Microsoft has officially announced it will be releasing FIVE versions of Windows 7:  Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Enterprise and Windows 7 Ultimate, and only Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional will be sold in retail.  Apparently this is to remove confusion caused by all the versions of Windows Vista.  They’ll be selling Home Premium to basic users, and Professional to businesses.

Microsoft, I think  the confusion came from having a billion versions of an operating system, and you’re doing it again?!  *Smacks forehead*

To top it off, the Windows 7 beta that 2.5 million or more of us are testing is Ultimate – but will only be offered as an upgrade.  This means we’ll be forced to buy Home Premium or Professional, and then pay even more for “Ultimate.”

Windows 7 Ultimate beta 7000 is nice, so why don’t you just sell what you’ve been having us beta test – and leave it at that!

Microsoft: this is blatant stupidity, and it’s moves like this that are going to make more and more people convert to OS X and become a “Mac.”

I JUST downloaded Windows 7 beta 7000 and installed it as a second operating system on my machine.  I know what you’re thinking “does it suck as much as Vista?”

Drum roll please….No!  In fact, I think Windows 7 will be a good solid upgrade from Windows Vista and even Windows XP, believe it or not!  There are a TON of new features and improvements from Windows Vista, and I will be sharing them with you!

I’ll be sharing problems I’ve encountered as well as fixes to those problems, as many new features as I can – good and not so good, features I’d like to see, and my thoughts on Windows 7 as a whole.

I haven’t had too much time to spend with it, just 2 hours tops, so I have a lot more to discover.  Even in this short amount of time, I’ve discovered a lot of fantastic features.

Why take my word for it, though, when you can download beta yourself and try it out for free?  It’s really not that hard, and there are many ways to do it.  You run it on a Virtual Machine (Microsoft makes a free one, google it), replace an existing operating system on a computer you don’t really ever use, or install it on a second hard drive or second partition on your existing hard drive.

I’ll give you a VERY quick walk-through on how to download and get Windows 7 Beta running the way I did.

First, visit http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx
and download the beta.  It will have you fill out a few things, but it doesn’t take that long.

The beta comes in ISO (a disk image file) format which you will have to burn to a DVD with a program that will burn them properly.  Roxio does this, but you can google “Free ISO DVD Burner” and find yourself something different if you don’t have a Roxio disc burner.  (If you do not have a DVD burner, you can still try Windows 7 beta out using a virtual machine; search for Microsoft’s free virtual machine.)

Once you have successfully downloaded the .ISO file and burned it to a DVD, you may be ready to install – unless you’re like me and you wanted to keep your previous operating system.  If that is your case, you will need to either install a new, blank hard drive, or create a partition on your existing hard drive.

To do this, follow the tutorials here in this order:

1: http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/f2e9a502-e63c-413d-8804-87326ef4f4cc1033.mspx  (when doing this, make sure you shrink volume by at least 20 GB; this will leave you 20 GB worth of space to install and run Windows 7, which requires at least 10 GB – I reccomend using more than 20 GB, because by the time you’re through testing software on it, you’ll be almost full.)

2.  http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/8572be9b-8580-49f7-9719-b3a4c42749fe1033.mspx

After following these 2 tutorials, insert the DVD you burned into your DVD drive and run the install.  It will ask you where you would like to install Windows 7, so choose the new partition you made.

From there, follow the instructions and you should be all set.  Now, there is a common issue I encountered when installing Windows 7 which I will cover in the next post, so stay in touch!

Take it easy,
David

Hello everyone!  A common problem for Vista users with Dreamweaver MX is the “Insert>Tables” function; it simply will not work.  I have already posted two articles on this issue providing some fixes for the issue.  In the first article, I show how to make the “Insert Table” function actually do something and that is insert a table.  The only problem with THIS fix is that it doesn’t allow you to change the specs before the table is inserted into your Document.  The second fix is a tip given by a user, and another tip given by me which has worked for a decent ammount of people, but not all (for some it only worked temporarily, then the problem occured again.)  In this tutorial, I will be giving a new fix which will make the “Insert Tables” function work like a charm.

