Feeling adventurous? Well, not the outdoor-lets-go-to-parts-unknown adventurous, i meant something else. You see, it happens. PC Motherboards sometimes just conk out on you and you don’t have the time nor the money to buy a new one. Here’s one cheap … More
A new Windows computer usually means lots of work, removing all that unwanted trial software, updating Windows, installing tweaks, etc. etc. Wouldn’t it be nice to just install an up-to-date Windows XP computer from scratch, with all the service packs, … More
Dear ThatDamnPc readers: My name is Mary and I’m one of b5media.com‘s newest bloggers. I’ve enjoyed using Windows since the first KayPro computer, which was ‘CPM’ machine and the forerunner of the first windows’ computer: the Osborne, both ‘laptops’ of … More
Many users behind corporate firewalls have to endure the hassles that are proxy servers. Proxy servers sit between the end user and the internet, routin (and generally logging) traffic going back and forth. The easiest way to set proxy settings … More
Every once in awhile, the files that control Windows ability to network goes a little wonky. These files, collectively, are known as the TCP/IP stack because they allow the computer to communicate over TCP/IP, grab an IP address, collect name … More
A great flexibility of any commandline environment is the built in ability to write scripts to automate processes, particularly repetitive ones. Linux affords the greates flexibility with thousands of commands available in varying flavors across multiple different shells (Bourne, Korn, … More
I came across a great read today as I dug through literature on the best way to destroy data on a hard drive that has a broken head. This did not solve my problem, but it is a great read … More
Last night we had a hell of a lot of storms come through the area. A guy called me up this evening after his experiences with a client that had had his facility struck by lightning. The storm fried everything: … More
I spent over two hours on the phone with my dad two states away this evening. His laptop had been infected with a particularly nasty piece of spyware that I can only determine to be a variant of SmitFraud. SmitFraud … More
I ran across a great article describing the process for fixing a computer that simply won’t boot because of a corrupted system file. One of these errors might apply: Windows could not start because the following file is missing or … More
There are a number of projects out there that attempt to bring the flexibility and features of Unix to Windows. Windows, comparitively speaking, is a very weak shell OS. By that I mean that while it has a lot of … More
This is a weird one I have no answer to (mostly because I ran out of time and I’m likely going to reimage the machine next week anyway). A user downloaded the latest client VPN piece to upgrade his VPN … More
A little known utility in Windows is the verifier program. A common symptom of driver problems comes when you try to boot into a system that has been compromised and continually encounter a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death). Often times … More
One of the areas that users complain about with their system is startup speed. While there are a number of things that you can do to speed your startup, there are several services that are started automatically by Windows XP … More
