that we can test the power supply but then both computer is using a smaller plug. Their power supply is only 20pin while ours has 24 pins. Good thing my husband remembered that her ate also have a computer. I am not sure what is the problem of that computer but that computer does power on. The first that we checked is if it is using 24pin. Yes they are compatible. What we did first is we connected the working power supply to my computer and it did the same thing. It spin for a few seconds then go off. We connected our power supply to that computer and it worked fine. Telling us then than the power supply is ok and something is causing it to stopped. The only thing left inside the computer is the mobo and processor. I wonder which is bad. I guess it will take a while before we will be able to fix it. I have a lot of  bills to pay. I still need to save money to replace which ever is bad. For the meantime goodbye Frontierville, goodbye, facebook, goodbye ikariam and goodbye DOTA. @_@

Our Computer would not Power On

My husband was playing Frontierville when all of the sudden our computer shutdown. I am already sleeping when he said it. I checked it last night and it looks like the AVR has no problem. Our monitor and speakers are getting power from it. We had this computer for more than 3 years now. I remember this is the first thing that we bought when I got my first credit card. It is customized by us, we selected the parts and let PC Corner do the assembly. I paid for it for 1year. The only part that I replace so far is the DVD writer. I will check it later. I guess it might be the power supply that has gone bad. I hope its only a glitch hehehe. Anyway, I already started to browse at PC Express website for a new power supply. It cost around P1500, wew. Bad timing, I have a lot of bills.... haayss but what can I do.... we use our computer everyday. We can go without the television but I guess not with the computer. Maybe I should sell our TV to get a PS... hehehe just joking. Haaays really bad... @_@

Mozilla Freezes and Task Manager Shows 100% CPU Memory Usage

I am a fan of Mozilla Firefox that is why I am using it both at home and at work. One thing that I noticed at work most of the time it would freeze and not respond. Usually what I would do is to stop it from running using task manager and start a new session. For a while I just ignore it. I tried updating the version that I have but still no go. Then earlier today I noticed that it locked up but it still shows responding in task manager. When I checked CPU usage it shows 99-100 percent for firefox. I then google what could be causing it and find out that I need to install flashblock. I installed it and so far everything looks normal. I hope this will permanently fix the problem.

Customizing Internet Explorer

Most of us are using Internet Explorer or IE in browsing the web. It is because mostly our operating system is Windows. Even though a lot of people are using it not everyone knows how to customize it.

My job before was a software support specialist for Windows. One thing I notice then was a lot of callers don't know how to change home page and other option that IE offers. Home page is helpful so once you open your browser it opens the website that you visit very often.

If you have a hard time reading text on the web because you find it too small you can adjust the text through IE's tool bar. Simply click on View>Text Size and select the font size that you wanted. Other reason of having a hard time reading text over the web is the font and colors of the text. This can easily be changed by going to Tools>Internet Option then under General Tab click on Colors. In this option we can also change the color of hyperlink. It is called the visited and unvisited link.

Either you are using IE at home or at work knowing how to customize it will be very helpful.

This Copy of Windows is Not Genuine

One of my friend at work told me she was getting an error on her computer. She mention that she was getting a message about Windows not genuine and being a victim of software counterfeiting. I told her I will format her computer and reinstall Windows.

Above is the pop up message she was getting on the lower right corner of her desktop as soon as she logged in to Windows. Me being a tech support for Dell before I remember fixing that error by deleting a specific registry. While she was making a back up of her files by moving it to the secondary drive on her computer I tried to search for a solution. I would like to avoid doing an OSRI (Operating System Reinstallation) because it consumes a lot of time. I found the solution and here is the registery that you need to delete. By the way, this is for Windows XP. Go to registry editor by typing regedit on the run command of windows. Then go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Notify and then delete WgaLogon folder and all of its content. Reboot the computer and tada! its back to normal. She told me when she started getting that error she was not able to change her wall paper and that was fix too.

Remote Desktop - ActivTrak

ActiveTrak is a remote monitoring software. It is very easy to install and you don't need to go on each computer to install it. This software will allow you to monitor multiple user on a single screen. You can monitor the current application the user is using. There is also an option to make a snapshot of the user's screen. Other good feature is the statistics that are being created for each user. If you need to send a message you can do so or if you wanted you can start a chat session as well. You can try downloading this software and test it as your Employee monitoring software. I am sure you will definitely like it and this will be very beneficial for your company.

NTLDR is Missing or Corrupt

Every morning when I arrived at home from work its either my husband or my little boy is using the computer. Yesterday it was strange neither of them is sitting in front of the computer. I wonder what happened. I decided to eat breakfast first before jumping in to my daily computer routine. Then my husband came in the room and said "Have you tried turning the computer on? It's not working." Wow! I guess that explains why they are not in the front of it.

Robin said he was searching for the map of Dubai last night when all of the sudden the computer shuts down. He was able to turn it back on but this morning it would not boot and would just show a black screen with this error, "NTLDR is missing. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart."

My Windows XP installer is with my mom and I hope I can fix it by copying Ntdetect.com and ntldr to c:\ drive. I don't want to go into the process of reinstalling the whole OS. It takes time to do it and I need to reinstall all my application. Haayss... :-(