1.  First thing is first, download, save, and extract this ZIP file:  newtable1.zip

2.  Right click and copy the “table.htm” file  (The code in this file was taken from an extension called “etable” that you can download from http://www.idest.com/dreamweaver/objects-fr.htm)

3.  Go to C:\Program Files\Macromedia\Dreamweaver MX\Configuration\Objects\Common  (NOTE:  Some users may have to go there AND C:\Users\YOUR USER NAME\AppData\Roaming\Macromedia\Dreamweaver MX\Configuration\Objects\Common and repeat the following steps in both locations.  This location is “Hidden” so either enable windows explorer to view hidden files and navigate to this location, OR copy and paste the filepath into the address bar in windows explorer and replace “YOUR USER NAME” with an appropriate username.)

4.  In this folder, rename “Table.htm” to “Tableold.htm” so you can reuse this file as a backup.

5.  Now, press CTRL+V to paste the recently downloaded “Table.htm” file.

6.  Open up Dreamweaver MX and insert a table

Now, the customization feature won’t look exactly like the original, but it has all the functions – plus a little more!  If you want, you can even tweak this “Table.htm” file to do whatever you’d like.

For me, this is the best way to get Dreamweaver MX to insert tables on Windows Vista.

What Do You Think?
Did this help you?  Have you tweaked the Table.htm file to do something really cool?  Send your thoughts to david@funkytower or leave a comment below.  I look forward to hearing from you. 

Take it easy,
David Crandall

UPDATE:
I received this e-mail from Dave who has some useful information for those who may have trouble using this fix.

Just a heads up I had to change the file in all of these location in order to get it to work. Thought I would let you know in case anyone else had trouble with it. So thank you for pointing me in the right direction. The tables not working has been a huge frustration since switching to vista.

Thanks again!

C:\Program Files\Macromedia\Dreamweaver MX\Configuration\Objects\Common

C:\Program Files\Macromedia\Dreamweaver MX\Configuration-1\Objects\Common

C:\Users\David\AppData\Roaming\Macromedia\Common

C:\Users\David\AppData\Roaming\Macromedia\Dreamweaver MX\Configuration\Objects\Common

In Dave’s case, there are 4 file paths in which he had to paste the “Table.htm” file.  This situation is pretty uncommon, but if you find yourself STILL not being able to get the ‘Insert Table” function to work, search out some new file paths that are in relation to Dreamweaver MX.

Please note, typically, when you need to paste this file in more than the two file paths is when you’ve uninstalled and reinstalled Dreamweaver MX multiple times.  When uninstalling Dreamweaver MX, Vista leaves behind the hidden “Configuration” files, thus, when reinstalling, a second Configuration folder is created.  I hope this makes sense.  Thank you, Dave, for sharing your new info with us!

There are two things to do.  The first thing is to make sure you don’t have any spyware/adware/malware on your computer.  Get an antivirus/antispyware software and do a full scan.  If you run it, fix all problems, and still cannot get IE7 to work, here’s a solution.

Run a System Restore.  If you’ve done any updates in the past on your Vista machine, there is bound to be a restore point.  When you run your System Restore program, simply pick the most recent restore point, and let System Restore do it’s thing.

Once you start up, your Internet Explorer 7 should be running fine.  It worked for me.

It’s interesting; the System Restore option has come in handy for me.  I don’t typically use antispyware programs because if I ever run into a malicious website and begin to get popups, I simply hit CTRL+ALT+DEL, click the “Processes” tab, end the “iexplorer” process, then run System Restore.  This has always fixed my problems.  Now, I don’t really want to reccomend this for everyone, because I don’t really know how stable a solution this is for given problems, but for many things – system restore has been a big help and has saved alot of headaches for me.

Now, if you don’t want to do the whole system restore thing, get yourself FireFox.  It doesn’t look exactly like Internet Explorer, but it’s close enough to where you won’t have to put much effort into getting used to it.  I mainly use it to test my work with, but sometimes I often forget I’m even using a different web browser.  It’s very comfortable and I would definately reccomend it as an alternative to any version IExplorer.

What Do You Think?
Did this article help you?  Do you have another fix for this problem?  If you do, I want to know!  Send your comments or questions to david@funkytower.com :)  I would love to hear from you

Take it easy,
David

We tend to take lightly the warnings that our own online protection software notifies us about.  We don’t take the time to read where these files are located and what programs these files are associated with.

Recently, my sister had a problem – she had some massive spyware/adware problems; she had alot of pop-ups, which, in my opinion, were caused by some P2P (Peer-to-peer) softwares she had downloaded.  So, she took my advice and downloaded Spybot S&D on her Windows XP SP2 machine, downloaded it definition updates, ran a full scan, and deleted all unfixed files.  The result – extremely slow and incomplete bootup.  It seemed as if all that booted up was a black screen and the mouse cursor.  She called me and asked me to look at it to see what I could do.

