The Difference

What’s the Difference Between Intel Core i3, i5, i7, and X CPUs?

I Really Don't Mind This Tip Except...

As I was scanning through my emails this AM, I saw my WindowsTips email arrived at 5:01 AM. It made me pause and wonder, "Someone actually was awake enough prior to 5:01 AM to send out the email?" Then I settled upon the idea that there is such a thing as automated sending of email - even Microsoft Outlook has it - and resolved my own question by presuming the email was finished prior to 5:01 AM and was sent out through an automated job. These were the tips in today's WindowsTips email arrived at 5:01 AM:

I am using Windows 7 so I am not interested in HEVC and HEIF files at the moment. I know that the Add UserForms to Your Macros tip is a class and I'm unlikely to pay for it so I am uninterested. The Narrator functionality is not something I really need at this point, though I did notice that the icon associated with "an accessibility feature designed for people who have trouble reading text that's on the screen" is in a wheelchair, which is fine, but it made me wonder if there was some sort of automated process that searched for and selected that icon based upon the "accessibility" keyword. I have no idea if icons can be automatically assigned based upon search criteria - maybe I'm thinking too much about it. The final tip was more interesting to me - Repairing Your System Using a System Repair Disk - so I clicked the link.

As it turns out, I was right about it being interesting. I read the first sentence and while I don't mind how the first sentence establishes the prerequisite for using the article, I do quibble about the way that first sentence is unhelpful. Here's the first sentence - "Assuming you've created a system repair disk (which is covered in another tip), you can use it to get your system up and running if it crashes and cannot be booted via normal means. It made me pause and wonder, "Well, if I don't have a system repair disk, where is the article to read about doing that? That's why I think it would be more helpful if which is covered in another tip was a hyperlink to that other tip, which is located here.

Walmart Gaming PC: How to Do Everything Wrong

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How Stupid Software Developers Can Be

It amazes me how stupid software developers can be. I just saw this on Microsoft: Upcoming Windows Update Might Fail If Your Hard Drive is Too Full Justin Pot @jhpot September 21st, 2018 and I'm mystified by what I read.

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Full hard drives could cause an upcoming Windows update to fail,

according to Microsoft,

and the system will not check for adequate storage space before installing.

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Side note: The above sentence could use a rewrite to end up like this: According to Microsoft, full hard drives could cause an upcoming Windows update to fail and the system will not check for adequate storage space before installing.

Back to the point of this post. Just who in the h-e-double toothpicks thought that it would be a good idea to add a check for adequate storage space before installing?!?!? Do software developers ever use software?!?!? I can't imagine any software developer I know who wouldn't throw a temper tantrum if they went to install new software that didn't check for adequate hard drive space prior to installing the software. Why? Simple: software installers have been doing that type of check since at least 1994, when I worked with a PC that ran Windows 3.1 and had a hard drive without adequate hard drive space to install Office 97. I remember inserting my 3.5" Install Disk 1 and seeing an error message that told me "You dodn't have enough space to install this!" Thank God for HowtoGeek.com, which offers this piece of advice:

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We recommend trying the Free Up Space tool, shown above. Find it in Settings > System > Storage to free up some space before running the October 2018 update.

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Too bad howtogeek.com has to pick up the slack of stupid software developers.

Editor's Note: You should not infer that the author believes ALL software developers are stupid.

Things Wrong with the Windows 10 PC

http://windowsreport.com/windows-10-not-showing-disk-drive/
http://windowsreport.com/error-not-same-device/
http://windowsreport.com/recover-damaged-hard-drive-software/

So Unfortunate

As the world spins, so do those who want more that is not theirs.

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Tech support scammers get even slipperier

If you give control of your computer to a remote online technician, you may be in a fix instead of getting one, reports the Chicago Tribune. The Better Business Bureau is tracking a growing number of tech support scams in which users facing crashed computers give online access for repairs that do nothing more than drain their wallets.The technician typically extracts a $500 fee via credit card, scours the computer for sensitive data and inserts malware to continue snooping. Other shady tactics include placing online ads that generate fake error messages adapted to each victim's computer setup and exploiting workers at fraudulent call centers who may not even realize they are part of a scam, reports Fast Company. To protect your computer and wallet, keep operating systems patched, use security software to filter out malware, avoid browsing dodgy websites and be wary of unsolicited messages from anyone claiming to represent companies like Microsoft or Apple.

