If you have a dell Optiplex GX270 and it seems to turn itself off without your telling it to, there is a good chance the capacitors on the motherboard are bad. I will tell you how to check your system below.

Symptoms specific to my experience is that the GX270 seems as though it shuts its self off however the power light on the front of the case is still green. I have had to replace many mother boards in the GX270 series due to a lot of motherboard problems specific to the capacitors.

If you want to check to see if your capacitors are bad in your dell optiplex system, open up the case and look at the mother board. Look for cylinder type object on the mother board. On the tops of these cylinders you will notice an X or K like imprint on the top of the capacitors. If you notice that the X or K on the capacitor is bulging, that means you need to replace your mother board.

The image on the right shows what the capacitors look like when they are bad.

Microsoft has been threatened by the EU recently and the EU is looking for $2.4 million dollars a day. Although by those numbers it may seem as though Microsoft has done something extremely wrong, they haven't, but that doesn't matter.

The EU is crying pretty loud about documentation that Microsoft has given its compeditors that details out how to write software for the windows desktops and windows servers. Even though Microsoft has given them extensive documentation and source code, that is not enough. Competitors to Microsoft want Microsoft to give them specifications so that companies can inter-operate with both windows desktop and server operating systems.

Microsoft has turned over 12,000 pages of documents and more than 100 million lines of source code so far. But software experts hired by the commission have complained that the documentation is confusing and contradictory.

This is where reason comes in. Look at what Microsoft is up against. They are being required and have handed over all of this documentation so that their competitors can have a fair advantage. So since the firm the EU has hired, to figure out Microsoft's documentation, cant figure it out with the vast amount of resources handed over, Microsoft must be to blame for their troubles.

If you cant write software for the Microsoft windows platform, get your clients to run Linux, debian, solaris 10, mac ox 10. or freebsd. Thats not going to happen because people enjoy using windows and you guys should enjoy learning how to use your trade? You have been crying the blues since 2004 and has your software been broken since then?

Just to put the EU thought process into perspective they made another complaint in December of 2005. The EU warned Microsoft then that the EU was not happy about the way Microsoft charges for license fees for access to technical documentation. Again these are competitors of Microsoft crying about having to pay for documentation that if they otherwise didn't have, I assume from all this crying, couldn't write any software to be called a competitor to begin with.

So let me get this straight. I am a new software company writing software that competes against a Microsoft application, so Microsoft now owes me its documentation on its windows and server technology, for little or nothing, and if I don't understand their technical documentation, my government should fine them millions of dollars a day. Give me a break.

What if one day, the richest man in the world decides to stick it to the low life's that have hampered Microsoft over the years with fines, by discontinuing windows. Then, I believe, those same companies would sue Microsoft for doing the sticking.

Are you looking to download the msconfig.exe tool for windows 2000 or windows 95? Both of these versions of windows didn't come with the handy configuration tool that xp and windows 98se use to edit start up modes, system.ini, win.ini, boot.ini, system service and the startup.

Being able to configure these settings using msconfig.exe makes things a lot easier and helps to stop unwanted programs from loading at start up.

Windows 2000 Msconfig.exe Download - Instructions for windows 2000: After you have downloaded the msconfig.exe copy and paste that file into c:\winnt\system32 folder. If the folder winnt does not exist on your machine, look for c:\windows\system32 and place it there.

Windows 95 Msconfig.exe Download - Instructions for windows 95: Rename this file to msconfig.exe and copy and paste it into c:windowssystem folder.

It is possible to run the msconfig.exe from any where. For example you could put it on your desktop and double click on it to run it. If you prefer to be able to run msconfig from run off of the start button, the msconfig.exe needs to be copied to the systems folder. Depending on your system that folder name may be different. Use the instructions above for your operating systems path to were the msconfig.exe needs to go.

Windows 98 and 98se, Windows Mellinium, Windows XP (all versions), already have the msconfig tool in the system folders. If you run any of these operating systems, you do not need to download the msconfig.exe file, it is already installed.

