Best Torrent Site is Back!

Demonoid is back online. All user accounts are still there which means no rebuilding of ratios. Have at it.

Boycott Creative *UPDATE*

For those of you that don’t know, Creative is a company that manufacturers sound cards. If you wanted a good sound card, typically you went with Creative. For a while now, however, Creative as been getting worse and worse to the point where their products have become not much more than expansive crap; but they still dominate the sound card market. The main problem has been their drivers. Even with XP, their drivers were crap.

Back when I built my first desktop, I went to the local Staples and bought a Creative sound card. Nothing special, just a regular 24bit 5.1 sound card. As I have always done when I get a piece of hardware, I went online to get the latest drivers. However, I couldn’t find drivers for the specific model I had, so I got the drivers for the root model that should have worked. The only problem was they didn’t. Turns out the sound card I bought was a special model that was apparently only sold in stores like Staples because it had been discontinued; a model which wasn’t supported with new drivers on their website. They didn’t even have old drivers on the website, so I was forced to use the ones off the CD.

Strike one for Creative.

So I used the drivers from the CD and all was well. Then one day, for no reason, I started getting a crackling noise. I uninstalled the drivers, removed the card and then reinstalled everything. That did not fix the problem, and since I couldn’t get updated drivers, I now had a useless sound card.

Strike two for Creative.

Now, we have strike three.

Creative’s drivers for Vista where so crappy that it took one of their customers to make them work correctly. This one man did what the entire Creative driver team couldn’t, he made drivers that worked. Ha. So what did Creative do? Embrace him? Offer him a job? Ask him what he did to make them work so they could fix their own drivers?

Nope. They told him to stop. This in turn has spawned many angry replies from customers that where only still using their Creative sound cards on Vista because of this one man. Many said they would never use a Creative product again and even started a new thread on the Creative forums with the title, “Post here if your done with Creative.“

I, for one, was done with Creative before this. A couple of months ago when I was browsing Newegg to price parts for a new computer, I chose not to go with Creative and instead with an Asus card.

Bye Creative.

*UPDATE* As a result of the backlash Creative has gotten over this, they have backed down and even reinstated all the posts made by Daniel_K.

Customize Your PC: #4

All versions of Windows since 98 (98 SE, ME, XP and Vista, excluding 95, 2000 and NT) have the System Configuration utility, also known simply as msconfig. Not much has changed in it except which system files it configures.

I’m going to give a quick rundown of every tab in the msconfig window.

First thing you need to do is open msconfig. To do this, click Start > Run and type in msconfig then hit enter. You should then see this:

This tab is for selecting how Windows is going to boot. The first option is self explanatory. I have never seen Normal Startup selected, though I image it is the default option selected after a fresh install of Windows.

The next option is Diagnostic Startup. I’ve never used this option before, but it seems to be pretty similar to Safe Mode. Some of the services that this disables is Networking, Plug & Play, Event Logging, and Error Reporting. And according to Microsoft, this also permanently deletes all system restore points. So keep that in mind if you ever decide to use this.

The next option is the one that is always selected on my computers, Selective Startup. The first two sub options should be checked. The second two sub options will be checked if you have never changed anything under the Services or Startup tabs, if you have, they will be green like in the picture. The next sub option  just tells Windows whether or not you are using the original boot.ini or a modified one. You will not be able to select modified unless you modify the boot.ini file from within this program (the boot.ini tab). If you edit it manually by opening it in notepad, msconfig will still think it is the original. More on boot.ini later.

Next tab: SYSTEM.INI

First thing you should know about this tab and what’s in it is this: DON’T CHANGE ANYTHING. This file has pretty much been phased out in favor of the registry. In a fresh install of XP, this file is created blank, but XP will still acknowledge some entries to provide backwards compatiabilty with older 16-bit applications.

Next tab: WIN.INI

First thing you should know about this tab and what’s in it is this: DON’T CHANGE ANYTHING. By default in Windows 3.x, basic settings were stored in this file, but like system.ini, it was phased out in favor of the registry. Also like system.ini, XP will still acknowledge some entries to provide backwards compatibility with older 16-bit applications.

