This charming list of IT woes is courtesy of sysadminday.com. Held on the July 27th, 2007 when everyone should be nice to the IT guy (in this case – Ted). It made me laugh, and hopefully you too! (more…)

Some people are still having trouble fixing Flash in Windows Vista, despite trying my original fix back in February. I am getting masses of emails and comments about it, mostly [fortunately] to say a successful fix, but a few not. So here goes with another line of attach:-

Go to the Control Panel > Choose Programs & Features > look for anything which is called ‘Adobe Flash Player’ or ‘Macromedia Flash Player’ and uninstall it. Make sure Internet Explorer is closed before you uninstall. (more…)

Yes, it nearly is that time of year again. This Sunday the UK moves its clocks forward from Greenwich Mean Time by one hour (GMT+1).

Fortunately, your computer will already know this and will adjust itself. If the computer has the wrong time or date in its memory it won’t do it correctly.

To check if your computer has the correct time and date set, just right click over the clock in the bottom right of your screen and choose ‘adjust time and date’. Then look and see if the both time and date are correct in the window that appears.

Let’s face it; doing recycling everyday isn’t practical or easy the whole time.

Fortunately the clever boys and girls at HP have come-up with what should prove to be a very easy method.

Inside each genuine HP ink cartridges packaging is a freepost envelope (see right for demo) which you can just drop your old HP cartridge into and send off to be recycled at no cost to yourself.

Normally the cartridge is attached to the inner packaging of the cartridge in a green-striped cellophane wrap.

You can buy genuine HP cartridges from HP directly, Amazon.co.uk or at dabs.com. Don’t forget you can always price check your cartridges before you buy at Kelkoo.

I always recommend that customers use original manufacturers cartridges.

Whilst wondering down High Street Ken on Friday to go to a customer, I could not help but notice in Easy Internet a tall, black, strange looking box with the words ‘ChargeBox’ written down the side. This wasn’t the first time I had seen one of these Space Odyssey 2001 looking boxes. On further investigation later that day, I discovered what this mysterious box did – and it is rather clever.

A ChargeBox allows you to charge your power hungry devices whilst out and about. – such as mobile phones, iPods and PDAs inside a securable locker. It does seem they support quite an array of mobile devices.

The idea is that should your mobile battery, or iPod, be dying due to no juice, just find your nearest ChargeBox location (and there are plenty of them about, not just in London but the world over) either pay the £1 fee using the old coin method or paying via text message. This will then buy you 40 minutes of charge time. You seal you device in one of the lockers, leave it be and come back later to collect and go. Genius!

You can find more about this clever invention and its locations at www.chargebox.com

All is now fixed and working normally. My host has discovered the system wobble issue and have put me back into norms-ville (see right for wobble / mental demonstration).

As stated on my orginal post (see here):

Please don’t let this put you off booking online in the future!

Very surprisingly Microsoft has announced that doesn’t plan to issue any security updates next week. This is a most unusual break in what is quite the monthly ritual for Windows users.

They will, however, be issuing a number of non-security related high-priority updates as normal. (more…)

This will apply to anyone who receives broadband through a BT line.

I have been advised that on Thursday 8th and Friday 9th of March, there will be BT maintenance carried out on numerous exchanges around the UK.

The work will be taking place during the early hours of the morning, and so should be working normally ready for the rest of the day, in particular this should be around 04:01 on Thursday 8th, and 07:30 on Friday 9th March.

I do not expect there to be any problems, however, if you should experience any issues with your connection, before contacting me, please first try powering down your ADSL equipment for 30 minutes to allow a fresh connection session with your exchange.

Sorry to anyone who tried booking a time online this week, for the first time in two years the system has fallen into technicial difficulties. There is a time delay of 48 hours from when you book a time online, and when I receive the request – it is really fustrating for both me and you!

I am working to resolve the issue ASAP, in the mean time please either ring or email me with details of when you would like a time.

Please don’t let this put you off booking online in the future! I will post again when everything is back to normal.

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Update: As of this morning (01.03.2007) I have reinstated the book a time online system. There are still delays in requests arriving, but by only 28 hours.