Change Windows 7 Logon Type

To change the logon of Windows 7 to mimic domain type logons use 'control userpasswords2' to implement 'CTRL ALT DEL' then edit the registry as follows to bring up the logon box:

Run Registry Editor (RegEdit).
Navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

In the right pane, double click on DontDisplayLastName registry key value, and set its value data to 1.

Cloning a Dell Inspiron with MediaDirect Installed

I was recently asked by a friend to upgrade his laptop's hard drive (80GB to 500GB). I ordered a nice WD Scorpio Blue SATA 500GB and decided to clone the existing disk to minimise any inconvenience to my friend using Acronis True Image. I had done this procedure many times and not a single problem except for this time. I setup Acronis True Image to do an automatic clone of all partitions as I wanted to preserve the Dell restore partition and the Dell diagnostics. The clone went without hitch, I swapped over the hard drives and booted into a blue screen of death. Thinking this might be because of an older BIOS or chipset driver I swapped over the hard drives and upgraded all the drivers and BIOS which was several versions old. When I swapped the new hard drive back in I was shocked to see the reported capacity listed in the BIOS as only 54GB! It was a 500GB on the label! After a lot of head scratching I finally found the problem to be with the Dell MediaDirect facility which hides partitions using a weird method of messing with the MBR. Good website below on how this works, how to avoid it and more importantly how to recover from it!
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=167401
I used a tool on the Ultimate Boot CD (HDAT2) to show the 'MAX_SIZE' of the HDD but I had to use 28bit LBA and NOT 48bit LBA.

Find out who has been looking at your internet history

The following site checks your internet history and determines which of the 5000 most popular sites you have visited:

http://whattheinternetknowsaboutyou.com/

Make G-Mail your default e-mail client

Try this little utility, it also works for other web-based e-mail providers:

Gmail Default E-mail Utility

Habilis - email files to Dropbox

'Send files to your Habilis email address and they show up in your Dropbox.com dropbox a few seconds later - simple! It's dead handy for devices like the iPad where you can create documents but can't easily get them into your Dropbox.'

www.gethabilis.com

Saving Videos from Web Sites

Use Firefox and an add-on called 'DownloadHelper'. To get the MP4 versions add the following to the end of the URL and press enter - '&fmt=18'.

Windows XP SP3 Blue Screen - Dell Computers

I came across a problem recently when upgrading a Dell Latitude D620 to XP service pack 3 which I'm documenting here just incase I encounter it again. After the service pack finished installing the machine rebooted and I was confronted by a blue screen of death with stop errors STOP: 0x0000007E and STOP: 0x0000007A. After some investigations it seems the way to fix this problem is to replace a few USB driver files with the previous backed up versions. I did this by removing the hard drive and putting it in another machine to access the files, you could also use a WinPE boot disk etc. Replace the following files with the corresponding files in 'c:\windows\\$NtServicePackUninstall$':

1. c:\windows\system32\drivers\usbport.sys with c:\windows\$NtServicePackUninstall\usbport.sys.
2. c:\windows\system32\drivers\usbohci.sys with c:\windows\$NtServicePackUninstall\usbohci.sys.
3. c:\windows\system32\drivers\usbuhci.sys with c:\windows\$NtServicePackUninstall\usbuhci.sys

I could only find the 'usbport.sys' file in the location above.

After you have replaced the files, reboot then go into Device Manager and remove all the USB components then search for new hardware and the USB devices will be reinstalled correctly.

Speed up iPhone 3G running iOS4

Is your iPhone 3G running slow/sluggish now that you have upgraded to iOS4? I have compiled a list of things to help you speed up the 3G until Apple releases an update (if they even bother).

1. Turn it Off! - A simple restart often does the trick: Hold the power switch down until a slider appears to power off. After it shuts down simply press the power button to power up hopefully with added speed!
2. Double Hard Reset - Hold the home button and the on/off switch until the Apple logo appears, after the phone reboots do it again.
3. Make sure Safari doesn't have lots of pages left running, these all use up valuable RAM and Safari is one of the very few apps that are allowed to multitask on the 3G.
4. Disable Spotlight search - if you don't need search facilities on your iPhone turn it off by unticking all the items in Settings>General>Home Button>Spotlight Search.
5. Disable MMS (Multimedia Messaging) - I never use it and I don't know anyone who does due to the excessive charges so turn it off by going to: Settings>Messages>MMS Messaging and slide it to OFF.
6. Clear Safari Cache - This should be done regularly: Home Screen > Settings > Safari > Clear Cache.


After you disable any or all of the above try the double hard reset if you don't notice any speed change.

If none of the above works for you and you want to go back to iOS 3.1.3 try the following link: http://lifehacker.com/5572003/how-to-downgrade-your-iphone-3g%5Bs%5D-from-ios-4-to-ios-313

Create football fixtures for iCal

If you want to put the fixtures for your football club into iCal/iPhone/Outlook without having to type them in manually have a look at the following site which allows you create custom calendars: www.thismonkey.com

Safari not displaying PDFs

If Safari stops displaying PDFs in the browser window install Adobe Reader 9. This will fix it but Reader will be displaying them in the browser. To change back to Preview (which is much faster) start up Reader, go to Preferences, then Internet and remove the tick box 'Display PDFs in Browser using...' Restart Safari and voila!