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Recently performed a repair install on a netbook (which is enough of an ordeal to deserve its own post). After performing the repair install, instead of being dumped into the desktop like before, I was greeted with the message: “This copy of windows has not been activated. Would you like to activate it now? y/n” Ignore the polite tone of voice. What it’s really saying is: “Microsoft trusts nobody, and until you jump through our hoops you can’t use this computer.” Clicking “no” dumps you back at the login screen, so really you only have one choice. Clicking “yes” closes the prompt and brings you to an empty screen where […]

We received a request from a residential customer to rig up an electronic fish tank.  She noted that the massive HDTV on her living room wall went unused when she was playing music, and wondered if there was a way to show an aquarium.

In this example, I’ll talk a bit about the very workstation I am writing this blog post from.  I’ll tell you how it’s configured, what’s running on it, why, how much it cost, and why it works for us. 1-The box The box itself is a second hand Dell OptiPlex GX270 with a Pentium 4 processor running at 2.4 Ghz.  Some of you out there will gawk at a technology company using a 4 year old workstation, but I’ll be the first to tell you that these boxes are dirt cheap ($90-$100), can come with a valid Windows XP license, and will run all the office software, load all the […]

A broken backlight is a common ailment of aging laptops.  Sometimes they burn out, sometimes they break, but the itsy bitsy  tube that gives life and light to every LCD panel out there is not going to last forever.  You will know your backlight is not working if your computer does everything it normally does, but you can barely see an image on the screen.  It’s as if the screen is off, but you can see your desktop and mouse if you squint your eyes.  If your backlight breaks early, here are the  options we recommend: 1. Fix it!  When the backlight doesn’t work, it’s either one of two things… […]