Well, I went to her house and did the typical things: I booted up normal, but to only encounter the black screen.  I booted up in safemode, and got the same thing.  I booted up in safemod with DOS, but STILL couldn’t do anything.  After hours of trying different methods WITHOUT reinstalling Windows, at the end of the night, we decided to turn the computer on in the morning and just let it sit.

About a 30 min to an hour after booting up normally, we got a backgroundless desktop with the normal icons, but no start menu.  This told me that the taskbar (start menu) was having trouble booting up and was using up all the PC’s memory.  So, I conjured up some more ideas.

First, I tried to pull up the MSConfig menu and keep some programs from running on startup – sadly, MSConfig just wouldn’t pull up – it said I had to be running an Administrator account.  So, I restarted the computer and waited awhile, except this time, I tried to pull up MSConfig earlier on in the process.  It still did not work.  I tried this also in safemode and safemode with DOS – both got me nothing – no msconfig, no desktop icons, nothing.

So, since this alone took HOURS, I decided to come back the next day.  So, keep in mind, this is day number THREE.  The computer was painfully slow.  I decided that since explorer.exe was partially working (evident by the desktop icons) that I would pull up Windows Explorer to browse files and find the System Restore program.  If anything could fix the problem, one would think this would be it.

After an hour of browsing, I finally got to the folder where the System Restore program was located.  I tried opening the program, but an error came up telling me that System Restore could not repair my computer and to try again another time.  By this time, I was getting really frustrated.  Since we didn’t have the tools at hand to back up files, and since my sister really didn’t care anymore about losing files, I got a Windows XP SP2 disk to reinstall Windows.  I put the disk in the drive, restarted the computer, hit F8 for boot options, and booted from the CD Drive.

Now, this disk has the option to fix Windows, or install/replace windows on a hard drive.  The “fix” mode took me to a DOS screen, and all that really did was tell me useless information.  I exited THAT and rebooted back to the disk drive, and selected to reinstall Windows XP.

Now here’s where the SOLUTION is:

When you select a hard drive to install windows, it recognizes that there is already another version of Windows XP on that hard drive – so, it asks if you would like to repair that version, or replace it.  Well, if I replace it, all the files on the computer would be gone – which would stink, but repairing would keep all my sister’s programs, settings, and files installed.  So, obviously, since I had nothing to lose, I chose repair.

It went through the whole process and acted as if it was completely reinstalling Windows XP, it even took around 40 minutes – just like I was reinstalling windows!  How fun!

Well, the wait was worth it, because at the end of the day, I was able to boot up the machine like it used to boot up before encountering any problems.  I decided to get her AVG Free Antivirus – since she didn’t have that.  I installed it, ran it, and had all problems fixed.  There was a good chunk of “unfixable” files that could be deleted, which I checked to see what they were for.  I found they were not essential to the PC’s performance, and had them deleted.

Finally after midnight of the 3rd day, my work was done.

So what’s the point?

Simple, be smart and use common sense when dealing with  your PC’s safety.  Don’t delete things you don’t know about unless you’re sure it won’t effect your PC’s performance.  This applies to many things like messing with msconfig’s start up options.  Also, don’t use P2P programs, they are dangerous.  You can read about all these things in another one of my articles about speeding up your computer.

Also, when your at wit’s end and are about to take the step to reinstall windows, choose the drive to reinstall it on, AND THEN CHOOSE REPAIR!  This way, you can at least save your files.

So if you’re having that wretched problem of a black background and white cursor with no start menu or desktop icons, pop in that Windows install disk, pick the hard drive to reinstall it on, and choose the repair option.  I hope that helps ANYONE who has had this problem – which I have done some reasearch and know that there are many who have had the same issue – nothing seemed to work, so they just reinstalled windows completely, and sadly, lost all of their files. 

Again, be sure to use this repair option that the disk offers after you pick a hard drive to reinstall windows on, it could save you some head aches.

Note:  This solution was tested on Windows XP, nothing older, nothing newer.  I’m sure any newer version of windows would have the same option, but as far as an older version of Windows – I’m not completely sure.  Anyways, if you have a computer THAT old, you need to upgrade.  Just do it, you’ll aprreciate it

What Do You Think?
Did this help you out at all?  Do you have any questions?  Have you found a different solution to this “black screen and cursor only” problem?  Whatever you have to say, let me know.  You can e-mail me at david@funkytower.com and I’ll be happy to get back to you.