Next tab: BOOT.INI

If you use Vista, skip this. Vista did away with the boot.ini file and now stores information for manging boots in the registry.
Boot.ini is the only boot file you would ever need to worry about, and really only if you are trying to do dual boot. Boot.ini contains several things Windows needs to know as it boots. Editing the file from here will change the option under the General tab to “Use modified BOOT.INI.” First entry is timeout. If you have multiple versions of Windows (or Windows and Linux, though using boot.ini to boot Linux sucks and isn’t really done anymore), the value for timeout is the length of time, in seconds, it will give you to select which OS you want to boot. The next entry is default. This tells Windows what OS entry you want to be the default. If you fail to make a selection before the timeout period ends, the value for default will be used.
The next section lists the operating systems installed. Each line is a separate entry and these will be displayed at boot up. Here is an example of a boot.ini with two OSes:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)..WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)..WINDOWS=”Windows XP Professional” /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)..WINNT=”Windows 2000 Professional” /fastdetect

The checkable options add the value to the end of the selected OS giving it various different commands for booting said OS. Here’s a rundown.

/SAFEBOOT – Safe Mode

/safeboot:minimal – Enter safe mode with minimal device drivers.
/safeboot:miniaml(alternateshell) – Uses an alternate shell (interface).
/safeboot:network – Adds network support.
/safeboot:dsrepair – Starts a domain controller in Directory Services Restore Mode.

/NOGUIBOOT – This disables the bitmap progress bar when booting. This also disables the text output used by CHKDSK and various partitioning tools, so you should use this switch with extreme caution.
/BOOTLOG – Creates a log file to log the boot process.
/BASEVIDEO – Starts the computer using the standard VGA video driver instead of the video driver from the video card manufacturer.
/SOS – Names the display drive while loading.

Clicking Advanced Options brings up yet more command options.

/MAXMEM=nnn – Sets the highest memory address Windows can use
/NUMPROC=n – Sets the number of processors Windows is allowed to use. This is useful if you have a processor that is defective or failing. This applies to multi-core processors as well. What I’m not sure about is how you can tell it which proc to use and which one not to use.
/PCILOCK – Tells Windows to let the BIOS assign device addresses instead of Windows.
/DEBUG – Causes the kernel debugger to load and activate.

/DEBUGPORT=comport – Debugs a certain port.
/BAUDRATE=n – When a com port (com1, 2, etc) is selected this option becomes avaliable to set the baud rate used.
/CHANNEL=n – If 1394 is selected as the port, this allows you to set the channel used.

For more command options, see this.

Next tab: Services

This contains a list of all services that have a Startup Type of Automatic or Manual as listed in services.msc (which has a complete list of ALL services whether set to Automatic, Manual, or Disabled). As long as the service does not say it’s essential, you can de-select it from starting up with Windows, however doing so may cause weird things to happen if the service has something to do with Windows functionally. Some people thing that cleaning out this list to only include services vital to Windows will speed up boot time and free up system resources. Not so much. If it is from Microsoft, I’d leave it be, but feel free to un-check any third party services. This tab also tells you what the current status of the service is, Running or Stopped. A lot of services will run at boot to serve some function then shutdown shortly after, others remain running all the time. These services are started before you get to the login screen.

Next tab: Startup

This lists all programs that are set to startup with Windows. This includes Microsoft programs as well as third party apps. Anytime you tell a program to start will Windows, it simply adds an entry here (which is actually in the registry) telling Windows to boot it at startup. This is done about the same time as the desktop first appears. This is a good place to come if you have a slow boot up. Taking programs out of here can have dramatic effects in your computers start up time if the program is a resource hog or simply isn’t working right.

For more information check out the following links:
How to Edit the Boot.ini File
How to Troubleshoot Configuration Errors in Windows XP by Using the System Configuration Utility
How to Troubleshoot Configuration Errors in Windows Vista by Using the System Configuration Utility

Also, special thanks to Jesse for recommending msconfig as a topic.

Customize Your PC: #3

Welcome to part 3 of Customize Your PC. In this post, I will briefly show you how to make your own icons for use in Windows.

The first thing you will need to do is get, and install, a free open source image editing program called GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program).

Next, gather images that you would like to make into icons. The thing to remember when doing this is that they are going to be resized to 255×255 or smaller, so it works best if they are already square. Also, it’s best to use images that are already roughly that size and that are not too complex. When you resize and save as an ico file, they tend to lose a little quailty and sometimes things get blurred.

Step 1: Open GIMP. The only window that opens is a small narrow window with all of GIMPs controls.

Step 2: Open the image you want to make an icon by going to File > Open. GIMP will load the image in a new window.

Step 3: First thing you need to do is resize the image (if you are using an image that is at or below 255×255 in size, skip this step). In the new window, go to Image > Scale Image:

A new window will open:

The portion with the black square around it is all you need to worry about. Type in 255 or a value less than that in whichever box has the highest value. GIMP will automatically change the other to keep the ratio true. The end result is that both width and height values must be 255 pixels or under. Click the Scale button to apply changes and close the window.

