Archive for January, 2008
We covered what services can be disabled or stopped for Windows XP here and now here is your quick guide to speeding up your Vista machine the same way.
Don’t expect to have Vista flying on the same Pentium III machine – there are still system requirements. BUT these steps can significantly speed up your existing [...]
So a fellow writer on MakeUseOf – Tina put me to this quick Windows tip that I surprisingly never heard of before. I love things that cut out needing third party tools!
To rename a bunch of files with the same name and consecutively number them follow these steps:
Open a folder with files you wish to [...]
We did this piece on Mosio a while back and since then they have grown and we have grown to love them. Did we mention that all of the AtA guys are addicted to the Mosio? Read through our humorous rants and then check out a quick interview with Mosio creator Jay Sachdev. He tells [...]
Are you excited?
Lasers are right up there with jetpacks in my book and they are a lot cheaper!
Don’t get me wrong they are still expensive but it is now definitely in any mad scientist’s budget. Let’s watch guest blogger David reap the benefits of being affiliated with AtA as he plays with his very [...]
So we heard about one way to get a slow computer up and running but it involved making the jump to Linux. Now lets say for arguments sake you can’t go the way of el di pablo and Push Ubuntu on your Woman?
We couldn’t get her to use that Pentium 3 with XP because [...]
This was brought back from the AtA archives for you Jill! We normally stick to our computers and such but REVENGE is always a good topic! Lets put our love of gadgets to good use…
But First have you entered our Win A Frickin’ Laser Contest?!?!“Alright let me start out by saying there is this woman [...]
AtA covered Simulscribe’s Voicemail Transcription Service here. Commodore found it to be a great productivity tool. But after chatting with David Gerzof, their Chief Marketing Officer I found out there is another great component to their service.
Can anyone say Visual Voicemail?
This was the feature that had people going ga-ga over the iPhone. You remember that [...]
We have all seen it before – You delete a file from a mapped or shared drive and it does not go to your recycle bin.
This has just been the way it is for a while now on Windows based operating systems. But Vista has now built in a little more support to help you [...]
Did you know that you can add or change the search engine that sits in your upper right corner of your fox browser?
One of our readers, Alex wanted to replace his default live search with ask or Google. What you have by default depends on where you downloaded your installer from.
There is a pull down [...]
We get a lot of requests for deciphering Windows error messages.
Today we will show you how I find out what an error means that I have not seen before.
Yes that is correct I do not know EVERY single error code and source by heart.
I am so sorry if I let you down… It’s just [...]
One of my pet peeves is people with an antivirus that is not up to date. Seriously now, why even have antivirus if you are not keeping it up to date?
For those of you out there that don’t have your antivirus up to date because you are too cheap to renew your license, don’t fret! [...]
Hello Boys and Girls,
Can you imagine a world where your voicemails are automagically transcribed by a robot and sent to your email inbox?
How would you like being able to read your voicemails instead of calling in for them?
Commodore 64 back again after a short hiatus for the holidays and a whole lot of winter fun [...]
So you have a function coming up in the next say… 10 minutes and you want nice name tags but you don’t have the time. Your Secretary is no where to be found?
Want an easy solution?
We have a free (minus the printing supplies) solution for you! Big.first.name is a site that will let you [...]
A lot of people over look the the power of the context menu (Or right click for you laymen).
More importantly the send to command off the right click menu.
You right click and what do you see? You see a context menu… Choose send to and you see a bunch of useful places.
Now I bet you [...]
James from Virginia wanted to know if it was safe to delete these Thumbs.db and .DS_Store files from his network. Check out our answer and step by step removal tips.
Running in a mixed Windows/Mac environment I find it annoying to deal with all the little artifacts the great OS’s leave behind. All of our [...]
Hello AtA! You read that title correctly, paper can be used as a form of backup media. I am not talking about printing out your documents and filing them away in some nondescript binder to gather dust, no this one is a little more complicated than that.
