Ever hate it that whenever you put a CD into your computer it automatically loads? Well try this. When you put the CD into the drive, hold down Shift. Keep holding it as the CD spins up, and wait until it spins down again (this means that you hold it until your CD drive stops making ‘whirring’ noises. It should work. I read this in some really old computer manual, and these days, people don’t really know about it. It’s really handy when you’re trying to put a game CD in and you don’t want the installer to come up.

Thanks,

Connor

Why get an HDTV? Getting a new TV is quite a decision. This guide will help you through the various stages of getting an HDTV, and why you should get one.

Why Get One?
HDTV is the newest and best form of TV broadcasts. Surprisingly, we’ve been using our analog NTSC television format for a little bit over 50 years now! It’s time for a change, and the FCC agrees. Here in Canada, the switch-over will be in 2011. What’s this change-over I’m talking about? Well, in a couple of years, you won’t be able to get analog television broadcasts!The reason that they are pressuring this is because they want everyone to switch over and get an HDTV!What appeals to many people is that they can get free television programming with their old antennas. Now, think, does using an antenna not sound that great? Well, yeah sure, because when you used your old antenna oh so long ago, the picture was a bit fuzzy, huh? Right now you might be wondering if the picture on that HDTV that you paid dearly for will actually be the real thing. Well, fortunately, yes, it will not have ghosting, fuzzyness, or bad picture, but you’ll be watching full HDTV, without paying anything! Go get an HDTV!

Which One?
Getting an HDTV is quite a decision! Here are some websites that you can check out to help you decide which television you’re going to get:

http://www.lcdtvbuyingguide.com/

www.electronics.howstuffworks.com/tv-buying-guide.htm

www.cnet.com/4520-7874_1-5108580-1.html

http://www.projectorbuyingguide.com/

http://www.plasmatvbuyingguide.com/

www.pages.ebay.com/buy/guides/tv-television-buying-guide

Do a google search for more information!

Thanks,

Connor

My cousin let me know about this last year (thanks craig, most loyal fan), and even though microsoft’s Movie Maker for XP is EXREMELY buggy, I decided that this was actually pretty cool. I didn’t get around to trying it until a little while ago. Basically, it lets you make an animation that is choppy at best, but is quite neat. It uses the same idea that the ‘stop motion animation’ uses, but instead of using a camera, you use paint to generate the images.

Well, let’s get started. First, click on your start menu, click on run, and then type in “mspaint” and hit the enter key.
An ms paint window should open up. Here is where you can learn to first start using paint: Paint Tutorial – that website covers the basics of using paint. Now that you know how to use paint, make a drawing that you want to make animated. Now save that in a folder by the name of your animation, and save it as 1. Then change something, like, erase a hand and then move it upwards a little bit, or move his head. Then go up to the file menu, and DON’T HIT ON SAVE, hit on SAVE AS, and then save it as 2.bmp. Then change something again, and so on and so forth. Make sure to remember to only make the movements between frames (the different bmp files you are saving) very small otherwise your movie will be very fast and choppy. Once you have like a million bmp files in that folder and your animation is complete, then close paint.

Now here’s the part where movie maker comes in. Click on start menu, and then ‘All Programs’ and then click on Windows Movie Maker. Movie Maker should load in a couple of seconds. Then press Ctrl+I on your keyboard, and an import window should come up. Go to the folder that has your pictures for your animation in it, and focus the window on a file inside the window (single-click on one of the pictures inside the window), and then press Ctrl+A, and everything in that folder should be selected, and then click on Import. After a couple of minutes, everything should be imported. On the storyboard at the bottom of the window, click on Show Timeline. Then hold down Ctrl and click on all of your pictures while holding Ctrl (you can let go, but you must have Ctrl down when you are clicking on something). Then once all your pictures are selected, then drag them onto the timeline. They should sort themselves out.  Then zoom in a lot on your timeline. Then click and drag the length of all your clips until they are 0:00:00.20 in length (yes, you do have to be zoomed in a lot!). Do this to all your clips, and then press Ctrl+P. You’re Done! Email all your friends!

Enjoy making your own creations!

Connor

First snow today…
I forgot to bring my boots My running shoes were soaked!

Connor

Note:  This only works with Microsoft Windows.
Ever want to show someone exactly what you mean when you are trying to describe something that could be crucial in fixing your computer?  Well, here’s a neat little easter egg that I found with Windows XP – the ability to take a screenshot of your screen.  Well, want to try it right now?

