February 12, 2010
Windows patch cripples XP with blue screen, users claim

Better headline:

PC Repair Technicians Laud New Microsoft Patch as “Pennies from Heaven”

November 17, 2009
Windows 7 Tip: Power Efficiency Reports Tune Up Windows 7's Energy Use

Running powercfg -energy as Administrator will generate a nice (albeit slightly cryptic) HTML report showing you how to configure your device to save energy.

October 30, 2009
Penny Arcade! - In The Seventh House

Penny Arcade! - In The Seventh House

October 28, 2009
Microsoft selling crapware-free PCs in its stores

If you’re going to buy a Windows PC and you’re not comfortable rebuilding your own machine, this is the way you should do it.

September 22, 2009
How to install your old HP Photosmart 7350 printer in Vista/Windows 7

My trusty old Photosmart 7350 (circa 2003ish) has always installed automagically in whatever OS I’ve thrown at it (Linux included).  Windows 7, not so much.  As it turns out, you need to install the driver for the Deskjet 5550 (included with Windows 7), and then mess around with the port settings a bit.  After that, no problems (yet).

August 6, 2009
Windows XP Login Logout Loop (Virus)

If you find that upon logging into Windows you are immediately logged out without even a peek at your desktop, you are probably suffering from the effects of a virus that nukes some Windows System files or the registry values that point to them.  The fix is pretty easy.  Just take a look at the link above.  You may need a Windows install CD (or in my case, a Linux LiveCD) to restore userinit.exe back to its proper place in windows\system32.  I found an extra copy hanging around in windows\i386 that I copied over there (I’m not sure, though, whether or not that file is the proper version for SP3, so YMMV).

I’m too busy to mess around with viruses on my own PC.  That’s just one more reason why I use Ubuntu.

July 1, 2009

How to get Transport Tycoon Deluxe to Run in Windows 7

Update 16 FEB 2010: I’ve noticed that this post ranks very highly on Google for “Transport Tycoon Deluxe Windows 7” so I decided to write a new post detailing how I actually play Transport Tycoon these days: with the excellent open-source remake OpenTTD, which runs on Windows and Linux.  My new post is available here.

If you’re trying to run the classic simulation game “Transport Tycoon Deluxe” in Windows 7, you may get an error upon startup when the game can’t find dplay.dll.  Here’s what you need to do:

  • Go to C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-directx-directplay4_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7100.0_none_e80363be14f8ec68 (substitute your Windows installation path for C:\Windows if necessary).
  • Copy dplayx.dll to your Transport Tycoon installation folder.
  • Rename the new copy of the file to dplay.dll.

June 18, 2009
VirtualBox 3.0 Beta Adds Gaming-Level Graphics

Sweet.  Now I won’t have to boot into Windows to play my old PC games.  Too bad I just installed Simcity 4 on Windows 7 last night.

June 17, 2009
Windows 7 Creates New Folders With a Hotkey

Ctrl+Shift+N=New Folder.

FINALLY!  Call me a geek if you want, but I’m excited about this.  If you’re stuck on Windows, stuff like this is why the Windows 7 upgrade will be worth it (as opposed to Vista, which featured eyecandy and slower performance as its main selling points).

June 15, 2009
Why Windows is not yet ready for the Desktop

Seriously, have you ever seen a non-geek user try to actually operate it?  It’s no wonder people think they hate computers.  What they actually hate is Windows.