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I've thought this many times: if the stupid idiots who do stupid things like take advantage of non-technical people would use their knowledge for 'good' instead of evil, it would be a wonderful world.

The Windows 10 Beast

Recently, the Windows 10 PC I bought to rip CDs with has been a bust. While I thought I had found a solution - and posted about it within the month - that solution has proven to be a false hope. The problem is that I don't have a valid license key for Windows 10 so if I were to reset it to the factory default, I'd have an issue if I am prompted to enter the Activation key. Trust me, I've searched for the CD to enter it, but no luck. This looks interesting to me:

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So does this article: Selling your Windows 10 PC? Don’t forget to do all of these things by Tristan Greene

As far as whether I should build my own PC to my own specifications, I read this article - https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/the-geek-blog/building-a-new-computer-part-1-choosing-hardware/ - and it may as well be written in Klingon.

Simple Resolution

Over the last few days, when I've been in the den to rip CDs, I haven't been able to rip CDs with the Windows 10 PC. No matter what folder permissions were changed, file permissions were changed, or how many times I rebooted, nothing worked. I was ready to look into tearing apart two PCs that are dormant and residing under the desk and pirating a CD drive from them and hooking it to the Windows 10 PC with a USB to SATA cable to see if I could rip CDs that way when I found this site: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/apps_windows_10-winapps-appscat_music/windows-10-media-player-not-ripping-music-cds-to/950947ad-efc0-41c9-b975-7acf50c39b40

Sure enough, when I looked at the Options, I saw that the Allow audio files to convert in the background check box was cleared. I selected the the Allow audio files to convert in the background check box and inserted a CD into the CD drive.

After days of not being able to convert a CD with the external CD drive hooked to the Toshiba laptop AND also convert a CD with the Windows 10 PC, I now have both CD drives humming away! Of course, it's now 10:32 AM and I've been in the den, ripping CDs to MP3 with only the external CD drive hooked to the Toshiba laptop converting the CDs. I have made a lot of progress today - I'm not disappointed with my accomplishment - but imagining how much further I'd be if I had been able to rip 2 CDs at the same time for the last 3.5 hours makes me wish I had figured this out... 3.5 hours earlier!

Laptop Battery Advice

Should I Leave My Laptop Plugged In All The Time?

A New Toy?

I've been slogging along with the CD to MP3 conversion. I have 3 CDs remaining on Spindle #33. I have a single PC being used for this process. It was deemed too risky (my words) to use Alex's i3 laptop (remember, we purchased an i5 laptop for him shortly before he went to college at UNI because the i3 was "too slow") to do this because whenever I use a computer, I tend to have PC issues. That is true. In fact, the other week at work, my laptop acted like it wasn't charging. I submitted a ticket to the Help Desk and a guy I know came over to assist me. He ran diagnostics on the battery and said it was fine. I hook my laptop to a docking station and it turned out (embarrassed still about this) that I didn't have it plugged in all the way because as soon as I pushed in the thing in the back of the docking station, the laptop started charging.

Shifting gears to my CD to MP3 project, as a refresher, I began this project on 6/5/2016 with 5000 (50 spindles * 100 CDs on each) CDs to convert. Today, I'm on the downhill slide. After I finish Spindle #33 tonight, there will be 1700 (17 spindles * 100 CDs on each) CDs remaining to rip. Simple math tells me that 3300 divided by 5000 (50 spindles * 100 CDs on each) is 66% so I'm getting near the end. Because the Toshiba laptop CD drive ceased working, I'm only using a single CD drive on the Windows 10 PC. Ripping one CD at a time makes it feel like this conversion project is going really slow. I toyed with the idea of buying a cheap second machine and so, to investigate that, I happened to find a local computer company on Facebook. I sent a Facebook message to them, explaining what I was doing with the CDs to MP3 project and inquiring if there were any cheap machines with a CD drive for sale. I explained that I didn't think I would use the machine after the project is done.

