Randomized

Updated Download Link: HAL.DLL

Zen — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 04:00:07 +0000

As promised, I’ve uploaded a copy of the hal.dll from my working XP machine. The file host I had been using died and disappeared. Hopefully, this new one lasts a bit longer. I wrote about my hal.dll issues in the past. The first one was about how I fixed the hal.dll error without using a cd. I was successful during that attempt but it just kept coming back. I then wrote another post about my problems with hal.dll with a lot more detail.

Here’s the download link to the copy of hal.dll: http://www.fast-files.com/getfile.aspx?file=53077

Best of luck!

Printer Sharing: Across Windows 7 Machines

Zen — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:59:02 +0000

So I don’t want to buy a wireless print server just so I can print from my laptop or PC in another part of the house. How to enable printer sharing in Windows is pretty basic stuff. But I did it so might as well write about it. Got some screenshots this time too. Makes the posts a little less bland. Remember, I’m working with Windows 7 PC’s. If you have XP or Vista, you will see something different.

I used to have to bring my laptop to where the printer is and plug in the usb. I know, such a drag. Sometimes I bring the printer over to my other PC, obviously because the printer weighs less and only has two wires. Finally, I said to no one in particular, “Screw this, I can share the printer over the network”.

There are really only two steps. First, you enable the sharing on the computer that is always connected to the printer. Second, you add the network printer to the computer that you’re on most of the time. Important Note: The computer connected to the printer must be on when you print. I don’t need to explain why, do I? Because that computer basically acts as the print server. Without it, you can hit print on your other computers and watch paint dry. Not fun.

Alright. So how did I enable printer sharing on the computer plugged into the printer?

Step 1: Navigate to the Devices and Printers window. You can reach that via the Control Panel or press/click on the Home button and choose from the list. It’s not hard to find at all. You should see something like the image I have to the right.

I own an HP Deskjet D2600 and it is on and plugged into the computer I’m working with. You should have that same check mark outlined by a green circle on your printer.

Step 2: Right click on your printer’s icon and select Printer Properties. Click on the Sharing tab and check the box labeled ‘Share this printer’. The share name can be anything you want as long as you’ll be able to recognize it easily. Check, type, check then hit Apply and OK. The printer and this computer are set.

Now go to your other machine, be it laptop or desktop. You’re not limited to just one. You can share this printer with as many devices as you can. But for this post, I’ll just tackle Windows 7.

Step 3: On your second computer, make your way to the Devices and Printers window again. Click on the ‘Add a printer’ option right at the top. Another window will pop up.

Step 4: The Add Printer Wizard will start. Choose the second option for the network printer. Remember the Share Name that you went with in Step 2? The Wizard will give you a list of available network printers for you to add. Select the Share Name of the printer you set up on your other computer. At the end of it, it will ask you if you want to print a test page.

I did. You probably should too. When you hear that familiar printing noise from a few meters away, you’ll know that your work is done. Rinse and repeat steps 3 and 4 if you want to share the printer to other Windows 7 devices.

These steps worked for me. It should for you. If not, pull up your favorite search engine and start looking. That’s not to say I don’t welcome comments and questions. I do. If I know the answer, I certainly will share.

Ciao for now!

Sony Vaio’s Motion Eye Camera: Post Switch From Vista To Windows 7

Zen — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 07:15:17 +0000

I wiped Vista off of my Sony Vaio VGN-CR35G and replaced it with Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. Everything worked, except for the internal Motion Eye web cam. I tried getting XP and Vista drivers and installed them via the admin mode. I tried to download drivers from similar models and those didn’t do me any favors either. I finally stopped and just let it go. I wasn’t using it at all anyway.

I loaned the laptop to someone for a day. When I got it back, I was told that they tried to use the camera and found that it didn’t work. I also found some camera software and drivers still installed that they must have used to try to fix it. I forgot about it after some weeks and went about my schedule.

Finally, I got a relatively boring day and thought I should try again. The first step almost always is to do a search and see what’s out there. I tried something different thought. Instead of just typing in “Sony Vaio” and “Windows 7 camera driver”, I added in the “Motion Eye” branding that’s right under the camera lens. I got some great tips from a post by JavanFace in Microsoft’s technet forum. Now, this post was nearly a year old by I decided to give it a shot.

