August 2007 Archives

Problem Description
Customer's Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop won't power on properly, won't boot. No video signal is sent to the display. Can hear fan spin up. When power button is pressed, caps lock flashes 10 times, then laptop powers down.

Absolutely nothing is more aggravating than a slow, unresponsive computer.  Well, alright, I suppose there's a handful of things more aggravating.  But short of tossing out the slow computer and replacing it with a shiny new PC, what can a user do to speed things up?

Here are some tips and techniques for getting your computer back on track.

Recently I worked on a project modernizing communications with some 1980's era CNC milling and wire EDM machines.  Here are some things I took away from the project.

Have you been putting off dealing with your old programs?  You're not alone.  When it comes to migrating old legacy applications to new hardware, it seems like there's always at least one unexpected challenge that pops up.

What do you do when an important program is no longer supported?  What if the company that created the software no longer exists?  What about copy protection devices?  Does the software even run on modern hardware?

With the right strategies, modernizing doesn't have to be a difficult process.

A few years ago, I started using Kaspersky Antivirus.  At first it was only on my personal Windows boxes.  But after I'd had some time to really use KAV, I found that I really liked the way it took care of business.  I've since installed it on all my work PCs.  And in the last year or so I've been recommending it to customers.