While I am copying all of my data to my various portable hard drives, I will also be making DVD copies, just in case. Don’t forget that strong magnets can wipe all your data from a hard drive, but not from DVDs or CDs, if I remember correctly.

So it is time to dust out my DVD duplicators, CD printers, and read my DVD duplication guide. This 4 year old laptop is really on its last legs. They really don’t make them like they used to with those Thinkpads. IBM! How could you sell out!

Meanwhile this iPhone OS 4 is taking forever to install. I am still stuck on this backup which seems to take an eon. This is my third attempt after the first 2 just took too long and I had to shut down and go to sleep or out. It really looks like there is some bug.

Anyway, good time to be backing up files now.

I think the last straw was the printer not working. Granted, I lost the installation CD because some benign night elf living in my study likes to move my stuff around for sheer entertainment purposes, but even the online installation file did not work. I have never had any printer NOT work with any computer.

If I had some kind of program like driveraccess at driveraccess.com to maybe find some kind of danged printer driver access that actually works with my laptop that would be great. Or… or… I could just throw in the dang towel, go shop around for a new laptop (since this one changes my date/time every day which means the motherboard is probably on the brink of death) tomorrow.

The most likely possibility was that perhaps some pet hair or hair had gotten stuck inside and just needed a camera blower to clean it. I lent a concentrated amount of my own CO2 but to little effect. Other suggestions included burnt chips and an impending fire. I quickly shut it down and did not turn it on again.

A call to Lenovo saw me bounced around to 2 different venues thanks to the efficiency of outsourcing. So was the very polite advice, which was to bring it to the service centre where they would charge me $50 for simply looking at it (or at their discretion).

I protested that while IBM was still IBM, my Thinkpad was always looked at for free, then I would be charged if I required further work. Of course these were the same guys who, in Melbourne, pronounced my Thinkpad deader than dead, causing me to weep in my husband’s arms for its demise, only to start it up months later back in Singapore to find it running again, as if nothing had happened.

Further investigation uncovered that Melbourne’s erratic power supply may have been at fault.

Anyhow, while that old Thinkpad sits in the unexciting museum cupboard in my study reminiscing about the good old days (it worked for 10 years – might actually still work but I haven’t tried turning it on), I thought the Lenovo’s days were numbered when the smell persisted on the vent itself and I removed it from the room. I even contemplated buying a Mac, only to be rather concerned about the “toxic smells” coming from it too (Google: Mac+toxic+smell).

3 days later (and many hours wasted researching for a non-toxic laptop later), the smell was suddenly gone. A few good sniffs delivered just hot air up my nose and I was relieved that the need to search for another laptop was over.

Incidentally, Nokia is still the greenest company. Have a look at the Greenpeace report and see where Lenovo and the rest stand.

Anyway, with the laptop it was easy since it works with an inbuilt screen already. Just fiddle with the display settings and install an updated driver and that usually works. But what if you can’t see a damn thing on the screen with the desktop?

On XP, while booting up, press F8 and you’ll be faced with a whole bunch of choices on how you want to boot up. Choose VGA mode and lo and behold, that errant screen will display your desktop, albeit in 640×480.

Windows will most likely let you know this isn’t the ideal display setting but even if it doesn’t, just right-click your desktop and head to Properties -> Settings. Check out your resolution and see if you can change it to your desired one. If it doesn’t work, go disable and re-enable your monitor driver. That did the trick for me.

I’m gonna claim a nice reward tomorrow now that hubby can play Warcraft III again.

(Credit: Vista Forums)

While checking the SD Memory Card Properties under Device Manager in Control Panel, here’s the crap message I get:

Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware because a previous instance of the device driver is still in memory. (Code 38)

I tried:

- to uninstall and then insert the SD card again to spark a reinstall.

- update driver but was told it is already the latest.

- checking for solutions made me laugh because it offered none.

So it is back to Google to offer me a solution (I Googled the whole error message).

Now the solution appears to be uninstalling AVG. And true enough, it works.

To replace AVG, I have installed Avast and Avira.

I’ve always been a fan of overkill.

Initially I thought the problem was just system restore. I’d managed to free 13GB by deleting all the old restore points (but the most recent will be retained) but still wondered how Vista and friends could take up 60GB!

Today I found out why.

Lenovo comes with its own Rescue and Recovery program and it makes scheduled backups. I found 3 and deleted all of them and disabled the scheduled backups. Now I have 54GB free, which is really more like it. 40GB was assigned to 3 backups! Imagine that.