For the past year we have been using counterspy enterprise edition to manage spyware. Unfortunately our sunbelt rep didn't know this.

Last month around this time I got an email from my rep at sunbelt, he asked me what have we been using for spyware. He went on to say they have the #1 enterprise spyware solution, that being CounterSpy. Yeah thats great, he also sent me another email that said something about saving 25% on the next purchase, however that is not going to happen.

Well he should know, we bought it from him and I don't plan on putting any good words in for Sunbelt's counterspy. Yeah they claim to be #1 but they, just like car makers do, hire firms to rate their software and compare it to others. Saying they are #1 means nothing to me, politics and money can make anything number one.

Counterspy Enterprise has a lot of problems. Load time problems that make the admin interface crawl. I manage just over 200 machines and most of the time the admin console does not respond. The slow navigation throughout the admin console makes using the console an unwanted task.

The ability to remove known and found spyware from the quarantine list doesn't work. I have had the same spyware listed in there for over a year. The reporting tool crashes and if it does not  runs until it takes up all available ram and makes the machine come to a stand still. The reporting tool crashes every time I have to reboot the server that is running counterspy and has to be started manually.

The update service fails at random times causing confusion between the client application and the server that should be sending them. There is an option in the console to auto download and update clients, I dislike this feature because at random times in a day, users machines are being updated and while that update is processing users machines slow down to allow for the update. I unchecked the option and counterspy still continues to check for updates.

In a support message to sunbelt I described my problems about the counterspy sucking up all the ram, the crashing of the report tool, and the problem where you cant remove found spyware from the quarantine. They wrote me back and said to disable the reporting tool and in some quarter this year they had a planned update. Well screw sitting around waiting for the #1 spyware solution to fix some very very important problems with their #1 award winning software.

As of now I have removed the counterspy enterprise edition from our domain and we are dealing with spyware on a machine to machine basis. As needed we will run tools against infected machines. I prefer to use Microsofts Windows Defender, a free tool for windows 2000 and windows xp operating systems.

If you want another solution to spyware, try www.TrendMicro.com, McAfee, Norton, or PestPatrol.

As an IT technician I would not recommend using Sunbelts CounterSpy Enterprise to any enterprise entity.

It makes no sense at all why the department of justice is asking search engines to break user privacy to accommodate a group of idiots that could just go to the search engines websites themselves and do the searches.

What is it that they are after? The department of justice is the group responsible for the Child Online Protection Act. They are using the COPA( online protection act) as a backbone to get data they can not use from the search engines. The scary part about this is that the Supreme Court says that the COPA is unconstitutional. That means it goes against the principles on what this country is founded on. But the justice department goes ahead and enforces it anyway.

Who is the supreme court and why does it matter what they say? The supreme court is the highest court in the judicial branch of the United States government, and the only court specifically mentioned in the Constitution. It consists of a Chief Justice and eight other Associate Justices. The Supreme Court is the "court of last resort" for appeals-the final authority on any questions dealing with the Constitution, acts of Congress, and treaties of the United States. The only way to get around a Supreme Court decision is to amend the Constitution or have the Supreme Court itself reverses the decision. If a case is decided by the US Supreme Court, it cannot be appealed anywhere else.

If you want to talk about kids getting a hold of porno graphic material why not go after the domains that run these sites? Just yesterday the huge porn ring that was brought to notice. Did they use msn, yahoo, or aols search data to find these sites? No the posed as kids in chat rooms.

There is kiddy porn on non cable TV. There are more un appropriate and sexually driven shows targeted towards teens on tv all day and night. Along with all the commercials that are sexually driven.

The double standard exist only because the control the government does not have on the internet. The government is so confused right now because they can not figure out how to get a handle on something they don't have control over, yet.

Re-think: The search data they want, they say does not contain any data that could identify who the searcher was. It will just tell them what they searched for and what the results were, maybe. So if you are not going to be able to identify someone by these results or know where they are, what is the point? The justice department has been after this from google for almost a year. In a years time they could have just searched the websites themselves.