Take it easy,
David Crandall

Recently, a huge threat to DNS, the system that translates IP Addresses to unique names (and vice verce), creating URLs such as funkytower.com, has been discovered.  This threat would allow malicious users to impersonate almost any website on the Internet. 

This issue, obviously, is SERIOUS.  All nameservers need to be patched ASAP.  Updates are being released for a lot of different platforms because the problem is with with the DNS protocol, not a specific implementation.

The US-CERT (United States Computer Emergency Response Team) wants help in getting the word out about this problem, which was made public in July, 2008.

So, my efforts are to show you a link from the US-CERT Website containing the alert itself to help inform you on the details.  So be sure to read it!

You may read it in its entirety here: http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/800113

Here you can find all of the details about the problem, including a list of systems that have been effected, many of which are companies we know and love who provied us with internet access, phones and phone services, and computers.  Microsoft, AT&T, and Apple are just a few.  These companies are taking measures to fix their DNS, however this is effecting some of our own experiences on the internet, and not in a positive way.  However, these problems are coming and gong so fast, it hardly comes to the attention to the average person that there might even be anything wrong.

The US-CERT has already done this, but I would personally like to thank Dan Kaminsky of IOActive for finding and revealing this dangerous flaw.  I would also like to thank Dan Kaminsky, the US-CERT, IOActive, and the people getting the word out about this problem for helping make the World Wide Web a safe, secure, and enjoyable place, and literally keeping it alive.

That’s right, now there are websites where you can edit and save your photos without having to download any software at all, and best of all, it’s free.  Ah, yes, our favorite word – “Free.”

It’s called FotoFlexer.  With FotoFlexer, all you do is upload a picture, and get started.  It’s really easy to use and there are alot of things you can do with your photos.

You can crop them, rotate them, adjust the color, add a plethora of effects, add text, layer photos on top of photos, blur and sharpen them, distort them in various ways, and more! 

Don’t worry if you make any mitakes, because you can undo anything as you go along.  If you undo too much, you can redo anything you’ve undone.

Once finished editing your photo, click save.  When you do this, it will ask you to log in or create an account, so if you don’t already have one, create one.  Don’t worry, all it asks for is your name and e-mail, so it’s really short and simple.  After that, it will ask you where you want to save it.  On the left hand side, you can select “My Computer” to save it to your computer, “FotoFlexer” to save your photo and work on it later, or the various other options to add it to a webpage like Myspace.

That’s it!  It’s a really handy tool and very well made.  Best of all, it’s free and easy to use.
So if you can’t afford high end photo editing software and don’t want to go through all the hussle and bussle of figuring out where find free software and installing it, do yourself a favor and visit www.fotoflexer.com

What do you think?

Do you think FotoFlexer is a great tool for editing photos online?  Do you know of any other cool, free online apps that could come in handy?  Whatever you have to say, I want to hear it.  Let me know by writing me at david@funkytower.com

Take it easy,
David

The answer simply because we cannot afford the better hardware.  Well, here are a few tips and tricks that will help you speed up your computer’s performance!

1. Clean it out!  And by this, I mean physically open the computer up and clean it.  All you need is a can of air.  Dust tends to build up very easily and gets caught in the sphagetti of wires inside our computers.  This cause heat to increase, and performance to decrease.  So take a can of air, and blow away as much dust as possible.  If you have a grounding bracelet, CAREFULLY get in with your fingers and get any dust bunnies you may see.  This definately makes a difference.  Be sure to do this monthly or bi-monthly to keep your computer’s perfomance in top shape.
2. Anti-Virus.  No, I’m not going tell you to get new antivirus programs, nor am I telliing to get rid of any antivirus program you may have.  Antivirus programs like McAfee and Norton eat up ALOT of RAM.  Think of RAM as a bunch of guest rooms: Norton is a family of hundreds and they need a place to sleep.  This causes your computer to run slower, applications take longer to open, internet browsers to take forever to launch, etc.  Go into your antivirus’s settings and make sure it is not set to run on start up.  Norton and McAfee are set to scan your whole computer as soon as you boot your computer up, which is probably why it takes forever for your computer to boot up.
3. Less programs on startup.  We all love instant messengers, heck I have about 4 or 5 different ones.  These are the typical programs that help eat up memory on start up.  Be sure to go into your IM’s settings/options and undo any setting that allows them to run on start-up or when you connect to the internet.  Again, the more memory you have available, the better your computer’s performance will be. On windows, you can also keep unneeded programs by clicking on your start menu, click run, and then type “msconfig” (without quotes obviously), click ok, then click the “Startup” tab.  Uncheck any program you don’t need to be running until you pull it up – but be careful not to uncheck anything you don’t know about!  You may accidentally uncheck something that makes your operating system function, and then the only thing you can do is reinstall Windows and lose everything you’ve saved on your computer!  So, be careful in using this method. Another two programs that always gave me trouble was iTunes and the QuickTime Updater.  You can get to the settings of these programs through the programs themselves to keep them from running on startup.
4. NO PEER-2-PEER:  Morpheus, Kazaa, Limewire, etc….No more.  Uninstall them if you have them and then do a good virus scan and spyware scan if you have any virus/spyware removal softwares.  Sure, downloading movies, games, software, and music for free is fun, but doing it this way is also illegal and unsafe for your computer.  Sometimes adware, spyware, and viruses are encrypted into the files you download.  These are harmful to your computer and they can make your computer go extremely slow.  On top of that, the constant downloading and uploading will eat up your RAM.

