11:38 by .

Concerning the gent who reported Toshiba notebook shutdown: I had same problem w/ a Toshiba Satellite last year, researched all over the Internet, finally found the answer here: http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/23605/

In my case there wasn’t any appreciable crud built up in the heatsink fan duct…but applying a new film of quality heatsink compound between the heatsink and processor absolutely cleared the problem, immediately. FWIW, my problem would occur partway through a tape backup, after about 10 minutes of the processor working quite hard.

Opening the notebook to get to the cooling system isn’t hard. In the case of the Satellite unit I have, access to the cooling system is gotten by removing the keyboard—the screws were under a pop-out panel at the top. Removing lots of screws on the bottom and trying to ‘split’ the case isn’t required. (Don’t ask how I know this.)
John P. — Anaheim Hills, CA

11:44 by Singh?.

Hi Leo,

I’m a BIG fan of yours and have been since tech tv days. listen to all your podcasts and think that you are not only doing a wonderful job but also a big service to the general public. Keep up the good work. However as an indian … please lay off the attempt at the New Delhi accent.

12:15 by Terry M-Bellflower ca?.

Somethings wrong with the lady who said her husband did a system restore and she still has spyware. Leo asked if she downloaded the spyware programs form a known source and she responded, “we downloaded them after the restore and before going on line. Unless she had disks for spybot and ad-adaware, thats not possible and if they went on line after the restore and spent as little as 3–5 monutes unprotected, there’re infected!! I’d download the free housecall at housecall.trendmicro.com and see what comes up. also download the free 30 day trial copy of spysweeper at www.webroot.com/consumer/products/spysweeper

GOOD LUCK but somethings not righ!!

   Time-to-infection on an unprotected XP box
 The heading and summary of the article

13:13 by Rosemary Welch?.

I had the same problem with my IE and router, and usually if you just cut off all power while the computer is on (from the wall or wherever you have your cords plugged in), this will do the trick. Otherwise, you need to restart the router by (depending on type: Westall=30 secs.; Cisco=5secs.) going in back of the router, depress the restart button, and see if that works.

PS. I did this last night after the genious hung up on us. It worked, but our computers are now going slower. Just do not call these genious’ at Verizon! lol.

16:02 by Andrew Brierley?.

I am using ITunes like the rest of the world but I have a problem in that when it is updating my Leo podcasts it steals all the bandwidth I have and everyone elses so my question is how can I limit the amount of download bandwidth Itunes uses. I don’t care if podcasts download more slowly just so long as I can continue working unimpeded

20:12 by Mohan?.

Hey Leo when you get a change check out http://www.reactos.org. I would like to know if you have heard about it, and what you think about it. Thanks.

10:50 by Terry M-Bellflower ca?.

Microsoft has the following info to reinstall Internet Explorer

Windows XP and Windows XP SP1: Edit the registry and install Internet Explorer 6
Warning If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.
When you try to reinstall the same version of Internet Explorer, you may receive the following error message:
Setup has detected a newer version of Internet Explorer already installed on this system.
Setup cannot continue.
To avoid this error message and reinstall the same version of Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, follow these steps:
1. While you are logged on as an administrator, click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. Locate the appropriate registry subkey, right-click the IsInstalled (REG_DWORD) value, and then click Modify.

To reinstall only the Internet Explorer 6 browser component on Windows XP, use the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftActive SetupInstalled Components{89820200-ECBD-11cf-8B85–00AA005B4383}
To reinstall only Outlook Express 6 on Windows XP, use the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftActive SetupInstalled Components{44BBA840-CC51−11CF-AAFA-00AA00B6015C}
4. Change the value data from 1 to 0, and then click OK.
5. Quit Registry Editor, and then install Internet Explorer 6.
6. To reinstall Windows XP updates, visit the following Microsoft Windows Update Web site:
http://www.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/

14:09 by ron?.

HAY MR.New Delhi accent

In America we have freedom of speech. you could try the off button

21:41 by New Person?.

Ahh geez, here we go with the freedom of speech thing again. That Mr. New Delhi guy has it too, and he was just suggesting.

16:21 by Ralph from Studio City?.

Hey Leo!?

Thought you said FireFox was so much safer than Internet Explorer? Somethings (another) is wrong with your advice again.
-“Attack Code Published for Firefox Flaw”
-Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service - Wed Feb 8, 7:00 AM ET
“A hacker published code on Tuesday that exploits a vulnerability found in the latest version of the Mozilla’s Firefox browser.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20060208/tc_pcworld/124659
I’m really beginning to wonder about any of your advice.

18:14 by .

Hey Ralph from Studio City,

Don’t just take Leo’s advice.. check any other reputable source on the Net, and you will learn why Firefox is inherantly safer than IE — mainely due to Firefox not suporting Active X and other scripting functionality.

Yes, Firefox may have some vulnerabilities, but it still is a far safer choice than IE, which has many more security issues. I don’t think there is such a thing as a perfectly safe browser.

What is it about people who are posting comments here lately that only seem to be about knocking Leo? Don’t people get the fact he is only trying to educate them and help them with resolving their computer problems? Man, give the guy a break!

Jeez Ralph.. I’m really beginning to wonder about your lack of critical thinking..

21:14 by Joe, Woodland Hills?.

Leo,

I believe that I have a point of contention with Mr. Singh. From my world experience, he is a Sikh, quid non est necessarily Indian!
Besides, I thought you were doing a Pakistani??

09:00 by Tarball?.

@Ralph from Studio City

Try reading the article you linked to. The article states that the exploit already has a patch.

14:17 by Jerad_from_Indiana?.

