Showing posts with label computer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label computer. Show all posts

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Windows 8 Is A Disaster for Personal Computers

THE END OF THE ROAD FOR EASY WEB DESIGN

Windows 8 means more problems for web page designers. What Internet Explorer reproduces in Windows 8 on a personal computer is not what comes out on a tablet. Internet Explorer 10 is the worst culprit. Having IE10 built into Windows 8 with no possibility of going back to IE9 is definitely a nuisance. Text goes right off the background square. On a PC, fonts are either extended too long and go over the background square at the bottom, or there is a line gap under the full stop because text is too short.

Nearly all the other browsers reproduce correctly, except FireFox with the last word on some fonts extending to the next line. This is rare though. Obviously, the problem lies in the operating system itself which is designed specifically for tablets. Personal computers are only of secondary consideration.


There is a "war" going on in the US at the moment over how images will be shown on tablets and even mobile phones. The powers that be are in a battle with professional code writers over what system will be used. This wonderful image system is called Picture Fill. The font problem with Windows 8 will make the fight more complex.

Designers now have to put images onto a web page knowing that in some circumstances fonts may write over the image or go behind it. Windows 8 is being released far too early. It is not yet known whether the new coding will be in HTML5 or left for HTML6. Whichever way it goes Windows 8 will be obsolete.


The new code for Picture Fill put forward by designers has four images being uploaded to the server at four different pixel densities. This is for each image on the web page. The lowest size and pixel strength will be downloaded by small devices. High definition sites on personal computers will download the highest definition image version. This will definitely make download times longer for all systems, and take up more memory on servers.

Your $40 will be wasted on upgrading to Windows 8. The problems are countless. You cannot set up a network in your home because security turns off and prevents access to Windows Firewall. This blocks all attempts at accessing other devices. Many older versions of software keep shutting down despite compatibility settings. You have to give Microsoft your email address and your correct password as you are logged on at startup. They are surely going to look at your email

Stay with Windows 7. It is the last Windows system written exclusively for PCs.


Saturday, November 26, 2011

Remove Smartware Drive, Western Digital, WD, External Hard Drive

You have bought a Western Digital external hard drive and every time you plug it in a window pops up and asks if you want to install the automatic backup software.


Now, this is jargon for Western Digital will now put a virtual drive on your computer to automatically backup your files. The problem is no one can understand how it works or how to restore the files to your computer when you want to. Don't waste your time trying to contact Western Digital - they won't respond!


There are two ways around this.

I. Disable the drive so it doesn't show in Windows Explorer or any other file program you have.
  1. Go to "Control". Select "Classic View" in the left panel. Click "System". "Hardware", then "Device Manager".
  2. Click the cross to the left of "DVD/CD ROM Drives".
  3. You will see "WD Virtual CD 1110 USB Device" or similar with a different number depending on the drive you have.
  4. Right click this. Select "Disable" from the list then right click this also. Close all the windows you have open and reboot.

VoilĂ ! The virtual drive is not visible any more.


II. Uninstall the Smartware virtual drive.
  1. Go to "Control". Select "Classic View" in the left panel. Click "System". "Hardware", then "Device Manager".
  2. Click the cross to the left of "DVD/CD ROM Drives".
  3. You will see "WD Virtual CD 1110 USB Device" or similar with a different number depending on the drive you have.
  4. Right click this. Select "Uninstall" from the list then right click this also. Close all the windows you have open and reboot.

The files that you have manually installed on the Western Digital external drive will still be there.

Warning! Do not reformat the external drive. You will lose storage space.

An example of this a 160 GB WD external hard drive. The Western Digital virtual drive takes up 0.650 GB, leaving 159.350 GB of usable space. If you reformat it you will only have 148 GB on the whole external drive. There is an anomaly here but I am not sure what it is. You don't gain any more storage memory by hiding the virtual drive or uninstalling it. Perhaps hiding it is enough. At least you don't see it any more.


A little advice - use Paragon Backup software to store an image of your computer after a fresh Windows install when you have put your main programs on and set everything up as you want. Then in the future when your computer slows down, gets a stubborn virus you can't remove or will not System Restore any more, you can make a fresh start as you want it to be.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Getting Sound Through Computer Speakers from the Microphone

If you want your computer microphone to play sound through the computer speakers you can try techarena.

However, if you have a newer version of sound software this may not work. I have a Dell computer with Realtek sound software. I tried following the instructions on the above site but my software doesn't have an "options" tab.

There is a way:


1. Go to the Start menu and enter "regedit" in the start search window.

3. Navigate through the registry by using the folder + signs in the left pane to get to this location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Cl ass\{4D36E96C-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000\Settings\


7. Right click on "ForceDisableJD".

8. Left click "Modify".

9. In the 'Value data' box, add 01 to the existing 0000 to make it "0000 01". If you have "0000 00" change it to "0000 01" then click OK.

10. Exit the Registry and restart the computer.

11. After restart, right click the sound program tray icon. Left click "Audio Devices". Right click "Speakers". Left click "Properties". Left click "levels" tab. Move "Microphone" and "FrontMic" markers to the right on the slide control.

12. Click "OK".

You are ready to speak into the microphone and hear the sound from the computer speakers.

Turn up the volume and away you go.

Happy computing.

Installing Adobe Macromedia Shockwave Player for Mozilla Firefox
Installing Adobe Macromedia Shockwave Player for Internet Explorer
Installing Macromedia Adobe Flash Player for Internet Explorer
Installing Macromedia Adobe Flash Player for Mozilla Firefox
Installing a Program to Run SWF Files
Disabling UAC for a Program