The response took me by surprise. Their suggestion was to purchase an external CD drive - such as this one:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIABEJ65D8497&cm_re=external_cd_drive-_-27-136-267-_-Product - instead of a second machine. The logic is that instead of using two machines to rip CDs, use a single faster than what I have in the Windows 10 PC to rip each CD faster.

Brilliant! I can then use my work laptop, which doesn't have a CD drive, as a tunnel. At home, on the weekend, I can set up Windows Media Player to rip the CD from the external CD drive to an external hard drive, which I like because then, nothing is stored on my work laptop regarding this CD to MP3 project. I now have to plan this out.

Yay Me!

I'm writing this post using the new-to-me Windows 10 PC I purchased on Friday evening after work for $60. I have been setting it up since I brought it home. I have accomplished the following:

• plugged in the wireless keyboard
• plugged in multiple external hard drives
• plugged in Brad Guyer's former mouse that I use at work (and take home each weekend because it's so awesome!)
• installed Office 2016 installed (thanks to the license agreement my employer has with Microsoft)
• installed Free File Synch (website)
• ripped CDs like crazy! 

Thankfully, it seems like the CD drive is faster than the Toshiba laptop. It's convenient to have this new PC because, for inexplicable reasons, the Toshiba laptop CD drive is acting up and not ripping CDs. I insert a CD in and nothing happens. I'd be really much more upset about it if I didn't have this new-to-me PC on my desk in the den. Having this new PC also will help me plow through the spindles. I'm ripping Spindle #20 because, thankfully, Megan was home on Friday and ripped the rest of Spindle 19 for me. She used the Toshiba laptop and her own HP laptop too to get through 50 CDs. I plan to utilize her over the next few weeks while she's home in order to plow through the spindles, if she's up for it. 

Rain Praises

My favorite days of any year are Fridays when it rains. As far back as junior high, I remember being excited when it would rain on a Friday. I don't recall what the initial 'good thing' was that happened on a rainy Friday - I have just always had the preconceived idea that good things happen to me on a rainy Friday. Thus, with rain coming down outside, it feels fitting and proper to acknowledge some things that are planned for today:

1. Karen's last day in her present role is today - she begins a different role in a different department with a different manager. Like when I left QDS to go to the Hell company, there are mixed feelings. You leave behind friends at the old job and have to learn to embrace new friends. In my experience, those friendships are never the same after you no longer see those friends every day. It's just different.
2. At 10 AM, John, the tile guy, is coming to our house to finish the tile in our bathroom. I paid him $180 yesterday for the work.
3. At 4, I am bee-lining to a house about 10 minutes north of work to pick up a PC tower for $60. I am excited to be doing this so that I can have a second PC / machine to rip CDs. I am hoping by doing this I can alleviate the issue I've been having with the Toshiba laptop, which is that the CD drive does not recognize some data CDs that I know were recognized during prior CD to MP3 conversions.

I feel like James felt in this picture I saw in this concert review - Metallica treats Nassau Coliseum concertgoers to rock party - just now:

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That is the facial expression of a guy who is enjoying life and even though I can't see his face, I would like to think Kirk Hammett is smiling too. I wish Chris Cornell was alive to see that smile...

Asking questions before I am done!

I got a phone call last night.

“Hello sir? I am calling you because we have identified the problems you have with your computer.”
“How did you get my number,” I asked.
“Asking questions before I am done! Why are you doing that?”
“Excuse me? You are being very rude and I do not have time to talk to rude people,” I said before I hung up.

Karen’s co-worker got one of these phone calls a couple of weeks ago & she bought a “PC service” for $416. She had me come over to look at what they had installed and, while I was there, she called the number to ask for a refund because when I went to the website for the company, it was all about electric generators & no mention of PC support. The last I heard, she hasn’t got her money back.

Acer in my Future

I found this PC online for $120. I like the small case - I think it would actually fit nicely on the desk in an area that is wasted because of the desk design. It's just a casualty, you could say, of the design of a desk that is L-shaped. The desk is fantastic - I don't want to give the impression I do not like my birthday & Christmas present. I do. Most definitely, I do! I'm just commenting that the PC below would fit on the desk whereas a tall tower would have to be placed under the desk which, for ripping CDs, is not very convenient.

