Month: October 2005

I have recently spotted something interesting!

After IM spam, email spam and spam comments and spam offering spam, there is personalized spam wishing you Happy Birthday! Haha! 🙂

Technorati Tags: Spam, personalized
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There are 2 new ICQ 5 skins (for Halloween this time!).

Thanks to Shmanky for posting it in my forum! 🙂

Technorati Tags: ICQ, skin
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Did you know that the heros of the bureaucracy are able to track which printer was used to print a document?

Yup I am not joking with, but sure shocking you to prove you that many printers print hiddden codes on the paper which indicate which printer was used to print that document.

For more details please check the List of Printers Which Do or Don’t Print Tracking Dots

My printer is not listed, hope that’s a good sign! O:-)

Technorati Tags: Printer, tracking
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Some day I was visiting a Commodore 64 related homepage (see: What is a Commodore 64?)), I clicked on an “empty banner” of the Commodore 64 Banner Exchange and got lead to the following homepage:

and I had to laugh a lot and shake my head pretty much! I mean, this banner exchange is sure not meant to promote questionable online poker and casino game internet portals! 😀

That’s also a way to make promotion, and sure not a good one…

Technorati Tags: Commodore, Banner Exchange
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Well, I have finally received a reply from Nvidia to the USB Legacy issue.

So in total, it looks like this:

MSI Taiwan” wrote:

Please notice if customer have below problem.

I ever heard a bug if customer didn’t set Keyboard/Mouse USB Legacy
support to enable or disable at same time.

System will need around 5 mins to enter OS.

When you set these two items to enable or disable at same time and it
solve.

It is Nvidia chipset limitation.”

“Nvidia” wrote:

The nForce4 Ultra Media Communications Processor can support Legacy USB Keyboard/Mouse function. NVIDIA customers other than MSI have this function working for legacy devices so this is a MSI BIOS issue.

In general, this does not sound like a chip problem but System BIOS issue or implementation limitation.

So, it’s funny, the responsible for this is moved between MSI to Nvidia back on forth. I think I will better connect my devices on PS/2, instead!

I just found it funny and so, I thought I would post it here! 🙂

Technorati Tags: Motherboard, MSI
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When my motherboard died it also took the CPU with it!

Infact, I have received an email from the mailtrader today, that the CPU is unfortunately damaged, too!

They wrote that I will receive a replacement CPU soon, at least I have today received a parcel with a replacement motherboard 🙂

Technorati Tags: Motherboard, hardware error
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Blogger figures out more and more ways to protect its community of bloggers against spam and scary blogs. I have just read on Kaye’s Blog about Blogging the fact, that Blogger has since a while a new feature called “Flag This Blog. They write the following:

“the “Flag?” button allows the blogging community to easily note questionable content, which in turn helps us take action when needed. So we’re relying on you, the users, to be our eyes on the web, and to let us know of potential issues that are important to you.”

.

I think it’s a pretty neat idea! 🙂

Oh she also links to other sources and examples!

Technorati Tags: Blogger, Flag This Blog
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I proudly present my newest addition to the List Of Weird hardware errors!:

the board is dead, it died on October, 4th. I would switch the pc on
and the board would freeze after cpu detection. it did that also straight after
I have out the pc together, but pressing on all componnents fixed it once in a
while. also FDD wouldn’t be detected once in a while. But yesterday, pressing
all componnents no longer helped, the board won’t do anything but work. I have
spoken to a PC technican of the mail trader, they said it sounds very much like
the board was damaged right from the beginning and (that is also my opinion),
that the non-working front USB is a first sign of a slowly diying motherboard.

They also said, that they know from own experience that flashing MSI boards is
troublesome and that the bootdisks from LiveUpdate mave missing files, also
happened quite often.

Also, they meant that the replacement board will most probably carry a more
recent BIOS version, but it’s impossible for them to perform wishes like doing
BIOS updates before sending out hardware to their costumers.

Also quoting the manual and quoating the technican, this board features not the
diagnostic LEDs. However in contrast to the manual which states., that the
hispeed usb 2 bracket shipped with the board has 1 connector and no LED (there
is a picture of it in the manaul), the bracket shipped with the board _has LEDs
and 2 connectors_!

