Tag Archives: Windows

How to create physical IDE disk in VMware

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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

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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

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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.

How to create image trail with Paint

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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.
MS paint trail image

Disable automatic restart

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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.

disable auto restart

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

How to zoom more in MS Paint

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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!

Notepad bug in details

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I have told you guys a brief explanation about how Bush Hid the facts notepad bug occurs.

It is because of IsTextUnicode function. This function is used to guess opening files are using which types of encoding (the traditional ANSI encoding or the Unicode encoding).

For a long sentences, it’s fine. But for a short word, it become pretty tricky. Let’s go into details.

To store “Hello” in notepad, it will convert to encoding. There are many types of encoding notepad support. Most encoding starts with their specific prefix to tell the program what types of encoding they are using. But the tricky things happen because Notepad also support encoding with NO prefixes, such as the traditional ANSI encoding (i.e., “plain ASCII”) and the Unicode (little-endian) encoding with no BOM.

Confused? See below Hello in different types of encoding.

48 65 6C 6C 6F This is the traditional ANSI encoding. (No prefix)

48 00 65 00 6C 00 6C 00 6F 00 This is the Unicode (little-endian) encoding with no BOM. (No prefix)

FF FE 48 00 65 00 6C 00 6C 00 6F 00 This is the Unicode (little-endian) encoding with BOM. (FF FE is prefix)

FE FF 00 48 00 65 00 6C 00 6C 00 6F This is the Unicode (big-endian) encoding with BOM. Notice that this BOM is in the opposite order from the little-endian BOM. (FE FF is prefix)

EF BB BF 48 65 6C 6C 6F This is UTF-8 encoding. The first three bytes are the UTF-8 encoding of the BOM. (EF BB BF is prefix)

So there is still a chance that short word with traditional ASCII or Unicode (little-endian) encoding with no BOM might start with EF BB BF, which is UTF-8 encoding prefix. Or maybe FF FE which is prefix for Unicode (little-endian) encoding with BOM.

When that happens, Notepad function IsTextUnicode might guess the wrong encoding as that prefix of other encoding. Remember no matter what encoding you saved with notepad, Notepad will try to guess again when you open the file.

But I don’t see this bug in Windows Vista anymore. So I think Microsoft guys have already developed improved IsTextUnicode function or make Notepad to open in saved file encoding.

Reference : MSDN blog

Top 10 reasons why you shouldn’t get a Mac

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Apple is giving reasons what they think is imperative for making the change from a PC to a Mac can be found on their website and their famous “I’m a PC, I’m a Mac” ads. After I’ve seen most of the Apple ads and have read their long lists of conviction, I don’t see any apparent reasons why Windows users should switch to Mac. Let’s start the list!

1. It just works.

Huh? What do you mean it just works? Many Mac ads will tell you that all people that own Mac are really satisfied with their computer and Mac never crash. This all turns out to be a pack of lies. It does crash a lot.

Normally, Windows crash because of third party faulty hardware, for Mac, it’s simply because their OS is suck. Just wonder why Apple Sweden website is running Solaris, not Mac OSX. Maybe they know their OS is not reliable.

For those who doubt whether Mac really crashes or not, watch this youtube video. It’s a proof that Mac crashes a lot.

2. You can even run Windows.

Apple just invented BootCamp and then came out and say “Come all Windows users, buy our expensive hardware; you can still use your Vista”. If you can indeed run Vista like on your normal PC, I wouldn’t complain. But you know what, all the function keys will drive you crazy.

**F5 changes the volume instead of refreshing.
**F4 lowers the volume instead of dropping a combo box.
And if all that weren’t bad enough, THERE’S NO RIGHT CLICK BUTTON!!! So besides being pretty, there is no point using the hardware for Windows.


3. Macs run Microsoft Office.

Come on! This is the funniest thing of all. I am really wondering about this. I mean Microsoft Office runs on Microsoft Windows. It just ported to Mac doesn’t mean we should switch to Mac. I just ask myself why should I switch when it’s the exactly same on the Mac?

4. Instant video chats.

Yeah! Yeah! Go and tell your grandmas. All PCs users are having great video chat, conference with Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! and so on since a long time ago.

5. Design that turns heads.

I won’t deny Mac looks stylish, neat and tidy. The problem is that their focus on design hinders them from creating practical Machines. If you have ever used the small round iMac mouse, you may have probably too suffered from aches in arm and hand.

6. No hunting for drivers.

Apple stated that USB and firewire devices will be working at Mac without having to install drivers. Well, that happens to PC since introducing Windows XP five years ago.

7. You can take it with you.

Apple website stated that most popular applications for Mac and PC use the same file formats, making it simple to exchange documents with friends and coworkers or move existing files from a PC to a Mac.

That is not true. We don’t have to be genius to know that switching to the Mac means we will be sacrificing the diversity of software available for the PC. Sure, you get the essential word-processor and web-browser. But you will get Gtalk with only chatting, who would want Gtalk if you can’t make voice chat?

8. 114,000 viruses? Not on a Mac.

Apple says their OS is based on UNIX, so it is more secure. But, in reality, the reason is that they can’t make OS from scratch like Windows, so they adopted FreeBSD and put some make-up on it.

Of course, there are many viruses for Windows, but Apple forgot to state that there are many Antivirus choices for Windows users as well. Most PCs users who’ve got antivirus never really suffer from virus problem too. Mac is not virus free (Bad boys can release viruses) and Antivirus choice is very limited if there’s any.

9. More fun with photos.

Apple is saying their so-called great invention program named iPhotos that will revolutionize the way we look at digital photos.

Maybe Mac users are new to digital photos on the computer but Windows users reached that stage of evolution ages ago.


10. Hollywood-style movies.

It seems that Apple thinks that they’ve revolutionized computing by developing mediocre software for viewing digital photos, editing video, burning CDs and DVDs and listening to music. Well they haven’t!

So don’t be fooled by Apple ads. You have nothing to gain by switching to a Mac. Apple has proved it on their website already. Who would want a mouse with just one button anyway???

Paint can create ico files

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I’m a big fan of MS Paint for its simplicity. And Paint is available in all Windows after all. But I didn’t realize that Paint can create ico files too.

Whenever I tried to save a file in paint, I drop down file types available and I’ve never seen .ico, so I thought I can’t save it. But you know, if you give file name with .ico, Paint create icon files for you.

You can use those icon files for your folders or even for favico. It’s cool!!