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Acer computer works good only year and half old but only used for 5 months. I lost the dvi cable but everything turns on just can't connect screen to computer. Description of item in pictures. Sw Cedar Rapids no holds you pick up. $120obo no low ball

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Calculating the Space

I haven't wrote much about it, but I've been working on eliminating duplicates from my "master" external hard drive. I seriously have copies of copies of copies of JPGs, PDFs, DOCs, and a bunch of other file types. This work has been on-going for several months with some minimal progress. It seems never-ending. Here's what I can share so far.

This is from the home laptop. What I've been trying to do is determine whether a 5 TB external hard drive, like the one on sale at Best Buy for ~$140, has a large enough capacity to copy all of my files to it. The screen capture below shows files on the T:\ drive but those files have been moved to another drive so T:\ is out of the picture as far as needing to consolidate files from it to another drive.

Here's a table I created:

Drive	Used	In GB	Free	Total Size
G - P	1.27 TB	1250	1.41 TB	4 TB
U	1.80 TB	1853	11.7 GB	2 TB
V	681 GB	681	249 GB	1 TB
Y	1.45 TB	1484	2.17 TB	4 TB
Z	341 GB	341	1.48 TB	2 TB

 Based upon the chart above, here's some crude math:

   G through P drives   1250 GB

+  U                    1853 GB 

                        3103 GB  = 3.030 TB

+ V                      681 GB

                         781 GB  = 3.781 TB

+ Y                      484 GB 

                        5268 GB  = 5.268 TB

+ Z                      341 GB

                        5609 GB  = 5.609 TB

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Obviously, 5.609 TB exceeds 5 TB by 609 GB. Then I noticed that the V drive has 681 GB. I calculated the above without including the V:\ drive:

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   G through P drives   1250 GB

+  U                    1853 GB 

                        3103 GB  = 3.030 TB

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+ Y                     1484 GB 

                        4587 GB  = 4.587 TB

+ Z                      341 GB

                        4928 GB  = 4.928 TB

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5 TB > 4.928 TB! Bingo! Except that leaves me with 928 GB on the brand new external hard drive, which isn't a lot.

Thus, before I purchase a new 5 TB external hard drive from Best Buy, I want to eliminate 72 GB. I also have to consider if it'd be possible to eliminate 681 GB (the equivalent of the V drive) from the 4.928 TB so as to allow me to copy the V drive to a new 5 EHD.  I don't have a timeline for when all of this will be complete. Usually I would dedicate Saturday & Sunday mornings on a task like this. However, looking at my calendar, I don't really have any weekends I can dedicate to this project. Thus, I will try to work on it whenever I can.

Consistently Wishing For the Same Unicorn

I don't believe in unicorns, but I somehow still believe that the a$$holes that write viruses and malware and other sh1t that takes over a PC should turn away from greed and being not nice and, instead, use their (obvious) talent for good, to improve the planet I share with them. That's the least they could do. I get it - making $ is nice and all, but my goodness, if my 78 year-old mother-in-law got the virus explained in the article below and she was told that she had to pay $ in order to see pictures that Alex and I assembled and backed up and created a backup CD for her, she'd probably want to pay it. She has no clue what a "bitcoin" is - I barely know - so there'd be chaos.

Read about it here: http://features.en.softonic.com/the-first-ransomware-of-the-year-reaches-a-new-level-of-threat

Issues II

Hah! net use g: \\nnn.nnn.n.6\ gave me the message to enter my password but net use g: \\nnn.nnn.n.7\ does not! My IP address (apparently) changed! I changed my DOS batch file and replaced 6 with 7 and it worked!

Issues

After several blissful weeks of not having a single PC issue, it seems like the hell of owning multiple PCs has returned.