My replacement board will be here after 2-4 weeks.

Technorati Tags: Motherboard, hardware error
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this is a followup of my ViewSonic story ala “A poor customer tries to receive a reply”
Meanwhile ViewSonic Sweden and ViewSonic United Kindom replied to me!

Notice that ViewSonic Germany on phone and ViewSonic UK in email said, that none of my emails sent to ViewSonic Germany ever arrived!

Now, I have the prove that they have arrived! The technical support just needed a month to reply to them.

Here is copy of my reply email to ViewSonic Sweden and ViewSonic UK:

“Hello Shermaine & Sophie,

Since you both replied to my email asking me about the status about my inquery to ViewSonic Germany, here the update on the situation:

it appears to me that my emails sent to the support form on the homepage of ViewSonic Germany (http://www.viewsoniceurope.com/de/support/technicalmail.htm?c=de – it causes a 404 error at the moment, by the way), finally got replied after 4 (!) weeks, since I have just received an email reply from a Mr. Kai Kugler, ViewSonic Warranty Line.

The sender address was Kugler@ml.xtrasource.nl and http://ml.xtrasource.nl leads me to “Xtrasource B.V. Login – Consumer Contact Solutions”!
(Which seems to be the system you use to reply to technical form emails?).

Replying to it causes a:

“… User unknown”

So the “not arrived” technical form emails from me arrived as it seems. ViewSonic Germany just needs a month to reply to them!
You really should improve the way you handle technical support emails.

By the way: My “support ticket” even got a reference number now!

It’s: VSCXXXXXX-XXXXX.

Sincerely,
Joerg Droege”

Wow! I am fascinated! 🙂

Technorati Tags: ViewSonic, support
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Yup, I have bought Windows XP 64bit, yes I really bought it! And it’s interesting, it’s really quite faster, even while browsing using Internet Explorer (64bit version)!

I have found here a statement about Windows XP 64bit I fully agree with:

Omnipotent wrote:

“I use Windows XP 64bit. I find it to be awesome. It is pretty rare you will find something that won’t work with it in my experience. I couldn’t get a driver for my brother printer, but I tried a bunch of different ones and got a default one that worked fine with it.

The graphics drivers and etc are all sweet for it now. I have a 6800GT.

I don’t notice any improvement in games at all, but windows runs a hell of a lot faster IMO. (I have run XP 32bit and 64bit on the same PC as a comparison, FPS was exactly the same in games but windows certainly ran a **** load faster.)

I haven’t had any issues at all really. There are a couple programs that won’t run on it that I have found, the only thing that bothered me was Alcohol 120% which I used to mount CD images, but there is a freeware one that works on XP64bit and it is sweet as.

I guess you will run into a couple problems but all of them you can sort out. Just make sure your motherboard has XP64bit drivers for it and if so you should be sweet.”

Luckily, my motherboard has 64bit drivers! 🙂

There is also a great list of 64bit drivers and 64bit prgs which can be found here. I am now using the avast virusscanner (as mentioned there).

Also Logitech released a 64bit version of the SetPoint drivers.

Also ATI released 64bit drivers.

Epson only refers to the 64bit drivers shipped with Windows XP 64bit.

Unfortunately no Leadtek or Plustek 64bit drivers as of yet, but Leadtek wrote the following to me into an email:

“Hello,

On this moment are we waiting for the driver of the manufactor of the chip
There will be a driver but I cannot tell you when

Met vriendelijke groet,
Best regards,

Leadtek Support”

I will let you know once I have news about it!

The Windows XP 64bit covers two CDs, one is the English versions (weird to install if you are not used to English Windows, hehe!) and one is the German/Japanese language pack on CD.

I have installed it, created a new user account with administrator permissions and everything is translated, except the Windows prgs descriptions in Sodftware ->Add/Remove Windows applications! 🙂

And Windows Update is great, just 12 updates to download and install, sweet! 🙂

Technorati Tags: drivers, Windows XP 64bir
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