Windows 7 Can Not See My XP Computer

There are numerous possibilities but check if the XP machine is accessible.
Go to the XP machine, open a command prompt and type ipconfig. Write down the ip address.

or

Get an ip-scanner and scan from the Win7 machine for the ip of the XP machine.

On Win7 pop up run and type the XP ip address eg. \\192.168.1.68 or whatever.

Continuing

The User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded

The User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded. - Vista Forums: "How to Fix the Error 'The User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded.'"

Comments: Well this is new. My profile would not load. I used option #1 successfully. I did not use Safe Mode, just regedit. Sure beats reinstalling Windows or deleting the profile and starting over.

Chrome Tip for Copying and Pasting

Chrome Tip for Copying and Pasting: "The guys over at Google have come up with a solution! When they were building Chrome, they decided to throw in an additional shortcut that can be the answer to your copying and pasting prayer. You probably already know about the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-V to paste, but Google’s nifty little secret is the Ctrl-Shift-V and it will paste plain text only!"

Comments: No more pasting into Notepad first? Yea! Happy to know this.

Gpanion Groups Google Apps in an Attractive Easy-Access Dashboard

Gpanion Groups Google Apps in an Attractive Easy-Access Dashboard: "If your first stop after opening up your web browser is to load up various Google Apps, Gpanion is a sleek dashboard interface for all your favorites."

Comments: I have been using Gpanion for awhile now and find it useful. I have set it as my home page and the immediate information and access it provides for Gmail, Reader, Calendar and Tasks is beneficial. I fear my life is hooked into Google's evil empire.

Hint: If you would be adversely impacted by loosing your Google account, be sure you have your secondary email set up in Gmail settings. This way if some hack attempt closes down your account, Google can send verification to that secondary email. Otherwise verification can be a difficult process.

Connectify 2.1, Beta 4 finaly works

Where did you Connectify Today?: Connectify 2.1, Beta 4: "All right, it is time for us to serve up another fresh beta release of Connectify, available here:"

Comments: Looks like this beta works for me. First Connectify to work on my notebook. I have not tried them all but never could get them to work. My notebook has plain old Intel 5100 NIC which is in a ton of notebooks so don't know what the problem was.

I mysteriously started having trouble with Sleep crashing Windows 7 around the time I installed Connectify. Hard to tell if they were related. I will try uninstalling of course but would be interested to hear if anyone else had this happen. I use sleep often on my notebook so will be working on fixing it.

Repartitioning Hard Drive

I have not repartitioned a Hard Drive in awhile and I wanted to put Windows7 dual boot on an XP system. I needed to change from logical to primary and resize. I pulled out my old trusty Gparted and bad news, I forgot my XP OS was on a RAID 0 setup. Even though I didn't want to put Win7 on the RAID, just running Gparted trashed my Master Boot Record. Easy to fix (thanks Hiren) but I had to find new software. Free resources for HD partitioning has come a long way. I grabbed Partition Wizard but Easeus would probably have done as well. Easeus seems more popular for some reason.

You can have 4 Primary partitions maximum, only 3 if you have any logical partitions. There is no limit to logical partitions.

Download links:

Partition Wizard

Easeus

Nice thing about Win7 is it can go on any primary drive. Change your boot priority in BIOS setup to the Win7 drive. Then use EasyBCD (free) to add your existing XP install to the dual boot option.

SlimDrivers [Automated Driver Updates] - Coming Soon

SlimDrivers [Automated Driver Updates] - Coming Soon

This driver finder works and is free for now in BETA. One irritation is the insistence on reboot after a driver install. The first time it found only Windows updates (which I have no need of) but the recent update did find 3 new hardware drivers. I don't know if it keeps the driver somewhere (have not found them yet) but even if you select several drivers and download all, it downloads them one at a time, installs and forces a reboot. Be sure to set options to handle reboot, update, etc.

I would use this for driver finding first before trying others.

I have not tried it on XP yet and maybe the Windows update could be useful there.

The Complete Android Guide

The Complete Android Guide - Complete Guides

Available on line. Should we read it? I probably won't but it is a resource.

XP/Win7 Network Can't See Each Other

One problem might be Windows 7 is set to "handle" networking instead of "Use user accounts".

Find these settings in Network and Sharing > Advanced Sharing:

Some day I'm going to find out what "Home Group" is and what it does, way down on my list of things to do.

Sync for Chrome - Use It? Nope

Edit: Sync started zapping my extensions so I quit using it. Back to drawing board.

Sync settings across multiple computers : Basic browser settings - Google Chrome Help: "You can keep your bookmarks, browser preferences, and browser theme synchronized on multiple computers, using your Google Account. This can be handy if you often switch between different computers (say, your home computer as well as your work laptop) and want the same Google Chrome settings across your computers."

Comments: Now that I use Chrome, I use Sync within Chrome to keep my extensions and bookmarks synced between the machines. Works great. I mention this only because sync with Firefox was less than stellar the last time I tried it.

I am really liking Chrome and I didn't want to (the evil Google thing).

Free Fax Possibility

K7 Unified Messaging, free Fax and voicemail to email.: "Sign up for K7, the world's leading web-based unified messaging system that channels your free voicemail and fax messages directly to your e-mail. K7 Unified Messaging provides you with a free phone number. This number enables you to have your voicemail messages and faxes delivered directly to your computer. You also have the option to view and listen to your messages right here on the K7 Web site."