Step 4: Now you need to re-save the image as a Microsoft Windows Icon image.
- In the image window, click File > Save As. Since this is most likely your first time using GIMP, you will need to expand “Browse for other folders” and futher down “Select File Type” to see the options you need. First, browse to where you want to save the new image. Then, down under the newly expanded “Select File Type” you will need to scroll down and select Microsoft Windows icon. This will add the extension .ico to the end of your new file. Name it as you wish then select Save.
- When you do this, it will pop up a window with a preview of the image and a drop down menu with something like ‘32bpp, 8-bit alpha, no palette’. Just ignore all this and click Save again. If it pops up another window telling you you need to export, just click Ignore.

Now, it is time to put your new ico file into use. If you wish to replace a system icon such as the “My Computer” or the recycle bin, follow step 5A. If you wish to replace the icons used in Windows Explorer for your hard drive(s), follow step 5B. If you wish to replace a desktop shortcut icon, follow step 5C.

Step 5A: Right click on your desktop and select Properties. The Display Properties window will open; now select the Desktop tab. At the bottom of the window, click on the Customize Desktop button.

Select an icon you wish to change, click Change Icon, navigate to where you saved your ico file and select it. All done!

Step 5B: Replacing the hard drive icons is not as simple. First thing you need to do is copy the icon to the root of the hard drive and rename it HDD.ico. Now, you will need to open Notepad (Start>Programs>Accessories). Type in the following exactly as you see below:

[autorun]
icon=HDD.ico

Click file, save. In the save window, set the “Save as type” option to “All Files” then save the file as autorun.inf and save it to the root of the hard drive (same place as the icon).

Now you will need to reboot the computer before it uses the new icon.

Step 5C: Right click on the shortcut, click Properties. Click “Change Icon” and the rest is the same as step 5A.

That’s it. If I left something out or you are confused, leave a comment or send me a message.

For a how to on actually making your own icon image, check out this Microsoft website.

The Format War…

is over. HD-DVD is dead. Go with Blu-ray if you are planning on buying new hi-def discs.

Microsoft just dropped HD-DVD. Now that they are dropping it, the game is over, Blu-ray is the new format. But I guess the war has really been over since Toshiba (one of the main drivers behind HD-DVD) dropped it, but there were still some companies holding out, Microsoft being one of, if not the last major players still supporting HD-DVD.

Here is a good comparison guide between Blu-ray, HD-DVD, and DVD.

I, for one, welcome our new blue-violet laser overlords.

Customize Your PC: #2

Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible for you screwing something up by doing this. However, if you somehow manage to screw this shortcut up,  I will try to help you fix it. By messing with a shortcuts properties, the worst you should be able to do is make it unusable. That being said, precede at your own risk.

This tip is about how to force Windows Explorer to start where you want it to. By default in XP, Explorer opens with My Documents selected and expanded. However, you can change this by editing the shortcut. If you don’t have a shortcut to Explorer on your desktop or quick launch, then you will be editing the one in the Start Menu.

Step 1: Find and right click on the shortcut for Windows Explorer and choose Properties. The shortcut is located at Start > Programs > Accessories.

Step 2: On the Properties window you will see the Target box. If you chose the right shortcut it should say “%SystemRoot%..explorer.exe” without the quotes.

Step 3: Click in the box at the end of explorer.exe, if it highlights everything in the box, hit the right arrow button. Now hit the space bar and type the following without the quotes and without the space in between C: and .. (MySpace won’t let me put them together): “/n, /e, /select, C: ..” click apply, ok and try out your modified shortcut to see if it works.

What it should look like after:

Step 4: Now when you open explorer using the shortcut if should open and display a left panel with a tree view of the system and a right panel with a tile view of the system drives with C highlighted. Something like this:

The only differences there may be would be the address bar and the toolbars just depending on how you have previously configured it, and of course the number of drives.
You may notice that my icons for my hard drives are different then what Windows uses, as well as the icon for My Computer in the left panel. Part 3 will be a guide on how to make and change system icons.

For more information on command line options for explorer.exe, please refer to this Microsoft knowledge base article.

Customize Your PC: #1

I’ve decided to start a series of posts that give you cool little things you can do to customize your computer. These tips will be for Windows XP only unless otherwise noted.

Want to be able to roll windows up into their title bar (yes, like Macs do)? Now you can do that in Windows with Winroll.

This cool little application installs fast and runs in the background. With it running, all you have to do is right click on a windows title bar and the window will roll up so nothing but the title bar is showing. Great for switching between windows fast. Also included is a neat little feature that you can enable or disable that turns the window transparent (adjustable) when you middle click on the title bar.

Before:

After: