PC Tutorials Online

When you’re dealing with repairing PC’s at a hardware level, you must think logically to find the problem. This flow chart by Morris Rosenthat is very helpful when dealing with such problems. It lists all the main parts of a computer and gives suggestions to fix the problem. It’s worth having. Enjoy.

Download Boot Faliure Flow Chart

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I was editing my blog today and testing out a new plugin for me called Subscribe Remind. It automatically adds a small insert of text kindly reminding the user to subscribe to your blog. However, whilst it did add the supplied text to each post, it could be seen on every individual post on the homepage. Scrolling through your homepage with the same line of text every couple of lines did not look very professional at all. To fix it, a small change to the code was needed.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Open up subscribe-remind.php in your text editor.

2. Find the line ” if ( !is_feed() && !is_page() ) ” and add ” && !is_home() ” (without the quote) so that it looks like this:

if ( !is_feed() && !is_page() && !is_home() )

3. Save the file and reupload it to your /wp-content/plugins/subscribe-remind directory.
4. Refresh the homepage and that’s it!

Hope this tip was helpful. Let me know.

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Firefox is a great web browser, but in comparison to Internet Explorer’s startup speed, Firefox lags behind. This is because Microsoft integrated IE into windows and loads into the memory. Some developer has made a nifty program to load firefox into the memory at startup. Pretty sweet huh? Download your copy of Firefox Preloader today.

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Today, Firefox is a very popular alternative to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. If you’re a user of Firefox, here is a list of tips that will make your web browsing experience easier and much more enjoyable.

Tip: Double Clicking empty space on the Tab Bar will open a ‘New Tab’

Tip: Middleclick/MouseWheelClick on a Bookmark on your Personal Toolbar will open it up in a New Tab

Tip: MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on a folder will open all the bookmarks in the folder in a new Tab(s)

Tip: holding down the Shift or Ctrl key when you RightClick to “View Image” or “View Backround Image”will open the image in a New Tab or New Window.

Tip: Unused menus or menu Items can be hidden by using the customizing your userChrome.css stylesheet

Tip: MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on a Tab will close that Tab.

Tip: MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on a History item will open the page in a new Tab

Tip: MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on the Back and Forward buttons will open the last/next page in a new Tab

Tip: MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on the Home button will open your homepage in a new Tab(s)

Tip: MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on the Throbber (the ‘busy’ icon at the top-right) will open the Firefox homepage in a new Tab

Tip: For those without middle mouse buttons or mousewheels, ctrl-click will also open new tabs for links, bookmarks, bookmark folders, history items, and toolbar buttons

Tip: Ctrl+TAB you can navigate in the tabs to the right

Tip: Ctrl+Shift+Tab you can navigate in the tabs to the left

Tip: Many Laptops mimic the MiddleClick/MouseWheelClick function if you click both right/left pads at the same time.

Tip: Set mutliple Home pages : Tools—->Options—>General and seperate each page with the pipe | symbol
(eg h**p://forums.mozillazine.org/|h**p://www.google.com|h**p://www.y..]h**p://forums.mozillazine.org/|h**p://www….|h**p://www.y…

Tip: Clear your Download history to make the download manager more responsive : Tools—->Options—>Privacy

Tip: Rearrange add/remove Icons on Toolbars: View—>ToolBars—>Customize….

Tip: Drag any link to the Download Manager Window to add & download the link

Tip: Pressing ctrl+enter will add h**p://www. before and .com after the text in the toolbar and load the resulting url. Similarly, shift+enter will add h**p://www. and .net, and ctrl+shift+enter will add h**p://www. and .org

Tip: You can work offline like in IE by clicking File>Work Offline. This means that you can browse your previously visited pages even when you’re offline.

Tip: If you wish to remove an item from your Address Bar Drop down menu, Highlight it WITHOUT CLICKING and use Shift+Delete

Tip: A bookmarks’s position Dragged & Dropped (ie. change position in a Folder or move from one folder to another or move to another position on the toolbar) by highlighting it & clicking on it (WITHOUT LETTING GO) and Dragging it to your desired position

Tip: A Folder can be move the same way as above tip but u MUST hold down the SHIFT key while Dragging

Tip: Former/current users of IE who are accustomed to copying items from “Temporary Internet Files” folder (FireFox calls it “Cache” ) can achieve the same results by Tools—>Page Info and then select the “Media” Tab, then Highlight the item u want to download and clicking “Save As…”

Tip: If u accidentally delete a bookmark and want to recover it, if it is not already open then, open the “Bookmarks Manager” (Bookmarks—>Manage Bookmarks) and either use Ctrl+Z or Edit—>Undo (in The Bookmarks Manager)

