Category Archives: computer tips

WildBlue US Government Recovery Act Program and Plans

Leave a comment

If you are in the market for Exede or WildBlue Broadbrand, make sure to checkout the WidlBlue US Recovery act plan first: US Government Stimulus Program | Satellite Internet Service from Wild Bluehttp://get.wildblue.com/recovery-act-program.htmlThe limited time U.S. government Recovery Act Program is currently in effect, but funds are running out. Don’t miss out on this opportunity for discounted monthly rates, plus… WildBlue & the US Recovery Act | Low Cost Broadbandhttp://www.wildblue.com/options/recovery-actThis special program is available to rural unserved households under the

Read more computer tips

Differences between original WildBlue FAP & Broadband (Exede) FAP

Leave a comment

The orignal WildBlue services uses a rather unusual ‘rolling FAP’ that is pretty hard to explain. The new WildBlue broadband (Exede) uses a much simpler monthly usage reset date. Here are the policies for both old and new WildBlueas of 2012.06.28 followed by an explanation and example where appropriate. –JD Original or ‘old’ WildBlue Plans WildBlue Original Plans: After exceeding either of the usage thresholds, which vary by service package, the speed of your service will be slowed to 128 kbps download

Read more computer tips, Off the Grid

Micro-USB to 30-pin Apple connector adapter!

Leave a comment

NOTE: now available from Amazon for about $6.99 with free Prime 2-day shipping, woot! PS if you don’t like the white color, they also have black… Here is a cool little adapter that lets you use all of your snazzy-nearly-universal Micro-USB cables and chargers with the also ubiquitous but generally proprietary Apple 30-pin dock connector 🙂 I’m adding this to my adapter cable bag so now that my iPod touch will be covered (as well as friends’ iPhones) I should be able

Read more computer tips

How to power on a server via IMPI

Leave a comment

The following instructions are for a Supermicro mini-itx dual core Atom based machine with IPMI built in 🙂 Load the administrative interface by specifying the IPMI interface’s IP address and entering it in  your web browser Example: http://192.168.1.9/ Default login: User: ADMIN Password: ADMIN (both are in all caps) Go to Remote Control -> Power Control menu option Select Power On Server Click the Perform Action button The computer will then power on. 🙂

Read more computer tips, Work

How to recover missing SABnzbd queue

Leave a comment

Occasionally SABnzbd may totally lose it queued downloads, if that happens you will likely seem something like this in the error logs: When Type Warning 2012-06-18 08:30:54,999 ERROR: Loading C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\sabnzbd\admin\queue9.sab failed 2012-06-18 08:30:54,999 ERROR: Loading C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\sabnzbd\admin\postproc1.sab failed 2012-06-18 08:30:54,874 ERROR: Loading C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\sabnzbd\admin\totals9.sab failed Thankfully, here is a simple solution that will normally recover your queue! Load the SABnzbd web interface Click the ‘Status‘ link near the top left of the screen Choose the ‘Queue repair’ tab Press the ‘Repair‘ button

Read more computer tips

Annoying AVG Free disk space requirement

Leave a comment

Tonight I was installing AVG Free on a virtual machine running XP that was setup to only have 10GB of hard drive space. With all the various updates and programs installed there was only about 800MB free space left. Annoyingly AVG Free would not allow an install until 1GB of space was free. 🙁 If AVG actually needed a gigabyte of space that would be one thing. But guess how much space it actually uses? About 100MB. Yes, they are

Read more computer tips

Grey screen with login, incorrect voucher, start.exe [antivirus info]

15 comments

UPDATE 2012.09.20 commenter Lauralea suggested the following simpler procedure: Reboot Windows (you can power off your machine if necessary) When your computer restarts, enter safe mode by pressing F8 before Windows can load Run malwarebytes (alternate link) to remove the infection Reboot and you should be good to go!* *NOTE: I would recommend performing an additional virus scan after you reboot, just to make sure there aren’t any other viruses/trojans. -JD Original instructions: If you get a grey box like this, then you have a virus infection or

Read more computer tips

Disable Java Auto Updater on Windows 7 stop pop-up [SOLVED]

27 comments

Question from FrankT:  I have a nice Windows 7 computer that runs great EXCEPT it has a super annoying “Java Auto Updater” popup that occurs every day! I go into the Java Control Panel and uncheck the auto updates box but it always ends up being checked again next time I check 🙁 I am wondering if I have some sort of java auto updater virus??? I am about to go crazy with this, so if I don’t have a

Read more computer tips, Work