Sony Vaio Motion Eye Camera

I downloaded 2 files first. The camera driver here and the driver extractor here. Once I had those, the next steps were very simple.

1. Install the Extractor and run it. Point it to the executable driver installer.

2. Open the folder where the files were extracted to and double-click on the installer.

For my laptop, I clicked on the 64 bit version. After running, I didn’t get any messages that it was finished or it was installed successfully. So I just went ahead and tried it with the IM software that I used most often and it detected the camera right away. Thus, my yearlong camera conundrum is solved. I hope it works for anyone else having the same issue and looking for a working solution.

If you want to look at the original thread, then click on this.

2012 Project: Installing Android On Nokia N900

Zen — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 09:38:10 +0000

A month ago, the warranty for my Nokia N900 expired. That was the only thing I was worried about when I first considered trying out Android on my phone. Not that I needed it, since it has been over a year and it’s still working fine. I love the hardware. But when Nokia announce that it was halting support for the Maemo Mobile OS, I wanted to try another system that came with updates and a better app market.

Like with any project, whether academic or otherwise, you start by doing a basic search. I came up with a couple of possibilities. There were several how-to’s that gave instructions for installing Nitdroid or Gingerbread. I was actually hoping for Ice Cream Sandwich but apparently that was sort of like aiming for the moon. At this point, that is. What was not encouraging to me was the number of failed attempts that resulted in the phone owners going back to their original Maemo and the lack of recent attempts or updates. Majority of the posts on the subject were dated early last year. I know from experience that a lot can and have changed in a year. So that is my dilemma.

I think all of the articles I found mentioned the need to use a Micro SD. There were other issues that came up such as the phone not charging during or after the installation. The quick fix that they gave was to use the USB charger instead. It’s not a big deal. But it is a concern when the hardware does not work as it is supposed to. Especially when it’s a component as basic and important as power.

It looks like there is a lot more research waiting for me. I don’t mind taking the long road as long as it’s the surest one. But if I do brick my N900 and end up unable to resurrect it, I have my eye on the Motorola Droid 4. Check back in the future for updates.

Cheers!

Another Hardware/OS Audit

Zen — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 11:49:42 +0000

1)
AMD Athlon X2 4000 AM2 (2.10GHz)
Emaxx MCP61S-AVL
2GB Geil DDR800
GeForce 7300GT 512MB
160 GB HDD
*Windows XP

2)
AMD Sempron 2200+ (1.60GHz)
Asrock K7VM3
1GB DDR400
GeForce FX5200
Seagate 160GB IDE HDD
Samsung 80GB
Maxtor 40GB
*Windows XP & Ubuntu on separate HDD

3)
Sony Vaio VGN-CR35G
Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 (2.10GHz)
14.1″ WGA Display
Wireless 4965 AGN
Mobility Radeon X2300
2GB SODIMM
Toshiba MK2546GS 200GB HDD
*Windows 7 Ultimate

4)
HP Pavilion dv1000
Intel Pentium M (1.50GHz)
13.1″ Widescreen
Intel Extreme Graphics 2 Shared video memory (UMA)
512MB RAM
80GB HDD
*Dual boot: Windows XP & Linux Mint

Western Digital Scorpio External Drive 80GB
*Linux Mint 12 “Lisa”

Is there a gaming ultraportable laptop out there?

Zen — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 22:22:32 +0000

I own and still use an old HP Pavilion dv1000. Yes, I have a couple of high powered desktops but I still prefer the mobility that a laptop offers. Obviously, my current one is outdated. So my search has begun. My usual places to go to for browsing the latest and the greatest are Cnet and Bestbuy. What is it that I want in my next laptop? I would have to say between 11 and 14 inches for the screen size. At the very least, 4 GB of RAM. Not really fussing about the hard drive size. I definitely want dedicated graphics, Nvidia or ATI. It also has to be thin and light. I haven’t decided yet if I want an optical drive or not. It depends how thin it is I guess. At the moment, there are a few that fit all of those, but not something I would buy and use. I will post again when my search gives me something with potential.

Remove Unused Grub2 Entries

Zen — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 01:18:04 +0000

I had to reinstall my Linux Mint 9 Isadora after messing with a new copy of Windows XP. Once the whole thing was complete. I ended up with two extra kernel versions that weren’t really installed but were still listed in the boot menu. I ignored it for the longest time until I asked myself today.