Tip: DoubleClicking a file entry in the Downloads Manager will open/launch the file (provided u haven’t moved it yet)

Tip: You can also directly download anything from a page by drag and dropping it onto the ‘download’ icon in your toolbar (provided you put it there in ‘right-click > customize’)

Tip: You can bookmark the current page by dragging the icon from the location bar to your Bookmarks folder. You can also drag it to the desktop to make an icon for that page

Tip: Of course, you can also do what the last tip said in the other direction: drag a text file, a link, a picture, etcetera… from your folders or your desktop to Firefox and it will open in Firefox

Tip: You can save all open tabs in a bookmark folder. Ctl-D, select the “bookmark all tabs in a folder” select or create a folder.

Tip: To stop animated gifs from moving, press the ESC key.

Tip: Instead of clicking the Back or Forward buttons, hold down the Shift key and turn the scroll wheel to back or forward

Tip: you can give “keywords” to your bookmarks by right-clicking the bookmark and then Properties. If you put a string in the keyword field now you can type that keyword in the address bar and it will go to that bookmark. For example, if I have a bookmark for the firefox website, I might give it the keyword “ff”. Now, when I type “ff” in the address bar, it goes to the firefox site. I find it is often faster than going through your bookmarks to find it

Tip: Ctrl and a number key will go to the tab indicated by the number. (e.g. Ctrl+3 will go to the third tab from the left)

Tip: CTRL+F5 refreshes the page without accessign the file cache

Firefox Mouse Tips

Middle Click
Note: Two-button mouse

For those without middle mouse buttons or mousewheels, ctrl-click will also open new tabs for links, bookmarks, bookmark folders, history items, and toolbar buttons.

Many Laptops mimic the MiddleClick/MouseWheelClick function if you click both right/left pads at the same time.

Clicking both mouse buttons at the same time also mimics the MiddleClick/MouseWheelClick function.

Tabs

MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on a Tab will close that Tab.

Personal Toolbar

Middleclick/MouseWheelClick on a Bookmark on your Personal Toolbar will open it up in a New Tab

Folders

MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on a folder will open all the bookmarks in the folder in a new Tab(s)

History

MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on a History item will open the page in a new Tab.

Back and Forward buttons

MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on the Back and Forward buttons will open the last/next page in a new Tab.

Home button

MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on the Home button will open your homepage in a new Tab(s).

Links

MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on a link will open that link in a new tab.

Throbber

MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on the Throbber (the ‘busy’ icon at the top-right) will open the Firefox homepage in a new Tab.

Images

Middleclick/MouseWheelClick on “View Image” or “View Background Image” will open the image in a New Tab.

Double Click
Download Manager

DoubleClicking a file entry in the Downloads Manager will open/launch the file (provided you haven’t moved it yet)

Tab Bar

Double Clicking empty space on the Tab Bar will open a ‘New Tab’

Right Click
Customize Toolbar

You can adjust your toolbars to your liking. Right click on any toolbar, and select ‘Customize’. While this dialogue is up, you can move buttons around on your toolbars by click-and-drag to the new location. The window that pops up when you do this is a holding area for unused icons. You can drag any item from it onto your toolbars to have it made available, and you can drag any icon from your toolbars onto this box to hide that icon completely.

Tip: Some toolbar items, such as the Location bar, will expand to take up all available space.

Keyword Bookmark

Right clicking in a search box (such as the ’search mozillazine, powered by google’, on the left of this page) and selecting ‘add a keyword for this search’ lets you make an interactive keyword bookmark.

Here is how it works:

Give it a name, such as ‘Mozillazine search’
now, assign a keyword to it, such as ‘moz’
click ‘ok’

From now on, you can search mozillazine (or any other search box you used for this) from your address bar like this:

Enter ‘moz search topic’ in your address bar and click Go!

Drag’n Drop
Moving bookmarks and folders

You can change a bookmark’s position in a folder or move it from one folder to another or move it to another position on the toolbar by highlighting it & clicking on it (WITHOUT LETTING GO) and dragging it to your desired position.

A folder can be moved the same way as above tip but u MUST hold down the SHIFT key while dragging.

Icons

You can bookmark the current page by dragging the icon from the location bar to your Bookmarks folder. You can also drag it to the desktop to make an icon for that page.

Drag a text file, a link, a picture, etcetera… from your folders or your desktop to Firefox and it will open in Firefox!

Links

“Click-and-drag” a bookmark to the main content windown (which is the biggest on the firefox userinterface),so you can open it in a new tab !

