Random Fix - Computer Help

I haven’t been around much, mainly due to work and family issues.

I’ve had quite a few problems that I’ve tried to document but a lot of the times I have to work with so many computers that I cannot make time to jot down step by step procedures on how to fix a specific problem.

Ideally I’d love to contribute more content to this blog but I know it has to be good quality, and not sporadic semi-great quality posts.

I am looking forward to rebuilding the blog and trying to create at least one post per day.

That’s my goal for the next month or two.  I would like to add content at least once per day, whether it is new things online, tech related, or a fix to a problematic solution.

I hope that you all hang in there, I will be around more soon.  Thanks and aloha.

So I’ve been using IE8 for the past few days and so far it’s great.  There are times when it’s really slow though.

More so when you try to open a new tab, its just so damn slow.  Much more than IE7 was.

I know you can disable all of the BHOs from being used and this should theoretically speed things up but so far no dice.

I’m hoping that there’ll be incremental patches rolled out by the IE team as it says that all future bugs coming through Connect will “automatically be fixed.”  Here’s hoping to them keeping their promise or either that I read that entire thing out of context.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9129998&intsrc=news_ts_head

I received a bunch of updates on a few of the bugs I submitted and when this usually happens it means that a new version is being rolled out.  It looks like the final version is here.

There is one MAJOR flaw with Microsoft’s IntelliPoint software and IE8, final build included.

If you use the accelerated scrolling feature within IntelliPoint, which I do, you will notice that your screen, upon scrolling, will go up and down.  The feature is basically crippled.

Microsoft informed me that they’ll talk to the right team and see if they can get it worked out.  In the mean time I doubt it will be worked out for the next 6-12 months.  I think I’ll stick with IE7 for now.

I got a 2g iPhone the other week.  I’m in love with it.  It’s one of the greatest phones I’ve ever used, well I should say it is the greatest and bestest phone I’ve ever used.

I was working on this Treo for a client today and holy crap, when you compare all of those other type of smart phones to the iPhone, the iPhone is leaps and bounds ahead of the others.

I used to be so surprised at how there were no other competitors for the iPhone.  I thought to myself man, there’s gotta be another iPhone that is just as good if not better than the iPhone.  I was wrong.

I’m still waiting to find one.  I hear the Palm Pre is going to be kick-ass but after messing with a Treo and seeing its horrendous interface and operating system, I don’t know if I’d be so sure to put all my bets on the new Palm Pre.  It’s hard to say though as they are going with a completely new operating system.

All I can say is you should all at least try the iPhone.  I have a few friends who don’t like it for their own reasons.

Personally it’s the greatest phone I’ve ever used.

Intermittent computer problems have to be one if not the most problematic thing to diagnose in a computer.  Here’s a brief example.  Someone brings in a computer saying it “shuts down” from time to time.  You run the diagnostics, run a test on the hard drive: it passes.  Run a test on the ram: it passes.  What’s left?  Well there is the motherboard, processor, power supply and add-on cards such as video and sound cards.

I’m going to side track a little bit but when you cannot recreate the problem yourself, it’s extremely hard to fix the problem.  The most you can do is guess as to if the problem is fixed or not.  That’s not good at all, especially if you don’t see the problem happen in the shop and you release the computer back to the client and a day or two later they call you and exclaim that the problem is still there.  That doesn’t make you look good, at all.  It makes you look like you over looked the entire problem.  This is where a good warranty comes in to play.

So you tell the client, bring it back, I will take care of it for you.

They bring it back in and you put it up on the bench.

You see the problem happen immediately.

NICE! you say!  Now I recreated the problem and can now fix the issue.

So you leave it up on the bench and retest everything.  Sure enough, everything passes.  What the heck?  What could it be?  And worst of all the problem appeared once during your brief check but hasn’t returned since.  Of course, that’s what an intermittent computer problem is!

Well what’s next?  You can leave the system on your bench for x amount of time running all these random stress tests with no problem and then what?

I honestly don’t know right now.  I’m still trying to figure it out.  In fact, I have two computers at my shop that are problematic.  The first one is a Gateway computer and it will randomly drop video.  I honestly believed it was the video card and we swapped it out and it worked so I released it.  Sure enough a week later I get a call about it not working again.

These problems are so random and intermittent that it’s hard to say definitively that x is the issue.  Not only that but if you pitch the video card as bad and they replaced it and it wasn’t that, it makes the customer pissed off because they just spent money on something that wasn’t broken.

Anyhow, I thought I’d liven up the blog and let everyone know I’m still around.  Just having a hard time at work with politics and crap like that.