There you have it, 4 easy ways to help make your computer’s performance that much better.  These are also good practises to take when buying a new PC to keep it functioning like it did the day you bought it.

What do you think?
Did this help you?  Do you have other methods that could help speed up your computer without buying new hardware?  Whatever the case, I want to hear what you have to say.  Send me your thoughts at david@funkytower.com!

Take it easy,
David

If you can afford it, yes; it very much so is.  There are a few things to look at that may really sell you into upgrading from your CRT monitor to a nice, new LCD.

1. Size:  There is no comparison, LCD monitors are way better on deskspace.  LCD monitors are light-weight, sleek, smooth, and beautiful, while CRT monitors are huge, heavy, and often times an eyesoar.  Now, you can mount your LCD monitors to the wall, using a wall mounting device, and free up tons of space on your desk.  This is something you can never do with a CRT monitor; the closest thing you could possibly do is mount a huge shelf onto your wall.
2. Resolution.   The typical default resolution for a CRT monitor is 800×600, which is now below standard.  Even the common 1024 x 768 resolution is becoming out of date.  Here is a cool webpage that tells you how many visitors have which resolutions for their monitors.  https://www.superstats.com/smb7/reports/resolutions.html?
   mycSession=hTkzfOk%3Dl-5-%2522%2522_&mycSession_sig=
   2098891861&username=test_professional&password=test&isGuest=1
   When I looked, I didn’t even see the once common 800×600!  Now, more and more websites are adapting to the 1024×768 resolutions, and if your resolution is below that, those websites won’t really fit in your screen.  This can be quite annoying.  The size of your monitor also effects the resolution; the smaller the monitor, the smaller the resolution.  With LCD monitors you can go 30+ inches!!  Try finding CRT monitors THAT big, and if you did, try finding the desk big enough to hold it.
3. Hi-def.  CRT monitors are NOT in high-def.  Your average LCD monitors, however, are.  Many are even widescreen!  Now, they make blu-ray disc drives, so if you wanted to watch your favorite movies in high definition, now you can!  In a hi-def LCD monitor, pictures, websites, and just any general thing that you see through your monitor comes out so clear!  Movies look better, Games look better, everything looks better.  On CRT monitors, however, the picture can be fuzzy, and sometimes dark, which brings me to my next point.
4. Brightness vs. darkness.  CRT monitors over time tend to get dark, the picture begins to get harder to see, and pretty soon you have to smash your nose into the screen just to be able to read that e-mail from your mother.  By upgrading to a new LCD monitor, you will have a clear, crisp, and bright picture.  There really is no comparison.

So, need I say more?  Are you sold?  Why deal with your old, bulky, low-resolution, low definition CRT monitors any longer?  Go out and buy yourself a new LCD monitor.  I guarantee you, even a small one will make a huge difference.  I’m using a 19″ HP w17e widescreen LCD monitor.  It’s small, yes, but high in performance and high in definition and resolution.  I’m even thinking of getting a wall mount, or possibly run dual monitors. 

What do you think?  Do you think that CRT monitors are better than LCD monitors?  Do you have a monitor that you would like to reccomend?  Perhapse you have more questions about monitors, or just computers in general.  What ever the case, I want to hear about it.  Send me an e-mail at david@funkytower.com and let me know what’s on your mind.

Take it easy,
David