My sister just reformatted her hard drive replacing Vista with XP, but now she can't get online. HP was no help because they said they can't support her changing operating systems. How can I help her get online? Model and other details follow: She has an HP Pavilion a1700n Desktop PC. On the HP webs...

Microsoft escaped with a rap on the knuckles from their anti-trust woes with the United States Justice Department. They are not faring nearly so well with European authorities. Microsoft recently lost a long and hard-fought battle with European antitrust authorities over their mandatory inclusion of...

One of the main problems that users of multi-user Windows XP systems experience is that the default internet browser is set as a system setting that is affecting all user accounts. If one user decided to change the default internet browser it would affect all user accounts of the Windows XP system. ...

My computer is having a hardware issue when booting... I think. Started getting BSODs when booting (Windows XP, SP2). I can't say for certain what the error is since the computer restarts immediately on throwing the error (even with the automatic restart disabled). The error isn't consistent: someti...

Over at Gartner they are reporting big news in that PC sales will suffer a decline for the first time in history. No duh! We are in a recession people. Folks are fearful of losing their jobs. The stock market is in a steep down turn. Unemployment is on the rise. So making a prediction like this is a...

Everyone knows that Microsoft is trying to put Windows XP out to pasture to usher in the latest windows operating system, Windows Vista 7, the last date that direct OEM and retail license availability ended on June 30, 2008 and the System Builder license availability ended on January 31, 2009. But d...

Previously posted in this series: Partition and Disk Management: Part I – Dancing with Diskpart Partition and Disk Management: Part II – Free and Useful Tools  Partition and Disk Management: Part III – Pesky Dell Partitions It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was making this post: Secu...

There are guided instructions on how to install OSX onto the current crop of netbooks. It breaks my heart because the PowerBook Duo line of notebooks actually defined the executive sub-notebook (they also defined the PDA/PIM with the Newton and dropped that ball, too), Why Apple must do a Netbook no...

Computer people just love to name things.   The server guy who names all his machines after Star Wars characters competes with the network guy who names all his routers and switches after Star Trek characters to see who has the more obscure references.  Usually the Desktop guy wins with his colle...

After a rocky start that is becoming increasingly common for the company, Dell has now officially made its new Mini 10 netbook available for order. The snazzy little netbook first appeared on the site for pre-order a few days ago, then it became available for order, then the pricing changed a few ti...