New hard-drive (after old POS Seagate 1.5TB died), so decided to go for the whole enchilda and upgrade from WinXP Pro to Win 7 Home Premium.
Newegg shipped quick, and installing clean to the new hard-drive.
So far:
25 minutes for initial "Installing" screen (it may be black with only an arrow, but let it run! ... Don't reboot!)
15 minutes to recognize all the drives (2 HD, and one Blu-Ray ROM)
40 minutes to format the Disk 0 (new unpartitioned hard drive)
40 minutes - "copying windows files" said "0%" for about 40 minutes, then went on to the next step. I actually thought it had stalled, and was doing some google searches on it ... but then it completed.
30 minutes - Completing Installation
4 hours - Installing software from internet
1 hours - image new hard-drive to backup (with Win7 image program)
10 minutes - make System restore DVD from Win 7
Man, is it fast on my Core 2 Duo 64-bit processor and 4GB ram... WOW!!!!
Software to install:
ASUS P5E-VM HDMI motherboard drivers
Windows Defender antispyware (if not included)
Avast antivirus
Google Chrome
Adobe Flash Player
Firefox 3
Winrar
Picasa 3
Tweak Win 7 Pro
Winamp
Yahoo Widgets
Cobian Backup
Roboform *
Microsoft Mesh (for networking my computers worldwide)
MS Office * (SP1 SP2 SP3)
M$ Live Mail
CD Burner XP Pro
Audiograbber
Zoomplayer Premium
AnyDVD
CloneDVD
Printer Drivers
Image Resizer for Win 7 (64-bit)
ImgBurn
MobiPocket ebook reader
Replay Radio
Skype
Google Earth
Harmony Remote software
QTLite
Games:
Steam Game Client (Half-Life2 and Arma2)
Microsoft FS X
Move Documents, Music and Pictures back to Hard-drive from backup drive.
Here's my favorite Firefox add-ons, too, which need to be re-installed:
Cool Iris
forecastfox
IE Tab
AdBlock +
AI Roboform
Del.ico.us
Download Statusbar
Tab Effect
Consider moving your email cache and address book to a folder in "My Documents" called "My Email" ... that way it gets backed-up automatically when you make a weekly backup of "My Documents" to an external hard-drive ( I use Cobian Backup, which is free and reliable).
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
Okinawa AFN Satellite Setup
Dish is $149.95 at the Kadena BX electronics section ("Powerzone")
Receiver can be leased from the Kadena BX for about $16/month.
Log on to https://pvconnect.net/ and enter the receiver's TID and UA numbers (from the back of the unit). It can take 24 hours to activate your receiver (mine took about 3 hours). This won't prevent you from tuning the dish, though.
Setup website for AFN
Satellite:
Newskies NSS-6
Satellite: NSS 6 (95.0 E)<-- Need this to choose your dish easily from a list
Elevation: 42.5°
Azimuth (true): 235.4°
Azimuth (magn.): 240.1°
Pointing help Dishpointer website using google maps: HERE NSS-6 is at 95.0E
Here's a video about the iPhone app to help point to the satellites that are out there in space...pretty cool!
Okinawa DTS Pacific Model 9835 Settings
A. On your remote, push the menu button to pull up the main menu on your television screen.
B. Once you are on the main menu, press 2. This will, take you to the Presets/LNB Menu.
C. Once you are on-the Preset/LNB-Menu, this is.the setting you should see (if not change them), if you can't change them all, go to "activate"/"OK", and then it will allow you to change them (move the arrows and hit OK to select, then arrows to change values).
Active: 3
Preset: 3 (Japan Korea)
Downlink: 12.647
Sym Rate: 28.0
FEC Rate: Auto
Polarization: V (vertical) [or] try H (depending on your dish hardware)
Network ID: 4
LO Freq#1: 9.750
LO Freq#2: 10.600
Crossover: 11.700
LO Select: LO2 (If this doesn't work, try Xover)
D. To change your Preset setting to match those above, you-use the arrow keys on your remote to move the highlight bar to the item to be changed. Push the OK button on the remote to clear the field, input the correct numbers using the remote, then push select again to lock the new information into the decoder.
E. Once all settings are correct, highlight the "Activate" function at the bottom of the screen and push the OK button.
F. Once the activation is completed,
G. Select "3. Dish Setup" to get a tone to aim the dish. Beeping is no signal, steady is better, with peak signal values/tone.
Any problems call AFRTS March ARB, CA
DSN: 312-348-1339
Comm: 951-413-2339
24/7 service provided
If you-are looking for information on the service provided (number of channels available, satellite dish setup, etc.) use the website listed below. http://myafn.net
Receiver can be leased from the Kadena BX for about $16/month.
Log on to https://pvconnect.net/ and enter the receiver's TID and UA numbers (from the back of the unit). It can take 24 hours to activate your receiver (mine took about 3 hours). This won't prevent you from tuning the dish, though.
