Essential Windows Programs
Well, it’s time for a reformat of the Windows Machine. Nothing like starting fresh, so I’ll put a list of Windows programs that I couldn’t live without.
- 7 – Zip – Who pays for winzip these days? Just download 7 – Zip. It’s free, open-source software that handles more than just .zip files.
- Adobe CS – I’m still on CS3 web premium because I payed way to much for it and I can’t afford CS4 yet. Maybe next year when I can get the insane student discounts I’ll pick up CS4.
- AVG Free Anti-Virus – As long as you know what you’re doing AVG Free is all you need. If you need some more protection, they also have a cheap pay-for Anti-Virus program. In my experience AVG Free has worked great.
- Dropbox – Just great for sharing files.
- DVD43 – Goes with the next one…
- DVD Shrink – When you’re archiving those DVDs, just incase they get scratched.
- FileZilla – A free, open-source FTP client that works great.
- iTunes – For syncing the iPod and getting podcasts.
- Last.fm – I love being able to see the stats on the music I’m listening to.
- Microsoft Office 2007
- Mozilla Firefox – Still the best PC browser available.
- Nero – For burning anything from photo backups to Linux ISOs.
- Notepad++ – A great editor for any kind of code. I use it when I just have a quick change or two that I need to make and I don’t want to wait for Dreamweaver to startup.
- Prime95 – Testing that overclock that you just setup.
- RealVNC
- Simplify Meida – Great for streaming music to the iPod touch or any other computer over the internet from my PC.
- Skype
- TuneUp Companion
- WinDirStat – Find out what’s eating up your harddrive.
- Audacity
- Pandora – Best internet radio, plus they have an iPhone app.
Published: January 10th, 2009 in Tech | Tags: programs, Windows
Bootcamp Clock Issue in Windows
So you finally got around to setting getting that copy of Windows out and setting up bootcamp… or… you’ve been running bootcamp forever and you can’t figure out why the stupid clock in windows won’t work. Nothing will sync because the time doesn’t match up with the real time, it’s a mess and you need to do something about it. Here’s a quick fix.
Most of the fixes on the interenet tell you the wrong way. They say to:
Go to the registry editor and navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control > TimeZoneInformation
and add the key: RealTimeIsUniversal
and add the DwordValue: 1.
Well it turns out that that method doesn’t work. Sure it looks good for awhile, but after an hour the clock goes back to GMT and it’s broken again, the quick fix is to:
- Right click on the desktop
- new -> text document
- sync-clock.bat
the .bat part is important, if you don’t have extensions enabled it will end up being sync-clock.bat.txt and that’s no good. It must be a bat file. - Copy and paste “
w32tm /resync", without the quotes into that bat file. - Save
- Close
- Move that file into the startup folder on the start menu
There, it looks long, but it is really easy. Now Windows will automatically sync with the time servers when you login.
Published: December 8th, 2008 in Tech | Tags: bootcamp, clock, osx, Windows
Writable Folders
While installing Gallery2, after getting Apache installed on windows, I found that I needed to create a directory that was writable by apache so it could store my image files. I eventually found an article. It wasn’t about Gallery2, but it was close enough.
Basically you have to:
- go to a user’s “Local Settings” folder (ex. “C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Local Settings”).
- Create a “web” folder
- Create your writable folder (ex. “C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Local Settings\web\writable”
- Add the folder to the end of your apache configuration file (ex. php_value session.save_path “C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Local Settings\web\writable”)
That’s it. That’s all I had to do.
Published: June 7th, 2007 in Tech | Tags: Apache, Windows
Active Partition Scare
I was experimenting with dual-booting so I clicked “install another operating system” in PartitionMagic. At the time I had no idea what it would do to my computer. A few minutes later I found out that I would no longer be able to boot to Windows — that was a problem.
The first thing that I thought to do was install Windows on the new partition and just move all my old files. That didn’t work either. When I got into Windows I realized that I couldn’t see the C: drive. When I went to the disk utility I could see it, but all I could do was delete the partition. After searching google I found out that it was because the partition was “hidden”. With the help of PartitionMagic I unhid and activated the partition and we’re back on track.
That was a close one. PartitionMagic and Google saved the day!
Published: May 3rd, 2007 in Tech | Tags: HDD, Windows