If you’re like me, you’ve amassed a collection of CD’s and MP3’s over the years. For some people its quite a large collection, for others its just a few songs. But regardless of how many songs and audio files you may have, wouldn’t it be nice to access them from any computer anywhere in the world? Yea. I would too.
Well, its all possible if you are using a cross-platform program that I just discovered yesterday called Subsonic Music Streamer. Its unbelievably easy to setup, and absolutely free! And for those of you using Fisher-Price toys otherwise known as Mac’s there is a version for you as well. Some other features:
- Listen to your music from anywhere – all you need is a browser.
- Assign ratings and comments to albums.
- Supports MP3, OGG, AAC and any other audio or video format that streams over HTTP.
- Transcoding engine allows for streaming of a variety of lossy and lossless formats by converting to MP3 on-the-fly.
- Control Subsonic from any mobile phone or PDA, using the WAP interface.
- Users must log in with a username and password. Users are assigned different privileges.
- Use HTTPS/SSL encryption for ultimate protection.
And there is lots of other features that are mentioned on Subsonic’s website. Like I mentioned before, Subsonic was extremely simple for me to install. I had attempted to install some other kind of music streaming software (I forget the name) months ago, but gave up after I got lost in configuring databases, etc. Not so with Subsonic. It was over before I knew what happened. If you are using Windows Vista, try it for yourself using the following steps. Read more…
I know Valentine’s Day is already over, but I thought it was still worth posting this. Several years ago, Microsoft posted a free screensaver for Valentine’s Day that was an instant hit with others I know. Unfortunately, Microsoft has not updated the screensaver since 2004, however it still installs successfully on Windows Vista. You can download the Screen Saver using the links below.
This is a screensaver for Windows which celebrates Valentine’s Day. During setup you can enter the message of love you would like the screensaver to display by editing the screensaver settings.
Download Screensaver
Download Screensaver from Microsoft.com
*Heart image by Tango! with Some Rights Reserved.
Sweet. Just in time for the holidays. The Yule Log visualization for Windows Media Player has just been updated to support Vista and Windows Media Player 11. It also supports Windows 7. 
Sure you have. You’ve seen that dreaded Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). Yea, that lovely blue background with informative gibberish about what you did wrong to your computer. Yes. that’s the one I’m talking about. Did you know you can download a screen saver featuring a realistic bluescreen complete with a startup splash screen? I can just tell what you’re thinking now, “but… but why would I need that??”. That’s a good question. Why would a person want a blue-screen screen saver? I can think of at least one good reason why you might like to know about this, but I’ll let you decide for yourself.
Official Download from Microsoft
Mirror Download
Disclaimer: Do not attempt this at home. This product is meant for educational purposes only. Void where prohibited. Some assembly required. May contain peanuts. Batteries not included. Contents may settle during shipment. Use only as directed. Limited time offer. Price does not include taxes. Driver does not carry cash. You must be present to win.
If your HP Officejet printer starts printing text & images backwards just out of the blue, don’t panic. It’s a known bug that occurs on Windows XP after installing Service Pack 3. In my situation, I deleted the printer and then reinstalled it which fixed it. However, HP does provide a knowledge base article with a simpler fix.
Issue
After downloading and installing Windows XP Service Pack 3 on the computer, the HP product prints text and images backwards or as a mirror image of what appears on-screen when printing from any program.
Click OK to apply the change.
Solution
To resolve the issue, turn off mirror imaging in Printer Preferences . To do this, use the following steps:
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From the Windows taskbar, click Start and then click Run .
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Type control printers in the Open box and then press Enter . The Printers and Faxes window displays.
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Right-click the HP product from the list of printers and then select Properties . The Properties dialog box displays.
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From the General tab, click Printing Preferences . The Printing Preferences dialog box displays.
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Click the Advanced tab.
Under Printer Features , click Mirror Image , click the down arrow to the right of the field, and then click Off .
Microsoft has issued an emergency security update that applies to Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, and Server 2008 Systems. I would highly advise checking Windows Update on your computer and installing the patch immediately.
What? But I thought Windows Vista was installed?
Recently, I was working on a customer’s computer which had a bad motherboard. The customer opted to go with a new computer instead of repairing the old one. Naturally, I copied all the documents, Outlook pst files, etc. to the new computer, but I thought, wouldn’t it be nice if I could create a virtual hard disk of the physical drive that I or the customer could actually boot into? However, I could not find a method to create a .vhd file from an existing hard drive, so I gave up the idea. The next day I attended a Microsoft Across America event in Gettysburg, and the Microsoft rep in his presentation mentioned that he had made a .vhd file of his wife’s old computer using a program called WinImage. I quickly jotted the name down, and today I had a chance to download the program and it does exactly what I’m after. With that lengthy introduction here are the steps you need to do to convert your physical hard drive into a Virtual Machine or .vhd file for use in Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 or a similar program. Read more…
Engadget has a post up comparing the featuresof Vista and Leopard, and you would think its Word War 3 by the comments. 
(Ohh, by the way, there is exactly 666 comments over there now as I’m writing this post.) Its funny how people get all fired up about which OS is the best. I’ve worked with enough Operating Systems in my shory life to know they all have big flaws.
However, Vista is still the best. 
Update: And don’t even get me started on this. That’s a huge reason why I don’t more appreciation for Apple than I do. They are so arrogant.
I’m so frustrated right now with this old, old problem of installing Windows XP on a RAID hard drive system. The only way to add the drivers is by using a floppy disk. That brings up several questions.
- What is a floppy disk?
- Where do I find one?
- Where do I find a floppy drive? New computers don’t have them.
Ahh.. Here we go, I found a used floppy drive in one of my old computers, but now for a disk. Ahh.. found that too. First disk doesn’t work, second one doesn’t either. Is it the drive or the floppies? Try the third disk.. sweet, that one works. Start Win XP setup, hit F6, insert floppy disk. ERROR!! grrrrr…. still no go. Ok, lets try with a new disk. Attempting to write files. Error :
Windows Error N. 5
Access is denied.
I agree with Iain Magee :
So – all told – a 5 minute job took probably the most of an hour. Why Microsoft? Why can’t we have setup read the file from a CD or USB key? This was a problem 5 years ago – and I just can’t believe that 5 years on it’s still a problem.
