neilwill » computing http://neilwill.com Notes from afar Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:39:32 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 A+ Certification http://neilwill.com/2006/11/a-certification/ http://neilwill.com/2006/11/a-certification/#comments Wed, 15 Nov 2006 21:16:00 +0000 Neil http://neilwill.wordpress.com/2006/11/15/a-certification/
I’m now looking at doing an A+ Certification exam. Its basically an extra qualification (which seems to b every important in the States) to prove I can do tech support. Hopefully it will help in getting me an interview. I’ve found a couple of sites with info for the test and people seem to be recommending a book by Michael Meyers called A+ Certification All-In-One Exam Guide, so I went to the library to pick up a copy. Amazon has the 6th edition available next month but I wanted to get started now so I thought I’d borrow the current copy instead. It wasn’t until I got home that I realised it was a little out of date, the local library only had the 2nd edition.

I’m now learning about the latest Windows 95 and DOS technology, and about how PCs are nearing 1 ghz in speed and have between 8-64 mb of RAM. I’m expecting a picture of Paul’s BBC Master to appear every time I turn the page.
]]> http://neilwill.com/2006/11/a-certification/feed/ 1 Feed me http://neilwill.com/2006/10/feed-me/ http://neilwill.com/2006/10/feed-me/#comments Mon, 23 Oct 2006 00:33:00 +0000 Neil http://neilwill.wordpress.com/2006/10/22/feed-me/ I’ve tried setting up a link on the right to the RSS feed (its the orange button) – I suppose if you know what I’m talking about when I say RSS you’ll know the orange button. I’m still not 100% on it myself, but it’s a way of subscribing to the blog. If you have Firefox 2.0 or Internet Explorer 7 then you will have the option to subscribe using them, if not then download Firefox 2 and stop lagging behind.

The problem with this subscription is that it gives you the oldest instead of the newest posts, which isn’t of much use to anyone. I’ve tried asking blogger.com about it and had no reply, I’ve tried posting to the forum but had no reply. So if anyone reading this has any idea of how to sort it out (I have a feeling that blogger would need to sort it on their servers) then please let me know.

In the meantime, feel free to enjoy my earlier posts all over again through the RSS feed ;)

]]> http://neilwill.com/2006/10/feed-me/feed/ 1 Cleaning up your C drive http://neilwill.com/2006/10/cleaning-up-your-c-drive/ http://neilwill.com/2006/10/cleaning-up-your-c-drive/#comments Sun, 22 Oct 2006 23:26:00 +0000 Neil http://neilwill.wordpress.com/2006/10/22/cleaning-up-your-c-drive/ I had a pretty major crash last week on my C drive, there I was happily playing Half Life when the game freezes and after a restart I get a BSOD even when trying to start in safe mode. It just so happened that next week was going to be the first ever backup of all my photos and everything on the hard drive. Well backups are what you tell people they should be doing, not something you do yourself, right? I managed to get the data backup up onto another PC and scandisk seemed to fix things but I reinstalled Windows from clean anyway. It feels much better to have a nice clean system now – its like going from a room with clothes and stuff all over the place to everything being neatly tidied away. Very cleansing.

Its amazing how many programmes you build up over the course of a year, I won’t be reinstalling all of them but I still have quite a few to go. I’ve not yet go to that file that you forget to make a copy of before you wipe the hard drive, so hopefully there won’t be one this time. Worryingly I’ve had a few crashes already, but at least things are quicker to load now!

]]> http://neilwill.com/2006/10/cleaning-up-your-c-drive/feed/ 0 Skype phones http://neilwill.com/2006/10/skype-phones/ http://neilwill.com/2006/10/skype-phones/#comments Mon, 16 Oct 2006 02:27:00 +0000 Neil http://neilwill.wordpress.com/2006/10/15/skype-phones/ I was browsing through Amazon and found a few interesting phones. I first heard about them last year but they are starting to come on to the market now. Its like a mobile but it works using wifi connecting to Skype. In the US it would allow free calls to any phones within the country or free calls to anyone who is logged on to Skype, as long as you are within range of a wifi network. The local councils here are trialling free wifi across some cities here in the streets so it could turn into something very useful.

I’m thinking of giving it a go, could be very handy for keeping in touch, especially combined with a Skype-in number to let people call a local UK number. Here’s the Belkin model, and the Netgear model. Netgear also do one on the UK Amazon, but at a higher price.