Comments: Trying it. Free and working is hard to find. OK it worked. Setup activates immediately and you receive a phone number. When deactivated after 30 days of inactivity, just set up a new account. Best one I have tried. K7 is for receiving fax only.

Why would a person need this? I usually have a computer and scanner but sometimes no fax machine to receive faxes from Fred Flintstone. This covers Fred.

Sending fax try Faxaway. Costs are reasonable for sending, 11 cents per minute, but setup takes time to process a payment reserve account so set it up a few days before you need it. (I have not tried this one yet.) If you have a paid email account such as Charter or Comcast, payment can be set up online. If you only have Gmail or Hotmail the application must be sent snail mail.

Step-by-Step Guide to Installing iTunes Without Extra Bloatware - How-To Geek

Step-by-Step Guide to Installing iTunes Without Extra Bloatware - How-To Geek: "Apple released iTunes 10 a couple of weeks ago, and unfortunately it’s not much of an improvement if at all. Last week Ed Bott wrote up The unofficial guide to installing iTunes 10 without bloatware. Today we take a closer look at the process of doing a minimal install of it in Windows 7 to avoid the extra junk.�"

Comments: I hate iTunes but this will help one pet peeve if you just have to use it.

These are the files to install:

CreatePDF.in: Convert Webpage to PDF and Download

CreatePDF.in: Convert Webpage to PDF and Download

Comments: So why would you want to create a PDF of a web page? No idea but now you can.

How to Resize All Window Columns with a Single Keystroke - How-To Geek

How to Resize All Window Columns with a Single Keystroke - How-To Geek: "When you’re dealing with an application that displays data in a set of columns, it’s often frustrating to have to resize each column separately—but today we’ve got a great trick for you that resizes all the columns with a single keystroke.

The secret keystroke to use is Ctrl and the Numpad’s "plus" key, and it only works if you have a separate number pad on your PC—but we’ve also found a workaround for that as well. Keep reading."

Comments: handy dandy I never knew

Stuff list for my EVO

SMOKE ARGYLE Crystal Skin is a great and cheap soft vinyl cover case $7.95 shipped.

Micro USB cables and car adapters from MonoPrice for around $2 each.

I am leaving the face unprotected for now. I love the smoothness. Hey, it is glass not plastic.

Removing Facebook Sync from Evo

Calendar:

Go to calander. click on a day, click menu, click more, then click "calendars" and deselect the Facebook option. (Voila, no more birthdays)

Hat Tip: Android Central

"People" Facebook annoying sync behavior is disabled in similar fashion.

Just made Chrome my default browser at the office

I feel like a traitor. Yes, I have succumbed to the evil Google empire and defaulted to Chrome over Firefox - at least on one machine. I have had times when Fox is faster than Chrome and don't know why but usually Chrome is faster. I'm not sure where I will end up.

Edit: Yikes, I'm using Chrome on my laptop, too. Alas, poor Firefox ... I knew him.

My List of Android Apps (developing)

My Android apps on AppBrain

(the embed does not list all my apps)

Weather Bug (never liked it on PC but great on Android) (has radar of sorts but home entry only)
Radar Now (quick weather Radar at your location but need gps on)

WiFi Analyzer (gives graphic quality of wifi signals)

Drudge Easy (Android DrudgeReport) (super easy read)

Swype (keyboard) stupid beta keeps expiring - had to resort to PirateBay

Dolphin Browser but unconvinced of usefulness yet.

Google Maps & Street View (LifeHacker)

Google Voice (I still prefer the native Message app for SMS so far but all call GV)

FlightView works great

TuneIn Radio is great

Considering:

TinEye Reverse Image Search

TinEye Reverse Image Search

Upload an image and TinEye searches for matches. Not sure what I would use if for yet but there must be something.

How to prolong lithium-based batteries

How to prolong lithium-based batteries: "A lithium-ion battery provides 300-500 discharge/charge cycles. The battery prefers a partial rather than a full discharge. Frequent full discharges should be avoided when possible. Instead, charge the battery more often or use a larger battery. There is no concern of memory when applying unscheduled charges.

Although lithium-ion is memory-free in terms of performance deterioration, batteries with fuel gauges exhibit what engineers refer to as 'digital memory'. Here is the reason: Short discharges with subsequent recharges do not provide the periodic calibration needed to synchronize the fuel gauge with the battery's state-of-charge. A deliberate full discharge and recharge every 30 charges corrects this problem. Letting the battery run down to the cut-off point in the equipment will do this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate"

Comments: Some say to run your EVO battery to zero to "calibrate". Here is a somewhat official reference for doing it. My EVO has good battery life but I'm doing it once anyway. There is a caution to not do it more than once a month. If you can't trust "BatteryUniversity.com" who can you trust. Is that Ivy League?

Learn a few Gmail shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts - Gmail Help

Keyboard shortcuts help you save time by allowing you to never take your hands off the keyboard to use the mouse. You'll need a Standard 101/102-Key or Natural PS/2 Keyboard to use the shortcuts.

Comments: Learning a few keyboard shortcuts makes Gmail easier and faster.

How long to brute force your password

How Secure Is My Password?

How Secure Is My Password? Enter it here and immediately know how long a brute force would take. Wow, a word would take 5 hours but add some numbers and the time boosts to 15 thousand years.

Hat tip: Be Your Own Boss