Category Archives: computer tips

Fix Dell XPS 13 5GHz wifi speed issues [SOLVED]

When I first connected my Dell XPS 13 to my ASUS router I was quite impressed by the 893Mbps connection speed. However, a few days later and I could not even see the 5GHz wifi network. 🙁 I was stuck at 144Mbps and not loving it. After experimenting with the drivers, I determined that an automatic driver update had effectively disabled the 5GHz capability of the internal wifi card and that by reverting to the original (stock) Windows 8.1 driver

Dell XPS 13 SSD upgrade to 512GB [2015]

2015/07 UPDATE: for my Dell XPS 13 (2015 infinity display) I completed the 512GB SSD upgrade about 4 months ago and I highly recommend the upgrade! Here are the new performance numbers: ———————————————————————– CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3 Shizuku Edition x64 (C) 2007-2013 hiyohiyo Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/ ———————————————————————– * MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s] Sequential Read : 481.072 MB/s Sequential Write : 436.664 MB/s Random Read 512KB : 329.971 MB/s Random Write 512KB : 392.295 MB/s Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :

New MacBook vs Dell XPS 13 Infinity Display

Apple just announced their new 12″ Macbook and personally I am going to be keeping my Dell XPS 13 “infinity display” laptop. Reasons: Extra screen size for similar footprint Higher resolutions available Speaker quality (Apple might surprise here, but judging by their phones and tablets I do not hold out much hope) SD card reader Better battery life USB ports that can be used even when the laptop is charging Easily upgradeable SSD $500 cheaper (with Dell coupons) Areas where the

Updating VMware Tools fails [SOLVED] isolation.tools.guestInitiatedUpgrade.disable = “FALSE”

Updating VMware Tools fails with the error: Update Tools failed. Edit the virtual machine’s vmx file (2007298) Symptoms You are unable to update VMware Tools. Updating VMware Tools fails. You see the error: Update Tools failed. Edit the virtual machine’s vmx file, add the line below and try again. Please read KB article 1714 on tips for editing a vmx file. isolation.tools.guestInitiatedUpgrade.disable = “FALSE” To resolve this issue, enable VMware Tools updates from within the guest by updating the virtual machine

SLOW Dell XPS 13 i3 CPU performance [FIXED!]

UPDATE: The latest Dell XPS 13 BIOS version A04 fixed the processor speed issue on my XPS 13, and it no longer requires SpeedStep to be disabled! You can find the download link here: Dell BIOS DL ORIGINAL POST: MARCH 5TH 2015 I recently purchased a new 2015 Dell XPS 13 “Infinity Display” laptop. Dell has been running some coupon specials and last week you could get the model with an Intel Core i3 processor for right around $700 USD.

Access is denied [SOLVED] Command Prompt Windows 7/8/10

Q. Help! I am trying to access a file from an old hard drive on my new machine but when I navigate to the directory on my Windows command prompt I get an ‘Access is denied.’ error message 🙁 Can you help me??? -Megan A. Yes, I believe I can help you Megan 🙂 #1 First you need to start the command prompt as an administrator. You can do this by navigating to the command prompt in the start menu

Move media files into individual folders with the same name

If you ever decide to backup your DVDs or other media to ISO format, it can be handy to have them each in their own folder. However, if you decide to do this after you have already ripped all the ISOs to a single folder then it can be a time consuming task. I have written batch (.bat) files to automate this process in the past, but recently I discovered a very nice Windows program that can do it for

CamScanner OCR test

CamScanner is a rather nice scannerapp for phones and tablets. One of the most desirable features for me is the OCR capability. The OCR works well for basic documents with minimal formatting but alas, it is nowhere near as good as what Fujitsu has in the ScanSnap software (which embeds the OCRed text in the PDF and preserves excellent formatting). Here are the CamScanner results*: *Please note all text in the article is copyright WSJ and it is only posted