It's a joke to anyone who has half a mind to think outside of the brainwashed norm.

If you are looking for some free software to view or open .rar, .cab, .gzip, .ace files, choose WinRar from rarlab. Stay away from winace. This software trial messages will annoy you and get in the way. Not to mention WinAce requires a reboot after uninstalling.

The last two news post from the WinAce website are nearly three years apart. http://www.winace.com/news.html

I have a dell precision m50 with a Crystal WDM CS4205 Audio for sound. I went to dell and downloaded the driver and started the install. When the installation was complete the computer wanted to restart. The audio driver worked when the installation wanted to reboot. So when windows asked me at the end of the installation, do you want to reboot, i said no because the sound is working, I will reboot some other time and the changes to windows could be made.

I noticed the next time I booted up my PC that the sound wasn't working, the system speaker, inside the laptop, would beep when audio was to be played. So I reinstalled the audio setup from the exe from dell and when I was prompted to reboot, I did.

Windows returned with no sound again. Next I went to the device manager. The device manager lists all hardware that the computer knows about and lets you know if its working correctly or there is a problem. I noticed in the device manager that there was an exclamation point on the chrystal audio. Double clicking on the icon brought me to a screen that said the device could not be started.

Windows Fix #1
I tried uninstalling and rebooting and reinstalling and rebooting with no difference. My next trip to the device manager I decided to try something else. I know that the driver has to work, sound works until I reboot. So something is fishy with windows. When I disabled and then enabled the device the sound started working immediately. And since then, restarting my computer has no affect on my sound. The sound is working.

Windows XP Sound  Fix#2
If you continue to have problems and the above doesnt help, try this Crystal WDM Audio Codec driver. I got this driver from IBM's website. Download Crystal WDM XP Sound Driver here.

After you unpack the files in the exe, go to the device manager and right click on the sound card you are updating and choose update driver. When you are asked how to install, choose install from a list or specific location. On the next choose not too search, you will choose the driver to install. Click next and then click Have Disk. From this window click browse and locate the extracted the files from the exe you just downloaded. If you dont know where that is, download the driver exe again and choose a place on your computer where you can remember.

Once you browse to the extracted folder, you will be shown the sound card driver file. Select it and continue through the next few windows following the on screen instructions. If you are prompted that windows can not verify that this software is compatible, go ahead and click yes to complete the installation. You should notice your sound is working.

No. Windows XP home or pro can not format cd-rw disks. Windows XP can burn data and music to a cd-r without a problems due to the fact the cd-r disks are pre-formatted.

Windows xp can not format a cd-rw because windows xp does not support the International Organization Standard (ISO) Image. What is ISO? An ISO image file is a snapshot of the data and layout of a CD, saved in ISO-9660 format. ISO image files are widely used for storing CD content. ISO is a common CD image format for DOS, Windows (Joliet ISO extension), Linux (RockRidge ISO extension), and other operating systems.

In this long, drawn out Microsoft article about CD burning, Microsoft says in a round about way that you will need 3rd party software in order to format a cd-rw They do not do a good job of making that clear. Without formatting a cd-rw disk, you will not be able to write any data to it. So unless you have something like roxio, nero, or some other software for burning cd-rw, you wont be burning cd-rw in windows xp at all.

Microsoft confuses the situation by saying in this article that it supports cd-r and cd-rw disks and how essential burning cd's has become. It makes no mention to needing 3rd party software.

Solution:

To solve your formatting problems, I have found some free cd burning software. This software comes with many features you would find in cd burning software some would make you pay for. These guys are doing some good work for the free minded people of the cd burning community. Link: www.cdburnerxp.se

I got a request today to check into an email message someone had received from a relative. The message contained text in the body that read the following:

VERY IMPORTANT WARNING !!!!

Please Be Extremely Careful especially if using internet mail such as Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and so on. This information arrived this morning from Microsoft and Norton. Please send it to everybody you know who accesses the Internet. You may receive an apparently harmless e-mail with a Power Point presentation "Life is beautiful. pps".