]]> http://neilwill.com/2006/10/skype-phones/feed/ 0 MySpace http://neilwill.com/2006/09/myspace/ http://neilwill.com/2006/09/myspace/#comments Tue, 26 Sep 2006 20:00:00 +0000 Neil http://neilwill.wordpress.com/2006/09/26/myspace/ I finally gave in and made a myspace page. I was convined I would never use that site but circumstances changed and I had to in order to stay in touch with a few people. If anyone else if on there my page is http://www.myspace.com/neilwill

I’m not convinced about it yet – everyone says you’ll get hooked and spend all your time on there but at the moment it seems like opening up your email for everyone to read. I do have a cool monkey on there though.

]]> http://neilwill.com/2006/09/myspace/feed/ 2 Internet connections http://neilwill.com/2006/06/internet-connections/ http://neilwill.com/2006/06/internet-connections/#comments Mon, 05 Jun 2006 18:53:00 +0000 Neil http://neilwill.wordpress.com/2006/06/05/internet-connections/ I’ve been having a lot of connection problems recently. Last weekend the router stopped working for 4 days because of settings on the modem, I don’t know why the modem decided to change its settings but it succeeded in frustrating me for a long weekend. I was so relieved when I fixed it and then Friday evening the line went down for a couple of hours. I tried to log on to watch the England v Jamaica game on Saturday (having woken up at 5.45am to do so) and found that the modem stopped working again and would work even with a restart. I spent the entire duration of the match on the phone to Verizon which ended in them telling me they’d send me a replacement modem. I thought I’d try resetting the modem today and it all seems fine, I do hate the modem though.

In other news my free copy of the new Tomb Raider game has arrived (its a bundle with my new graphics card) but I can’t install it yet as it requires 10gb of hard drive space. I remember when Doom 2 was released it was regarded as a huge game at 12mb.

Oh and its hot here, really hot. As in 95-100 degrees every day. Looks like summer has arrived just in time for the World Cup – only 4 days to go!

]]> http://neilwill.com/2006/06/internet-connections/feed/ 3 The end of dialup http://neilwill.com/2006/02/the-end-of-dialup/ http://neilwill.com/2006/02/the-end-of-dialup/#comments Sat, 04 Feb 2006 19:33:00 +0000 Neil http://neilwill.wordpress.com/2006/02/04/the-end-of-dialup/ Good win for England this morning, managed to see it via webcam.

I’m almost out of the dark ages with the internet – I’ll have my very own 3 mb broadband connection next week if all goes to plan. In the meantime I’ve had to get AOL as my previous ISP trial ran out and AOL being as difficult as they can won’t let me send mail from my freeserve account. I can still receive it but I won’t be sending much this week so no-one gets confused and replaces their address book entries as has happened before when I’ve used temporary email.

]]> http://neilwill.com/2006/02/the-end-of-dialup/feed/ 1 Registries http://neilwill.com/2005/08/registries/ http://neilwill.com/2005/08/registries/#comments Fri, 19 Aug 2005 22:25:00 +0000 Neil http://neilwill.wordpress.com/2005/08/19/registries/ I had fun the other day going round a few stores with a hand held scanner, scanning everything that caught my eye. We were making a wedding gift registry so they gave me the scanner to go round the store rather than write everything down. I’m easily amused.

If anyone is feeling generous and wants to help us out in getting started with stuff for our new place (once we get it!) then we are registered at www.target.com (under ‘gift registries’) and www.robinsonsmay.com (under ‘wedding registry’). We already have a few things thanks to Brenda’s work colleagues who threw her a surprise bridal shower – we now have 2 George Forman grills! Usually the registry works though so you can see what others have already bought.

Got myself a new printer – Epson Stylus R200 for about £50, prints out photo quality so am really impressed with it. My behind the wheel driving test is booked for next week, from all I’ve heard it involves a 5 minute drive around the block in an automatic and then you can drive away in a manual truck. At least once I have a California license I’ll be allowed to drink at Dave & Buster’s – they don’t see a passport as an acceptable form of ID!!

]]> http://neilwill.com/2005/08/registries/feed/ 3 A link to the outside world http://neilwill.com/2005/07/a-link-to-the-outside-world/ http://neilwill.com/2005/07/a-link-to-the-outside-world/#comments Fri, 08 Jul 2005 00:15:00 +0000 Neil http://neilwill.wordpress.com/2005/07/07/a-link-to-the-outside-world/ As my brand new shiny PC has arrived I thought I should start a blog to keep in touch with those back in the cloudy country.

Here’s a pic of my chosen method of communication to get things started – I’ve never tried one of these things before so let’s see how it comes out………

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