Dragging a link onto a new tab will open the link in the new tab.

Downloading links

Drag any link to the Download Manager Window to add & download the link.

You can also directly download anything from a page by drag and dropping it onto the ‘download’ icon in your toolbar (provided you put it there in ‘right-click > customize’)

Mouse and Keyboard
Images

Holding down the Shift or Ctrl key when you RightClick to “View Image” or “View Background Image” will open the image in a New Tab or New Window.

Selecting text

If you hold down the CTRL key and left click on part of a web page, that section of the page will be highlighted. If you right click on the selection and choose ‘View selection source’, the source code for that part of the page will be displayed.

To quickly highlight text, especially long text fields. Left-click once in the window where you want the selection to start; and then shift-click in the spot where you want the selection to end (selection range). *this is a lot easier than click-selection-dragging, especially where there is a lot of text to highlight.

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RAM in PC’s today is extremely prone to damage and can render useless if the slightest damage is done. When there is a fault in hardware the hardware, the user must try and debug the problem. Memtest86 is a great utility to use to test memory.

Being a PC builder, I’ve repaired many PC’s and can tell you sometimes isolating problems isn’t such an easy task. If a memory stick is the problem, you could of course take one stick out and leave the other one in there and then vice versa. But if you only have one stick of RAM available, memtest86 can help you out. All you need is blank CD or Floppy disk. Memtest86 is a standalone program, so you do not need an operating system installed to use this program.

I could keep writing about it however everything you need to know is listed on the Memtest86 tech page. So if run into trouble with PC memory, use this program like you use your Swiss army knife.

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Q: When i play a DVD on my PC, why is it all choppy and starts stuttering?

A: This a common question that gets asked by a lot of end users. Usually, DMA (Direct Memory Access) is not enabled. To enable this, right click on the desktop, select properties>settings>advanced>troubleshoot and drag the slider all the way to Full. If it already is, drag it to none, and click apply. Then drag it back to full and apply. Reset if needed. This should re-enable Video acceleration, thus fixing the stuttering problem. When enabled, this allows the DVD drive to send the video information directly to the memory, bypassing the hard disk and error checking properties.

It’s also recommended that your PC at least have a Pentium 3 500 MHz processor. If your processor is above 500 MHz and is still having problems having problems playing movies, make sure anti-virus software and other programs are shutdown, as they suck up memory and CPU cycles. While you’re at it, give your PC a defrag to help things along.

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Most people today have a laptop. Whether it’s for business or school home work, they all share one thing in common; they risk hard disk failure.  A lot of people instantly think that there is no hope in seeing their data again. This wouldn’t be an issue if they had a recent backup. But not everyone does a full backup. So for those of you who fall in to this category, read on.

There are different routes into tackling this problem. Because there are so many factors involved, we’re going to assume the hard disk is still functional to a basic operation level. If the hard disk has had a fatal crash, a lot more work and money is involved.

Dismantling the laptop, disconnect the hard disk and remove it. If you’re not sure how to dismantle it, punch in Google “how to dismantle laptop”. We want to be able to access the data on the desktop, so you’ll want to use a SATA to USB cable OR an IDE to USB cable, depending on the connector of the drive. You’ll need a 12 volt source for the hard disk which can be obtained from a molex power cable in the PC. Plug it all in in, and boot the PC. Take a browse in my computer and you should see the laptop hard disk listed. Copy over all the files and information that is needed to the desktop. Depending on the situation, you may want to format the hard disk, re-install the OS, and re-use the hard disk. If the hard disk is aging or you suspect a mechanical fault, buying a new laptop hard disk wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Just make sure you choose the right connector (IDE or SATA). In new laptops SATA will be the most likely connector as IDE connectivity is an aging technology.

Hope that saves you some hassles.

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It’s what everyone is looking for; to speed up a PC easily and quickly. There are many products out there that claim to improve your PC. Most of them work well, others just cause problems, and there are a rare few that perform exceedingly well. Today, I’m going to reveal to you one of them.

Tuneup Utilities 2008 is a Godsend for those who need instant speed and a cleanup. It’s first development started in 1996, with it first release in ‘97 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. And today, it’s a very popular tool amongst PC enthusiasts because of is simplicity. And this program does give results. Featuring an effective defragmentation tool for Hard disks, a defragmentation tool also for the registry, a startup manager, an internet optimization tool, and much more Tuneup utilities 2008 is an ace program.

Optimization is the main purpose of this program; however they have gone a bit further in allowing users to customize windows. With over 400 options to choose from, optimizing windows just got a little bit sweeter.

More information : Tuneup Utilities 2008

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