work

This is a Christmas story. It is also a tale about the extension of the life of a computer. I suppose you could say that this posting is a good example of what you can get for the new computer user. This saga starts with a phone call from a good ... friend describing her desire to purchase a computer for her husband. He was sharing her system that was in use most of the time for business purposes and it was difficult for him to have the use of it. Therefore, the need was real. Her problem was that funds were extremely tight and she did not have the money to buy a computer. "I only have $100 to ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Aimee P. writes: " Dear Dennis, I would like to transfer some photos from my work laptop to my personal laptop. What is the easiest way to do this? Is there some cord I can buy that can connect the two laptops which will enable me ... to transfer the photos quickly? The work laptop is a Toshiba Satellite Pro Pentium 4 on Windows XP. My personal laptop is an old Compaq on Windows 2000. Any advice is appreciated! " My response: There are a number of ways you can transfer your photos [or any other file type, for that matter] from one laptop to another. My answer is in no ... (view more)

Recall -- Following with our recent theme on " backup software ", I announced last week that I be compiling an in-depth review on a disk imaging software. In a subsequent newsletter, I asked Infopackets Readers to send me their opinions (good or ... bad) on their favorite imaging program. Responses have been strong, with about 60 opinions to date. Based on those opinions, the consensus is that Acronis True Image is ranked as the favorite recommendation, providing best overall feature set and the least amount of bugs and incompatibilities. One other strong point brought to my attention ... (view more)

The next few feature articles of our newsletter will spotlight 4 editorials written by Kevin J. Vella of UniBlue, and provides an interesting and in-depth view of choosing a backup solution. -- It was Sunday, the 23rd of November 2003 at 4 PM, and I ... was in my final months of Graduate Business School. Two chapters of my research project were stashed on my hard drive -- no hard copies, just bits and bytes of hard work compiled over the last three months. I was punching away at my keyboard -- when all of a sudden, my notebook slowed dramatically. I started closing down open applications in hopes ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Lynn H. writes: " Dear Dennis, I read your article on CD Mastering Software. I do not know that much about computers, so I am a bit confused as to what I need. Here is my problem: I have 2 Hewlett-Packard (HP) computers. The CD-RW ... drive died on one of them, and was replaced with a DVD Burner, which came bundled with Nero Burning ROM CD Recording Software. The other still uses DirectCD to record CDs. The problem is that discs I create using DirectCD cannot be read in the DVD Burner drive on the other computer. Is there a program out there that will allow both DirectCD ... (view more)

Recall -- A few weeks back, Infopackets Reader Brad B. asked if it was possible to transfer his digital camera photo software from his work computer to his home PC: " Dear Dennis, Many years ago, I bought a digital camera that came with the software ... program called 'Camedia'. Unfortunately my computer crashed last year and (worse yet) I can't find the CD to reinstall it on my PC! Before I lost the disc, I managed to install Camedia on the computer at work, and thankfully, it's still working fine. I have tried copying the Camedia files from the work computer to my home computer, but it won ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Peg M. asks: " Dear Dennis, Yesterday, I read your article on RoboForm. I use the Mozilla Firebird browser and was wondering: how can I install RoboForm installed on Firebird instead of Internet Explorer (which is used by ... default)? " My Response: For those of you who are just tuning in: RoboForm is a free web Browser 'plug-in' replacement for Internet Explorer's AutoComplete form feature. Some features of the free version include: Save / auto fill password info from login form, Automatic login to online accounts, Fill long online forms from Identities, and more. ... (view more)

Lately I've been getting a lot of emails from folks who are in the same predicament as I am: Windows XP crashes when an Nvidia video driver is installed. MSI (MicroStar, Incorporated) is the company that manufactured my particular video card; Nvidia ... makes the graphic chip (GPU, or Graphics Processing Unit) present on the card which allows me to play 3D games. I'm using the video card in combination with a Tyan Tiger MP2460 multiprocessor motherboard (AMD 760MP chipset). In the past, I've tried to get my Ge-Force MX-400 video card to work with Windows XP using many suggested methods, including ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Victor R. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently bought a CD-RW 24x10x40 drive and have used to to copy two disk without trouble. Lately, I tried to make an audio CD from files that I downloaded from the net. I got up to 75% completion ... and then my computer had a fatal error. The error was 'Vcache (01) +00000fc7 Error: oe: c004E663'; I wasn't sure if my computer was fast enough for the 24 spin recorder, so I tried slowing the speed of the copying process but still received the same error. As another possibility, I turned off the virus protect and all other running programs ... (view more)