Going on vacation

I’m going to have vacation for about 3 days. This is a must go trip from our company. So that I couldn’t post for the next three days. Sorry for that! Hey, after I came back, I’ll make it up for that. It’s a deal, ok?

How to create physical IDE disk in VMware

Yesterday, I’ve tried to install Windows XP in VMware 6.0. I’ve tried to use physical hard disk in VMware. But every time I create, VMware won’t let me choose the option of IDE or SCSI. Instead, it only let me select in SCSI whether I want Bus logic or LSI logic.

So I googled around and found out that I’ve to edit VMware hard disk configuration file manually as follows.

ddb.adapterType = “ide”
ddb.geometry.sectors = “63″
ddb.geometry.heads = “16″
ddb.geometry.cylinders = “16383″

And I delete these lines in VMware config file .vmx.

scsi0.present = “TRUE”
scsi0.virtualDev = “lsilogic”
scsi0:1.present = “TRUE”
scsi0:1.fileName = “disk-2.vmdk”
scsi0:1.deviceType = “rawDisk”

Your config file might not look exactly as mine. But you know what to look and how to change. Any question? You can contact me via contact form or leave a comment.

Reference : VMware forum

5 things people love about Windows

Most of my visitors (90-95%) are Windows users. So I discussed with some of them about why they use Windows and what they love about it. Here is most common points.

Application Support
Don’t get me wrong, the competitors have some cool software suites, but if there is a program out there, then there is a good chance it was made for XP, or has a version available for Windows.

Gaming
Hands down, XP is a gaming machine. Gaming companies always make an XP version, and very few port their game over to the competitor’s operating system. Virtually, there are no games available only to competitor’s operating system, not to Windows. It’s always the other way around.

Customizations
Sure prepackaged computers may be great for novice users . But what if you want to build your own? Windows makes it extremely easy. You can just go into any computer shops, buy any hardware components you want without having to worry about whether there’s a driver available or not.

Familarity
Like it or not, most companies/corporations use Windows. So if you are a PC users, you must be able to use Windows. That made most of us familiar with Windows. Microsoft marketing teams are really genius too. Instead of bashing competitors’ OS, they offered great discount to high schools and University. After all those kids have graduated, what would they get used to? Huh, see?

Free help from friends or family
When your computer faces some problem or you want to tweak a bit, it is easier to find Windows expert among friends or family. It would be very difficult to find people who are expert in other OSes.

If I have to write it down all, the list would go on and on. So let me stop here.

Workaround to download Vista Beta SP1 directly from Microsoft

The Vista SP1 is thought to be launched in the first quarter of 2008.

However, Microsoft released beta versions of Vista SP1 to their chosen 12,000 beta testers. As always, even though it is possible to close the lid of the bottle, it is impossible to shut the mouth. That’s being said, the Beta Build 6001.16659 of the service pack has been leaked to peer-to-peer file sharing networks. You might be able to grab it from your favorite torrent site. But some of you might be afraid to download such an important pack from other sites than Microsoft.

Don’t worry! Now there’s a workaround available (Thanks to ghacks.net)

• Download This zip file and unpack it to your system.
• Run SP1Beta_Hack.cmd with administrator privileges and Windows Updates afterwards. You should see KB935509. Download it and restart your computer.
• Run Windows Updates again, you should see KB937287. Download and restart your computer again.
• Run Windows Updates again (Yeah! it’s quite a lot!). Download KB938371, restart your computer again (I know, I know, it’s a lot of restart).
• Finally, visit Windows Updates again and you should see the Service Pack 1 Beta for Microsoft Windows Vista available for download.

If evaluation message annoys you, follow the steps below:

• Run watermark_fix.reg first
• Rename user32.dll.mui to user32.dll.mui.old in C:WindowsSystem32en-US
• copy user32.dll.mui from the archive to that location
• Restart your computer

With no official reaction from Microsoft about this workarounds, a lot of debate is going on in the blogosphere whether this method is legal or not. Judge yourself whether it is legal or not. Remember this is beta version to limited 12,000 testers only. So that it is very high probability that it would be buggy. My advice to you is that wait for official release of Vista SP1.