If you have a space problem, wondering where the heck all your GB went, check out not only System Restore but also your manufacturer’s proprietary backup software that comes with your computer. Very likely it is sucking up most of your GB too.

On the upside, I now have a habit of backing up everything to my several portable hard drives (redundancy is so important) as well as to DVDs. It is a better way of backing up your important data and keeping your computer space free for important things. Like running WoW or Elder Scrolls III.

At the login screen you see a duplicate of your login ids. I saw 2 pairs of cats and dogs for several weeks till I decided to search for a solution.

It appears that the fingerprint recognition software Omnipass may have had incompatibilities with the latest Vista upgrade.

The solution is simply to uninstall Omnipass, restart computer (and voila, a restoration of single user ids), and reinstall Omnipass.

1. Turn off Aero

Yes, you bought the upgrade for the pretty but it seriously lags your computer. I finally turned it off after yanking out wads of hair in frustration. Save your hair, especially if you’re a little short, and turn off Aero. Download some pretty themes instead.

Solution: Head over to your Control Panel -> System and click that link at the very bottom called Performance. Choose Adjust visual effects and select Adjust for best performance.

2. Turn off Sidebar

Another pretty thing that sucks the speed from your computer. Turn it off. You lived 10 years without it, you’ll survive another 10 without it.

Solution: Head over to your Control Panel -> Windows Sidebar Properties and unclick the Start Sidebar when Windows starts.

3. Use SeaMonkey

For some reason, Vista hates Firefox. It hangs, crashes, does everything bad it never did before. Or maybe not so surprising, considering Firefox is becoming the most popular browser around.

Solution: Use SeaMonkey instead. Download it here.

4. Cull your Startup programs

Remove stuff like Google Desktop et all, which you never used before Vista.

Solution: Head over to your Control Panel -> System and click that link at the very bottom called Performance. Then select Startup Programs and sift through carefully.

Let me know if these help. After completing steps 1-4, mine certainly did. Only thing is now I have to move all my dang bookmarks to Seamonkey (which really should have rebranded itself since it still looks like Netscape… but that’s for another post).

The good: I enabled the Aero display setting again and this time it doesn’t seem to lag the system as much. I decided since I am running Vista, I might as well maximise my user experience. I did shut down the Windows Sidebar, which I read slows the system considerably. That might have helped.

Next up, Firefox crashed on me again. Twice. The first time Vista managed to save it after (no more blue screen) grey screening it for about 30 seconds. The second time it died but the beauty of it is Vista managed to restore all the 10 tabs (yes yes… I overloaded the browser) with the actual pages all intact.

The bad: Even more software incompatible with Vista. ZoneAlarm (although they promise compatibility soon), Kerio Personal Firewall, even my USB Modem for M1 Broadband! I dread to find what else is incompatible. Haven’t tried any games or DVDs yet – I hear that’s where most of the conflicts lie.

Vista is a very different animal.

It is very slow but this can be rectified by removing the animations and special effects (which really just returns it to an XP xp). This I did almost immediately as the most annoying thing to me is a slow system.

Now, the interface looks deceivingly similar to XP and the earlier incarnations but hidden are the many regular functions we take for granted. Here’s one example.

When we shut down, we click Start and then the bottom right most button which is Shut Down. So naturally I did the same when I shut down the Lenovo the first time. To my surprise, it declared that I hadn’t shut it down correctly the last time and ran a scan. Hmm… I looked closer. Ah… that button I clicked was Sleep. I had to click to open the task list and then locate Shut Down amongst an array of buttons. Since, I have gotten it right.

Other functions like the Task list, Control Panel, and Display Settings all look a little different but can be gotten used to after a little meddling. For some reason the fonts look very blur when I choose a lower resolution. Could it be because I removed most of its jazzy graphic features? I have to go back and figure that one out.

I like: Better interface after you get used to navigating it. The novelty of the analog clock (thanks to Google?) and the slideshow of my baby and cats smiling back at me when I work. The lovely keyboard (okay, a Lenovo feature).

I hate: The speed and the space it takes. Plus so many of my beloved programs don’t work on Vista for now like SpyBot Search and Destroy. But this will be rectified in time I expect.

More on Vista when I start using more of the Lenovo. If you can’t wait, check out CNET’s page on Vista.