I first want to point out that I would [...]
So this nifty obscure use of Google really helps us out on the go. We fire up our mobile browser (whose home page is Google) and type in our Airline and flight number like so:
And Google does the hard work and gives you what you need to see! This will work from any Internet terminal [...]
Don’t have a fancy smancy web enabled blackberry or uber cool iphone and you want to find the closest pizza place?
Feeling left out from being able to get in on our Wikipedia SMS Action ? Then this is for you – our less technologically advanced readers…
Yahoo’s SMS One Search will be your life [...]
I know the feeling of your secure network being compromised by an end user… Passwords do fall into the wrong hands and then what do you do? Scenarios start running through my head and I make a mental list of all the passwords and system configs that need to be changed. These aren’t fun times [...]
The Admin spent his Friday night (While you were out partying) upgrading his office 10 mbps line to a 100 mbps line. They were both Ethernet handoffs coming from a media converter. So why then did I have so many fricking problems? Lets just say DON’T ever believe the ISP. rant
I backed up my configuration [...]
Cnet is reporting that the pretty brushed metal xps 1330’s and 1530’s are giving electric shocks to consumers.
It is isolated to users with the two pronged plug and not the three. Cnet goes on to say that the two pronged plug is not properly grounded. Dell will send a 3 prong adapter out to [...]
I love finding a free solution to an expensive problem!We normally talk about how to circumvent web filters but today we are talking about locking down your network – home, office or anywhere. As long as you control network settings you can be the internet god. Say where people can go and what they [...]
Have you ever wanted to create a shortcut on your desktop to disable your screensaver or eject your cd-rom?
You have seen it done and now you have some use for it? Don’t fret young Admin! No need to muss and fuss here is a light weight program that needs no installation: Tooler.
It’s only 50kb [...]
TechWag reviewed AtA in its infancy and has come back around for a second look. Check out their first review here and the new interview is posted here.
Ask the Admin is a blogging site that has had phenomenal success since it started in June of 2007. From humble beginnings, to today’s 20K per traffic, Ask [...]
Johnathan from Minnesota writes in:
My IT manager uses Office XP aka 2002. His outlook pst just touched over 2gb. It happened while Outlook was opened and it closed. He couldn’t open it again. I looked up the error message on Microsoft and they said Outlook XP (and outlook 2000) can not recognize a pst larger [...]
Hey there??? Hi!!!?? How’s it going????? Nothings wrong! Why do you ask???? Oh no. We always shake lIkE thAt!
DoEsN’t EveRyOnE???
Alright we got the pleasantries out of the way now – Holy crap it has happened. This is something straight out of Futurama.
That’s right you shower and lather up this “Shower Shock” and get a [...]
It’s a real deal two for one special!
I had someone ask me to get them a second copy of office 2003 for their shiny new laptop. Seeming I bought both the machines and the software I knew the machine was already loaded up and good to go. I mean come on would I give them [...]
It started on October 16th when I read a Boing-Boing post about Google Image Labeler. It warned me about how addictive it is but I mean really who would think that:
You would want to help Google and add labels to their images.
You could easily spend HOURS on the site.
You have more fun mocking other players [...]
If you start noticing funny things around here (Via the site not RSS) it might be on purpose but more likely than not its a glitch or bug that our designers are working hard on working out. So let us know if you see something in the comments or via email if your shy (info [...]
My man Karl, (Who is a new father by the way for those just coming out from under your rocks) asked me to elaborate on what exactly Compiz Fusion is, and why it is so damned cool.
First of all, I want to say that I am actually kind of a n00b when it comes to [...]
We have used many different retail programs to recover accidentally or maliciously deleted files off of our PC, Digital Camera or Mobile device. We have tried a few free ones and they bring us back to the old saying… You get whatcha pay for! As such we never really covered the topic here on Ata, [...]
Have you heard of EntreCard?