Blogger comments subscribe

You love some blog post on blogger platform and you’ve just commented it, but what if you forgot the url of that blog? You should subscribe to the comments of that post to receive followups from other users or the blog authors.

Now blogger.com have just introduced this very useful feature. They announced it on blogger buzz.

Even though I love this feature, I’m still eagerly waiting for Google to introduce us to be able to schedule blog posts, just like many of wordpress users normally do.

How to create image trail with Paint

I love MS Paint for its simplicity. Even though it is such a small program, it could have done a lot of jobs. Of course, don’t compare it with Photoshop or any other premium photo editing standard software.

Most of my screenshots editing have been done with Paint. What’s more? You can create trailing effect with Paint too.

First you need to hold select the part of the image
And then hold down Shift key
Then drag the way you want to trail it.

Here is the sample trailing pic I have made.

Disable automatic restart

Windows 9x handle critical errors by showing Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). But starting from Windows XP, the default setting is for the computer to reboot automatically when a fatal error occurs. The good news is that you can control how it responds to certain critical errors.

You can disable the automatic settings as follow:

• 1. Right click on My Computer, Choose Properties
• 2. Then go to Advanced tab and click Settings under Startup and Recovery
• 3. Clear the Automatically restart check box, and click OK.
• 4. After that you’ll need to restart your computer for the settings to take effect.

The question is why would you want to do that? Well, you can see the error dialog box as long as you want when it happens. So, maybe you could figure out where the problem comes from or you can call your geek friend with the necessary info.

Source : Microsoft Help

Windows Welcome music

Windows Welcome music is quite some great. Have you ever wondered where is that music file?

It is located in

C:Windowssystem32oobeimagestitle.wma

It is five minutes long and quite amusing. File properties’ artist show that the artist is Microsoft. Wonder when will Microsoft release music album though.

Source : Tech Recipes

How to zoom more in MS Paint

I’ve just told you guys about how to make image trail in MS Paint. Here is another tip again. Do you know that you can zoom more in MS Paint than default. MS Paint default zoom is 8x, but you can zoom more than that. I’ve got this tip from one of the metacafe video. But I can’t find it again now.

Anyway, here is how you should do it.

If you press the white line as in the above picture, you’ll get your pic zoom more than 8x as in the following picture.

Before you start to complain me about these feature is useless compare to your Photoshop or whatever program, remember paint is very small, simple program just for very simple task. I’m just telling you this tip as a fun. Enjoy it!

Yahoo Messenger 9 Beta

I’ve always been a big fan of Yahoo! Messenger in IM world. I’ve tried AIM, MSN, Gtalk, Skype, but nothing can beat Yahoo! Messenger.

Even though Skype and Gtalk are much better in VOIP call, Yahoo! messenger smiley and audible, their amazing interfaces make me stick to it.

Now Yahoo! announce on their blog that they are releasing Yahoo! Messenger 9 Beta version. Actually, I’m waiting for Yahoo! Messenger for Vista (Yahoo! did promise on their blog that this will release soon too).

Here is the screenshot of new amazing Yahoo! messenger 9 Beta.

New features in version 9 are:

• A whole new look for your contact list.
• Brand new skins and emoticons!
• New Flickr integration in the photo sharing feature.
• A new in-line media player that makes it easy to view maps, photos and videos from sites like Yahoo! Video and YouTube right in the IM window.
• New features for voice calls. (Like forwarding to your mobile and voicemail)

I’ve already installed on my PC and it is quite lovable. If you wanna enjoy new interfaces, you can download Yahoo! Messenger Beta.

You should install only if you want to experience new interfaces and features. Remember Beta versions are not as good as final version. Here I quote from Yahoo! blog

As with any new Beta software, Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 is not perfect but we think we got most of the major bugs out.