Setup website for AFN
Satellite:
Newskies NSS-6
Satellite: NSS 6 (95.0 E)<-- Need this to choose your dish easily from a list
Elevation: 42.5°
Azimuth (true): 235.4°
Azimuth (magn.): 240.1°
Pointing help Dishpointer website using google maps: HERE NSS-6 is at 95.0E
Here's a video about the iPhone app to help point to the satellites that are out there in space...pretty cool!
Okinawa DTS Pacific Model 9835 Settings
A. On your remote, push the menu button to pull up the main menu on your television screen.
B. Once you are on the main menu, press 2. This will, take you to the Presets/LNB Menu.
C. Once you are on-the Preset/LNB-Menu, this is.the setting you should see (if not change them), if you can't change them all, go to "activate"/"OK", and then it will allow you to change them (move the arrows and hit OK to select, then arrows to change values).
Active: 3
Preset: 3 (Japan Korea)
Downlink: 12.647
Sym Rate: 28.0
FEC Rate: Auto
Polarization: V (vertical) [or] try H (depending on your dish hardware)
Network ID: 4
LO Freq#1: 9.750
LO Freq#2: 10.600
Crossover: 11.700
LO Select: LO2 (If this doesn't work, try Xover)
D. To change your Preset setting to match those above, you-use the arrow keys on your remote to move the highlight bar to the item to be changed. Push the OK button on the remote to clear the field, input the correct numbers using the remote, then push select again to lock the new information into the decoder.
E. Once all settings are correct, highlight the "Activate" function at the bottom of the screen and push the OK button.
F. Once the activation is completed,
G. Select "3. Dish Setup" to get a tone to aim the dish. Beeping is no signal, steady is better, with peak signal values/tone.
Any problems call AFRTS March ARB, CA
DSN: 312-348-1339
Comm: 951-413-2339
24/7 service provided
If you-are looking for information on the service provided (number of channels available, satellite dish setup, etc.) use the website listed below. http://myafn.net
Thursday, December 17, 2009
DVD player "burn-in"... I can help!
Click here for my "tongue-in-cheek" response to someone serious about whether DVD players need to be "burned-in" for the best sound and video... shees. A sucker is born every minute, and I jump in with both feet.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Backing up Windows Live Mail
I have moved from Outlook Express 6 to Windows Live Mail. It handles our two email addresses better, giving each email address it's own inbox. Pretty cool, and looks nice, too.
Here's the down-low on backing up the email accounts ("export") to an external hard-drive. Click HERE.
Here's the down-low on backing up the email accounts ("export") to an external hard-drive. Click HERE.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Small stuff.
USB power touchscreen: nice!
Smallest PC in the world
13oz Windows 7 computer, 13 watts. Wow.
Now just combine these two with a wireless keyboard and you've got possibilities. Or put the PC behind a 1080p monitor as an HTPC, with networking to movies on HD or streaming netflix. Or put the computer and monitor in your car with USB 3G... possiblities are endless.
Geek out.
Smallest PC in the world
13oz Windows 7 computer, 13 watts. Wow.
Now just combine these two with a wireless keyboard and you've got possibilities. Or put the PC behind a 1080p monitor as an HTPC, with networking to movies on HD or streaming netflix. Or put the computer and monitor in your car with USB 3G... possiblities are endless.
Geek out.
Friday, December 4, 2009
8800GTS has died
My 18 month-old MSI 8800GTS 320MB OC has started to go on the fritz. It's been intermittent blanking out for 5 to 30 seconds or more (needing reboot). Neither DVI out channel works correctly, and the cable is good (it's working fine with the motherboard video out).
Even putting the fan to 100% and taking off the top of the case with a cold fan has no effect... it's not really hot on the GPU board, and the exhaust is not hot. In fact, the temps are only around 50C or so.
So, I filled out the RMA tech help page on the MSI website... and we'll see how good they are at honoring the 3 year warranty. Hopefully "shipping and handling" will be reasonable. I don't think they will ship to my FPO AP PO Box, so will have to have it shipped to family, and have them send it on...
Fingers crossed,
Geek out.
UPDATE: MSI approved an RMA. They don't ship to PO Boxes (like my overseas military address), so I'll have the repaired unit shipped to a family member, and have them ship it over. Updates to follow.
Even putting the fan to 100% and taking off the top of the case with a cold fan has no effect... it's not really hot on the GPU board, and the exhaust is not hot. In fact, the temps are only around 50C or so.
So, I filled out the RMA tech help page on the MSI website... and we'll see how good they are at honoring the 3 year warranty. Hopefully "shipping and handling" will be reasonable. I don't think they will ship to my FPO AP PO Box, so will have to have it shipped to family, and have them send it on...
Fingers crossed,
Geek out.
UPDATE: MSI approved an RMA. They don't ship to PO Boxes (like my overseas military address), so I'll have the repaired unit shipped to a family member, and have them ship it over. Updates to follow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)