Regarding the Toshiba laptop (Leo, you gotta get the podcasts out quicker!), the caller stated that he was watching DVDs. It could be related to the extra heat from the DVD player not being evacuated quickly enough. However, I would suspect a clogged heat sink, as stated in a comment above, or a fan that isn’t turning properly. I have an older HP Pavilion notebook that I was using while my TabletPC was in for warranty work. I was using it with it on my lap, and it just shut off. I turned it back on, then it shut off again. I grabbed the canned air and blew out a dust bunny (actually, more of a dust jackrabbit) that had wedged between the bearings causing it to spin intermittently.

Also, Leo, several users have called stating they don’t see the option to reformat when installing XP. The option is there when you have to choose which partition to install to. You have to choose D to delete the partition, then it will ask you if you’re sure. You type L to confirm, then the partition is gone. Now you’re left with unpartitioned space. Press C to create a new partition, format using NTFS, then choose that partition to install onto.

Another thing to note is there are some differences between XP Home and XP Pro. I think the setup is the same, however, I have heard you mention things to users that only apply to XP Pro, and I would venture to say that a vast majority of your PC listeners are on XP Home. (Just an assumption.)

12:07 by Ian?.

I have a satilite a-75 the proccesor is a 3 Ghz one useing hyper threading I found the only way to cool it so it would not shut down was to go into the bios and take the hyper threading off so it is now a 1.8Ghz. Or you can keep it up off the ground 7 inches

09:29 by .

Singh, Just some friendly advice, get over it. whether or not you’re offended has nothing to do with what others do, but has everything to do with how you react to it. I’m Irish. If I got offended and corrected everyone who used the term Paddywagon or joked about how the Irish like to drink to much or thought that getting drunk on St. Patrick’s is an Irish tradition, I’d never do anything else.

You choose to be offended, so choose not to be. You’ll be much happier and you’ll have time to spend on solving real problems like the tremendous poverty in your home country.

18:07 by curt@CCC?.

Re: Ron in Lakewood - Mac Disk Utility “internal error” while performing a permissions repair, this is an odd error that strikes a small percentage of Macs running OS X and relates to iTunes. Move the iTunes application from the Applications folder to the desktop and run Disk Utility Repair Disk permissions again. Once the process is complete, quit Disk Utility and return iTunes back to the Applications folder.

05:36 by Stephen McLaughlin?.

Hello Leo

first off, you da man

I have loved everything you have done for about a decade.

secondly, I kinda …. have a ….. issue

I am a small business www.doortodoorgeek.com needless to say about 80% of my business is spyware and virus removal and I am very happy to say about 90% of the spyware and virus laden PC’s I work on are in fine running shape after I check up on them after 90–120 days. With that said I always uninstall everything by McAfee and Norton, Every PC that has spyware on it and either McAfee or Norton both McAfee and Norton scans say no viruses found, but after uninstalling McAfee or Norton and installing AVG I always find at least 1 virus either in the root, temporary internet cache or in the system restore folder and on more then a few pc’s I find 60 or more viruses (yes some are duplicates) and on 1 PC I found 377 viruses that was causing the hard drive to appear and sound like the hard drive was dieing. Let me repeat this PC had a up to date install of Norton with up to date virus defs and the scan said “no viruses found” yet AVG found 377 viruses and after the drive was cleaned it preformed fine and stopped “clicking” like the drive was dieing.

Needless to say I felt very proud and reassured that all of my previous uninstalls of McAfee and Norton and my install of AVG for virus protection.

My page with the software I put on most users pc’s (I try and put Firefox on everyone’s PC’s but I do not push the issue, they are the customer and they are always right)

 www.doortodoorgeek.com/asr.html

Thanks for your service to the tech world, and yes I will donate, but I would rather buy twit merchandise (haven’t you seen Spaceballs?)

www.DoorToDoorGeek.com

20:34 by .

This is really late, but for anyone looking for a solution in the archives…

For Ron in Lakewood
Re: Disk Utility error

There is nothing wrong with you hardware. The issue is apparently with Disk Utility in OS10.3 not knowing how to deal with Universal Binaries (software that can run on both PowerPC and Intel Macs). Curt@ccc is correct and moving iTunes temporarily will help.

Apparently deleting Chess (the game in Applications for anyone who never plays it) also works. Why? I have no idea, but it does. iTunes 6.0.3 and later have likely fixed this issue.

22:41 by Tony?.

On the Toshiba laptop shutdown. I had EXACTLY the same problem, same symptoms (DVD playing, etc). Blow air through the vents at the back, you will be amazed at the dust that comes out through the fans on the bottom. Blow air up through the fans as well. I have had no problems with the laptop after doing this.

14:15 by Driveingnow?.

For the Guy who had a problem with firefox.

I just wanted to say that even if you uninstall firefox the folder that holds all the settings is still there I had a problem and I finaly uninstalled firefox then deleted the folder and then installed firefox 1.5 and didn’t have a problem.
The folder that has all the settings in it is hidden.
So first open the c: drive and goto Tools then Folder Options then to the View tab and change the setting for hidden folders to Show Hidden Files and Folders, click ok.
Then click on C: drive then Documents and Settings then your user name, then Application Data.
there you should see a Mozilla folder this is the one you want to delete. However I sugest that you back up your bookmarks, you can either do that in firefox, or you can dig down in the folders inside mozilla there is a folder called BookmarksBackup and inside there is a HTML file just copy that to your desktop and when you reinstall firefox if I recall it ask you if you want to import from IE or Opera or From File chose From File and point it to the HTML file you saved.

Hope than helps…….