If you receive it DO NOT OPEN THE FILE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, and delete it immediately. If you open this file, a message will appear on your screen saying: " It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful", subsequently you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC and the person who sent it to you gain access to your name, e-mail and password. This is a new virus which started to circulate on Saturday afternoon 

WE NEED TO DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO STOP THIS VIRUS. AOL has already confirmed the severity, and the antivirus softwares are not capable of destroying it. The virus has been created by a hacker who calls himself "life owner". PLEASE MAKE A COPY OF THIS E-MAIL TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS and PASS IT ON IMMEDIATELY

I smelled hoax from the start of this email message. Let’s break this down. First off if your friend is emailing you about a virus chances are that Norton, MacAfee, or some anti-virus vendor already knows and has or is releasing soon a fix for the virus.

In the first paragraph the stated targets are web mail users. To be that specific is too much. The same idiots that open attachments from unknown senders are just as vulnerable using a mail client such as, (Outlook-full of exploits), Eudora, firebird and so on.

Hotmail, AOL, and yahoo all have anti-virus email scanning. I would say using web mail with yahoo, aim, or hotmail would be more protected.

In the last paragraph in all caps it reads "WE NEED TO DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO STOP THIS VIRUS". You and your friends sending around emails to one another are not going to stop a virus from circulating. In the next two sentences seal the deal.

AOL has already confirmed the severity, and the antivirus softwares are not capable of destroying it. The virus has been created by a hacker who calls himself "life owner".

Right now aol is not a leader in anti-virus. I wouldn’t rely on AOL for anti-virus just the same I wouldn’t rely on Microsoft’s anti-virus software. And what good does it do anyone to know the hackers alias? It does nothing for no one. Never have I once read a security bulletin that detailed the hacker or coder’s alias/handle/name.

Google today announced a new "feature" of its Google Desktop software that greatly increases the risk to consumer privacy. If a consumer chooses to use it, the new "Search Across Computers" feature will store copies of the user's Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text-based documents on Google's own servers, to enable searching from any one of the user's computers. EFF urges consumers not to use this feature, because it will make their personal data more vulnerable to subpoenas from the government and possibly private litigants, while providing a convenient one-stop-shop for hackers who've obtained a user's Google password. Google says it is not yet scanning the files for advertising, but it hasn't ruled out the possibility. Link.

I have complained about google on many occasions. Recently I wanted to know what is so good about desktop search. Is the built in windows xp search feature so bad that google can market a software application that no only indexes your data again on your hard drive, but uploads these files and information to their own server? Can they really make my search better by sending my computers data to their servers and run algorithms against it?

Before you install google desktop search know a couple of things. One is the data google has about you. Seeing that the government is going to violate our personal privacy rights until someone wakes up and reminds folks we live in a free country, the government will continue to subpoena now until the end of time. The more data these larger company's have the more the idiot government will think it is necessary to mine this information for themselves. That or lose it and have some terrorist group stealing identities running up charge accounts on all the free people of the U.S.

Another thing you should know as a user is that google clearly says it could take hours for the desktop search tool is ready for use after install. Googles desktop search sits around and monitors files and folders similar to an anti virus program. This takes up a lot of cpu and wasted cpu at that. That's what everyone needs, another hidden background process.

The reason the search on your windows computer is slower is because its actually searching, its doing a job that googles desktop is not doing. One thing that surprises me is that google asks its users to be unorganized. Google is forever saying "you don't have to worry about organizing your files, emails, bookmarks." Quote Link

Google would love for you to be unorganized. It makes their search technology more relevant. If people organized their files like any normal right minded person would, maybe they would grow into a habit of having a clue to where the files on their computer were.

Common sense would tell anyone that saving your files to your computer anywhere is very bad idea and very bad advice coming from a company like google.

Just a note for all you gurus, here is a plug-in to show how important google desktop search is. Have you needed to restart your computer? Well now you can use this plug-in to restart your computer using Google Desktop Search. It's called gdShutdown.

We're going down, down in an earlier round,
And Sugar, we're going down swinging.