Do you have a blog? Well EntreCard is a bloggers dream come true (well sort of). It is sort of a virtual business card with a back end for advertising. We got your review right here and AtA will be giving away 500 Credits to help you get your advertising on! [...]
Hello everyone!
I am a new guest writer here at AskTheAdmin.com and thought that it would be a good time to introduce myself. But since nobody cares about that, I’ll get straight to the post. (edit: First post and already with the aTa sense of humor)
The widget that I’m going to talk about allowed me to [...]
We know you wonder what goes on behind the scenes on your Windows machine. We have covered how to use crafty searches to find out what others have been doing on your machines. We use the task manager all the time to check out running processes, change task priority or to get an over view [...]
Reader Jay writes in:
I have a question for you Mr. Admin, after running or installing an App why do some of them find a new home on my start menu? This is really annoying can we turn off this Annoying piece of crap feature? I know I can manually remove them but I hope you [...]
Alex in New York hit us with this question:
How often should I defragement my Windows XP installation? While you are at it can you explain what fragmentation is? Why is it bad? How do you defrag and when should you? What about on my Mac?
Using the magic powers of The Google I came across [...]
When the cats away the mice will play!
Ever get the feeling someone has been messing with your machine while you were away?
Your trusted Anti-virus isn’t telling you there is something wrong but you know deep down in your gut something is off- and chances are it is! After all a unprotected windows machine can be [...]
So I get asked on a regular basis how many addresses can i get from a /24 subnet or what does 255.255.255.0 mean.
Let me break it down for you real quick like:
When you use 255.255.255.0 as your subnet you are limiting yourself to a network containing all the same ip’s except for the last number. [...]
If we were in the entertainment industry we would be lusting after an Oscar, Emmy or some other crap like that. But sadly I just get a paycheck and the occasional virtual pat on the back. Oh wait thats great … How about showing some AtA love and get us nominated for a Bloggie?
Begin rant: [...]
So we don’t usually gush over retail household products but this is really cool and can be bought with the notion of safety in mind. You attach this doo-hickey that is battery operated and it changes the color of your water with LED’s depending on the temperature of the water. Its also only $20 [...]
Mark O’Neil from MakeUseOf and GeeksAreSexy put us onto a method of running an installer in a “Safe Space” using the Run As command (Via protect my computer and data from unauthorized program activity check box).
This is a great method for running programs that might be a little suspicious. That little check box prevents the [...]
I love me some XKCD and don’t read it as often as I used to. But I came across it posted on a blog today and it had me rolling. If you are are geeky as me you will enjoy this for your afternoon chuckle. And if you don’t get it… Just keep it moving [...]
I got a call out of the blue from a Navy buddy of mine who is stationed in Germany yesterday asking me how he can uninstall Windows Media Player from his new Windows Vista machine. Seeing as how I haven’t gone down the Vista road yet I wasn’t sure.
I thought it would be just like [...]
This Christmas, I got my sister a DVD and showed her how to rip it and put it on her iPod. She hadn’t been able to do such a thing in the past, as she isn’t technically inclined and didn’t have time to learn all of the steps with older software to get the job [...]
So reader Todd from Toronto writes to us after installing a bunch of firefox plugin’s he so elegantly put it – foxed up his fox – Firefox 2.
But young Todd you are in luck because we have answers for you! This information is on the Standard Diagnostic page here
Standard diagnostic steps
Exit Firefox completelyand reboot the [...]
So this question bounced around in my head for a bit last night. It seems Rafael wants Firefox 2 to open 3 tabs with different websites on launch. In essence dude wants 3 home pages concurrently. I’m with it… Wait theres more!
He wants to do it without an extension, plugin or other point of failure [...]
Happy 2008 AskTheAdmin.com readers. Isn’t it a little early for you? Shouldn’t you be hung-over somewhere? Well in case you are checking up on The Admin – here is our first post of the new year.
So Johnny command line needs to be cool and open his computer management console or maybe just his services…
Here you [...]
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