1. The CD drive on the Windows XP machine from the Elkader library is flaky, When I put in a CD so it can be ripped, Windows Media Player states that a CD drive is required to rip a CD. Uh, there is a CD drive because I just put a CD into it. If I physically shake the PC, sometimes the CD drive is then recognized but often it is not. I'm just glad that I am in the 200ish range of CDs remaining in the reconversion project when this has happened.
2. I just discovered the CD drive on the Toshiba laptop is equally flaky. When I put in a CD so it can be ripped, the CD is not recognized by Windows 7. When I go to Device Manager, Windows tells me "Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged (code 19)" so, to fix this, I went to this page: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929461. There was an UpperFilters entry in the registry so I deleted it - there was not a LowerFilters entry. I am rebooting the Toshiba now to see if that works.
3. My work laptop previously would automatically connect to my home network. I have a DOS batch file that maps the network drives to a letter. Today, when I went to do this, Windows asked me to specify the password. Huh? I've never had to do that ever before. I investigated a bit. After finding the unhelpful message below, I learned that I don't have the ability to fix it.
   
4. My Samsung Galaxy S4 has somehow been set to play Skillet's "Rise" when I get a notification from my Craigslist app and I can't remember how to take that off.
   

Windows Maintenance & Other News

I will probably forget about these two articles but am thinking if I put them here, as a blog post, I may stumble upon them in the future.

The role of System Administrator has become mine at home. When the Toshiba laptop doesn't function as expected, I try to figure it out. Often, I am merely guessing or making slightly educated guesses, based upon whatever website Google takes me to as I research the issue. From an email newsletter I subscribe to about Microsoft Windows, I skimmed the following two articles about Windows maintenance.

• Part 1: http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/the-windows-maintenance-challenge-part-1/ 
• Part 2: http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/the-windows-maintenance-challenge-part-2/

There's also news about the Los Angeles school district and my employer: http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-lausd-ipads-20140822-story.html

Another thing that has bugging me lately is what Windows Media Player does. When I rip a CD, as part of the CD to MP3 conversion, I am often already listening to a MP3. What WMP does is automatically stop playback of the music and takes its focus to ripping the CD. This article -
http://superuser.com/questions/53703/how-do-i-stop-windows-media-player-12-auto-playing-cds - provides an easy solution of adding a registry key. Don't muck with the registry if you're uncomfortable doing so.

And speaking of the CD to MP3 conversion, I am at 

Coming Soon

I thought more about my idea to purge my Hotmail e-mail account. I am going to start it on December 1, 2008, and go through a page a day. That's 20 days of getting rid of junk. I'll be done before Christmas.

Here's a taste of what I have in my Inbox.
This link takes you to a freeware site that has registry cleaners. Who doesn't need a good registry cleaner to get rid of all the garbage applications leave behind when they are uninstalled?
http://www.snapfiles.com/freeware/system/fwregtools.html

I had junk on my PC:

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware 1.30Database version: 1412Windows 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2
11/21/2008 6:48:23 AMmbam-log-2008-11-21 (06-48-23).txt
Scan type: Full Scan (C:\)Objects scanned: 222636Time elapsed: 2 hour(s), 38 minute(s), 1 second(s)
Memory Processes Infected: 0Memory Modules Infected: 0Registry Keys Infected: 2Registry Values Infected: 0Registry Data Items Infected: 0Folders Infected: 1Files Infected: 3
Memory Processes Infected:(No malicious items detected)
Memory Modules Infected:(No malicious items detected)
Registry Keys Infected:HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{87255c51-cd7d-4506-b9ad-97606daf53f3} (Adware.Coupons) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ext\Stats\{7370f91f-6994-4595-9949-601fa2261c8d} (Adware.BHO) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.
Registry Values Infected:(No malicious items detected)
Registry Data Items Infected:(No malicious items detected)
Folders Infected:C:\Program Files\Antivirus 2009 (Rogue.Antivirus 2009) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.
Files Infected:C:\System Volume Information\_restore{B37680B2-BA0A-4E5D-BF30-83E44C588624}\RP1472\A0750228.exe (Trojan.Downloader) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.C:\Program Files\Antivirus 2009\av2009.exe (Rogue.Antivirus 2009) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\svchost.exe (Heuristics.Reserved.Word.Exploit) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.

Gone now.