I looked around the web and found that most sites say the same thing. I did not want to manually edit the Grub2 configuration file because that would still leave the headers in my system. And I’m a bit OC when it comes to my toys. So I played around with it a bit and found a simple solution.

1) Find out the current kernel version by opening the Terminal and running: uname -r
2) Take note of the result. This command gave me “2.6.32-25-generic”.
3) Open Synaptic and then search for the 4 digits. For example, “2.6.32″.
4) Install the “ghost” kernel versions : Check the “Mark for Installation” box and hit “Apply”.
5) Opened terminal and run: sudo update-grub2
6) Uninstall the kernel versions : Check the “Mark for Complete Removal” box and hit “Apply”.
7) Go back to the Terminal and ran: sudo update-grub2

Linux Mint 9 Isadora is based on Linux Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. I am pretty sure that the same set of instructions can be used for it too. Using these steps, I’ve removed everything from the Grub2 menu except the two latest kernel versions, the Memtest and the Windows entry. I hope this works for anyone else with the same issue.

Making Java Work On Firefox and Mint 9

Zen — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 08:47:25 +0000

I play a browser based online game and after installing Mint 9 Isadora, it stopped working. One part of the said game uses Javascript so I decided to check on that first. The following code is what I used to fix the issue:

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin sun-java6-fonts

After running that in the terminal, i just opened my game again and it went through without a hitch!

How I Stopped That Nagging WGA Notification

Zen — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 20:33:25 +0000

I finally got sick of that useless notification on my desktop telling me that my copy is not authentic. Armed with internet, I searched for a way to kill that annoyance. I got to a WikiHow page that provided, in detail, what I needed to do. Long story short, it worked. I no longer have to suffer a black desktop and the occasional reminder that I need to contact Microsoft. Below are the steps that I did:

1. Open Notepad.
2. Paste the code from below, including one empty line in the end to represent the enter key.
3. Copy again.
4. Open the Command Prompt by clicking Start, then Run, typing CMD then hitting the enter key.
5. Right click on the black screen and select the Paste command.

CD %systemroot%\system32 rename wgatray.exe wgatray.exe.bak rename wgalogon.dll wgalogon.dll.bak rename LegitCheckControl.dll LegitCheckControl.dll.bak taskkill /F /T /IM wgatray.exe del wgatray.exe.bak del wgalogon.dll.bak del LegitCheckControl.dll.bak

* There should be an extra line when you paste. *

Resources:

http://www.wikihow.com/Remove-Windows-Genuine-Advantage-Notifications

How I Removed Windows XP Malware Blocking Antivirus Websites

Zen — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:00:53 +0000

I have an old desktop with an AMD Sempron processor that runs Windows XP. It is mostly unused except for times when it is needed for downloading large chunks of data that takes hours or days. My brother had been using it to download themes for his PSP (PlayStation Portable) when I noticed that the trial version of some anti virus that I installed long ago had already expired. Not wanting to spread any unwanted snippets of code to and through our gaming consoles, I opted to download another trial of another AV software. I tried pulling up the usual security websites but all told me that the pages could not be displayed. The odd thing was that all the other websites were loaded just fine. I even tried pulling up the pages on my laptop and it worked without a hitch. The first thing I checked was for proxy servers on the browser itself. There weren’t any. I did ping tests and checked which ports were open and I came up with nothing. I then proceeded to uninstall all the software on it that I was not familiar with, leaving only the basic ones. The results were the same. I hopped over to my laptop and searched for the keywords “virus blocking antivirus websites”. The very first article that came up had the answer I was looking for. I did the first option under malware.

1. Go to Start.
2. Click Run.
3. Type “mrt.exe” and hit enter.
4. Choose “Full Scan”.
5. Restart once done.

The culprit was found and eradicated. After restarting the old box, I immediately tried going to one of the most popular anti virus software websites. Lo and behold, it opened without any issues. I downloaded a free copy of the AV that they were offering, did the updates, scanned and ran the anti rootkit feature. It’s clean for now. My brother still swears that he wasn’t the one who downloaded the nuisance.

Resources:

http://www.antihacksecurity.com/the-news/124-virus-blocking-web-sites-unable-to-download-antivirus