Category Archives: Ask J.D.

Changes to the Amazon.com Associates Program

Leave a comment

Amazon associates/affiliates received the following notice recently: We are writing to notify you of some changes to the Amazon.com Associates Program Operating Agreement, which governs your participation in the Amazon Associates Program for Amazon.com. All changes are effective on February 1, 2014. https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/operating/compare And here is my summary of the changes: Magazines go from a 25% affiliate commission (fee rate) to none Video game console products go from a 4% commission (fee rate) to 1% Overall this continues a trend by

Read more Misc Links, money tips, Work

Thunderbird auto spell check not working [SOLVED]

2 comments

Thunderbird’s ‘check spelling at you type’ feature quite working for me last month. Since that time I have been working without inline spell check in Thunderbird (and it has been quite annoying ;-)). Today I finally took the time to figure out how to fix the issue! First I tried simply checking my settings: The box was already checked to ‘Enable spell check as you type’ but I went ahead and unchecked/checked it and hit ‘OK’ just to make sure

Read more computer tips, Software Tips, Work

[Err] 2006 – MySQL server has gone away Navicat/WordPress [solved]

Leave a comment

Recently I tried upgrading to the latest version of the WordPress Download Monitor plugin. It did not go well 🙁 Thus, I tried to revert from a backup made using Navicat. Unfortunately, the restore would fail every time while trying to import my wp_posts table (a pretty important table!) I tried exporting the backup to a SQL dump and importing that. No luck. Finally, I tried resolving the actual ‘MySQL server has gone away’ issue itself and I had success. This tip

Read more Software Tips, Weblogs.us, WordPress tips, Work

Dell Windows 8 Unknown Device SMO8800 [solved]

Leave a comment

Q. I saw you help people with SMO8800 unknown device issues, but can you help me on my Dell Windows 8 laptop? Thanks! -Wobe A. Here is the download link for a Windows 8 driver for Dell laptops that will resolve the unknown device SMO8800 issue: (free fall sensor) OS Compatibility: MS Windows 8 64-bit, MS Windows 8 32-bit Laptop Compatibility: Dell E5420 Vostro 3450 Vostro 3750 XPS 15 (L502X) XPS 15z (L511z) XPS 17 (L702X) And many other similar

Read more computer tips, Software Tips

Fix the brightness adjustment buttons on a Dell M6700 [SOLVED]

4 comments

Occasionally after a few hibernate/resume cycles, my Dell Precision M6700 laptop’s brightness UP/DOWN buttons become unresponsive (specifically, the Fn+Up Arrow and Fn+Down Arrow key combination). Rebooting will fix the issue but sometimes if you are in the middle of something that can be a major inconvenience. Thankfully the same solution I posted for other Dell models also works on the M6700 🙂 Instructions for re-enabling brightness adjustment (without rebooting) #1 Go into device manager and locate your display adapter (in my case,

Read more computer tips

Heating vaulted or cathedral style ceilings (efficiently)

Leave a comment

Please note, this is a draft version of the post 🙂 Everyone I know that has a vaulted ceiling says they are very nice to look at but that it is very difficult to heat/cool a house that has them. The most recent example was this past Sunday at church. My friend is retired and her children have moved out on their own. Now her house is too big and the vaulted ceiling is costing her a lot of money

Read more House

Serving area for screened in deck

Leave a comment

Samantha sent me this link tonight: 31 Insanely Clever Remodeling Ideas For Your New Homehttp://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/insanely-clever-remodeling-ideas-for-your-new-homeCan you get through this post without calling your contractor? And that resulted in #27 ‘Bring the outdoors in…’  being included in this email to our designer: Evenin’ Steve, Just a quick note here Kitchen notes & deck serving area The kitchen layout is Samantha’s domain, and we don’t have to go into extreme detail in these plans, but the pencil drawing is inaccurate as the

Read more House, Misc Links

Dell M4400 BSOD with NVIDIA drivers [powermizer switch solved]

Leave a comment

If you are trying to use Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 on a Dell M4400 you can encounter some major BSOD issues and display corruption issues when using a NVIDIA driver that enables PowerMizer 🙁 Here are some resources on the topic: Disable PowerMizer **Tested**http://forum.notebookreview.com/gaming-software-graphics-cards/261929-disable-powermizer-tested.htmlDisable PowerMizer **Tested** Ok guys. New to the forum 1st real contribution. Ive been reading alot about this issue as i was dealing with it as well. Please try at your own risk because

Read more computer tips
« Older Entries Recent Entries »