Sortation facility

I love it!! My recent order of PC hardware is being delivered by DPD. All very well organised, and I can even track the consignment. Where is it now? It's at the Sortation Facility of course! I'm going to send my brain off to the Sortation Facility, surely that would be a good move?

Scheduled tasks need a password

I set a user up with a second disk to store backups of lots of photos. And set up a SyncToy pairing to make sure the backup disk kept a copy of all the pictures. And then set up a scheduled task so that would do this backup automatically at a certain time each day. But the scheduled task kept failing. It turns out that the user must have a password for scheduled tasks to work. A blank password is not allowed!

Windows 8

NickWorks IT Support is testing the evaluation copy of Windows 8. It has installed very easily and so far everything works nicely on an old (2GB 2.4GHz) machine - though it is very strongly Microsoft-branded - Bing, SkyDrive, Windows Live etc. Beneath all the new user interface it feels very similar to Windows 7 though.

Here are the timings:

• 00:00 Power up and boot from DVD
• 00:03 Language selection
• 00:05 Codes entered, file copying starts
• 00:10 Reboots. "Installing devices", then "Getting system ready"
• 00:15 Reboots. Sets username and PC name. Gets Microsoft account details etc.
• 00:20 All done, logged in.

Component purchases

A chance conversation over the weekend (thanks, Joe) has led me to apply for an account with Target Components ("the UK's leading trade only distributors of IT products including computer hardware, peripherals, software, audio-visual, consumables ..."). Let's hope that NickWorks Ltd isn't too small to qualify as being trade. They are a very well-organised company, and offer all sorts of opportunities... 

AVG update breaks network!

A recent AVG update reset the users' firewall - and turned off all file sharing. Easy to fix, but annoying if you're not expecting it!!

NickWorks Printing

NickWorks printing is starting to take off! I have fulfilled two print orders this week, and believe that the prices are good enough that there will be lots more! And - as a bonus - the last job involved a ride up to the Dales and back, and a sunny walk along the River Wharfe. See some NickWorks printing prices.

Installing Windows

I end up doing this quite a lot...a disk has failed, there has been a serious virus problem, or the machine has got into such a mess that it cannot easily be recovered. There are a few tricks worth having up your sleeve when reinstalling a Windows machine - but note...this is not supposed to be a complete guide to installing Windows, and there may be any number of hurdles along the way!

1. You are going to need a product key when you reinstall. This 25-character code is normally to be found on the Windows sticker attached to the machine's casing. But if it's a laptop it may have rubbed off. Before you start reinstalling, get the code! If you can't find it, it can be recovered from the machine. I keep a small program called ProduKey.exe which fetches the Windows product key.

2. When you reinstall, all the existing software is also going to need reinstalling. Make sure there is a way to do this. You will need install media and license codes. ProduKey will also tell you the code for any installed Microsoft Office products.

3. Once Windows is back on, you need to secure it as fast as possible. This involves

(i) getting the drivers for the ethernet adaptor, and installing it. Unless there is a manufacturer's CD available, you may need to use another machine and a portable disk to do this.

(ii) getting antivirus software on and updated. I keep a copy of Microsoft Security Essentials on my portable disk to save time downloading it. It will still need to update.

(iii) getting Windows updates. It saves a lot of fuss to have the Windows service packs downloaded and ready to install on the portable disk too. Once the latest service pack is on, you will still need to use Windows Update to bring things up to date.
(iv) installing all the other devices. The computer manufacturer's website is generally the first port of call here.

4. There is a mass of useful software that is needed to make a machine do normal everyday tasks. The bulk can be installed in one go by visiting ninite.com. Selecting the required packages from a list, you then leave ninite to do the work, fetching and installing the latest versions of everything with no questions asked.

Power Mac Not Freezing!

Removing the extra memory cures the freezing problem. Moral: change only one thing at a time!

Power Mac freezing

I replaced the power supply on a Power Mac G4 last week. All looked fine, but now the machine is freezing repeatedly. I also installed some extra RAM and I hope this proves to be the cause - otherwise I will be running the Apple Hardware Test...at least I have a complete set of spare parts for this machine, as I scrapped an identical one to get the power supply.

Regular servicing

I'm out and about today servicing a few people's machines on monthly support contracts. "Prevention is better than cure" - a little bit of regular attention can keep machines running sweetly and safely!

Laptop freezing

I've had trouble with a Samsung NP-X360 laptop which keeps freezing. It turns out that the Intel graphics drivers for this model are at fault, and it can be cured by using the Windows built-in drivers. Reinstalling with Windows XP (was Vista) and retaining default drivers did the trick!