Look for a little key on your keyboard called print screen.  Now go to the screen that you want
to take a screenshot of, and hit print screen.  Print Screen can sometimes be called Prnt Scr, or other weird abbreviations, and is usually on a key called SysRq (which is a legacy, button that they don’t use anymore, but used to be used to do something a long time ago, but by now the button has been abandoned).  Now that you’ve hit print screen, windows has taken a picture of your screen’s state, and copied it to the clipboard.  

Now click on the start menu and click run.  Type in ‘mspaint’, and hit enter, and then Microsoft Pain should come up.  Can you see the white space?
If it is bigger than your screen, then go to the bottom left corner of your window and click and drag it till it is really small.  Then hit Ctrl+V, and then your screenshot should appear.  If a window pops up asking you if you want to resize the drawing, then click on yes.

Hope you enjoy this cool feature! If you need more features in a screen capture than ‘Print Screen’ provides, then search download.com for ‘screen capture’.

Connor

I haven’t been posting for a while! Sorry, Craig and everyone else!

These days the web is getting huge! Everyone seems to be getting online, and everyone has a website these days. If you don’t have one yet, you’ll need a Linksys WRT54G router to host your own website at home. Here is a list of the things you’ll need for this project:

- Linksys WRT54G (you can get it at Best Buy or Future Shop or even eBay)
- Preferably a high-speed DSL connection (this is what I have) but this project will probably work on cable internet too.

You will also need a computer with the following minimum statistics:

- 5 GB HDD space (although it could work with as little as 2 GB, but that’s just sad)
- 128 MB RAM (64 megs ABSOLUTE minimum)
- 233 MHz Pentium or AMD equivalent
- Basically, the computer needs to be able to run Windows XP smoothly
- For a web server, the connection is usually with wired Ethernet, but if you wanted to you could do it wirelessly, but most people go with wired because it’s more reliable.

When you have your router all set up and working, and you computer connected to it by wired Ethernet or wireless, then start parsing through these steps!

1. Go to your desktop and right-click on My Computer, and click on Properties.
2. Click on the tab Network Identification, and then inside the window, click on the Properties button, and then remember the ‘Computer’s Name’ that is there.
3. Close everything, not making ANY changes.
4. Open up your favorite web browser and type this into the address bar: 192.168.1.1 and then hit enter, and then the Linksys router setup comes up.
5. On the navigation bar click on Status, and then in the submenu that appears, click on Local Network, and then click on the button that says “DHCP Clients Table”.
6. Find your computer’s name that you’re going to use for your server in that list, and then find and remember it’s IP Address.
7. Go up to the navigation bar, click on Applications and Games, and then make an application called WWW on port 8080 to 8080 with a protocol of ‘both’, then enter the IP address that you got from the DHCP Clients Table, and check the ‘Enable’ checkbox.
8. Then head to www.dyndns.com, and register for an account. Then on the navigation bar click on accounts.
9. In the My Services section, click on My Hosts.
10. Click on add new hostname, which is on the right side of the titlebar.
11. For the hostname, type something for the first half, and then choose something for the second half.
12. Leave the Wildcard option blank
13. Leave the TTL the way it is
14. Leave the service type the way it is
15. Then stop, minimize your window, and then go to the start menu, click on run, and then type in cmd and hit enter.
16. Type in ipconfig/release and then hit enter
17. Type in ipconfig/renew and then hit enter, and record the IP Address it tells you remember that this IP Address is DIFFERENT than the one we got before.
18. Type in cls and then hit enter.
19. Type in exit and then hit enter.
20. Then since that is gone, go back to your internet browser.
21. For the IP Address section, type in the IP Address that you recorded from cmd, but NOT the one we got before that.
22. Leave the Webhop section the way it is.
23. Leave the mail routing section the way it is.
24. Click on Create New Host, and then when you’ve done that it will come up with a page saying what you typed in.
25. Then go back to 192.168.1.1 in your internet browser.
26. In the submenu for the first page that comes up, click on DDNS.
27. For the DDNS Service leave it as DynDNS.org
28. Type in your User Name, password, and Host Name.
29. Click on Save Settings
30. Now you’re ready to download a web server on the computer that’s going to be your server.
31. Sorry, but installing a web server is not covered in this article! You’re going to have to figure it out yourself, until I make an article about that. I recommend using either the freeware KF Web Server, or the open-source Apache Server from Apache foundation. You’ll also need a page to put on your site, so get Actual Drawing!

About The Weather: It’s supposed to snow for the first time tommorrow – about 20 centimetres! That’s something you can’t get in Tucson, Arizona … unless you can?

Good luck with your web servers!

Connor

* Update: See my new post Bell Problems Solved on how this issue turned out! *

It’s late, and as I sit here and wait in queue for bell ‘support’ chat, I’ll tell you about the kind of trouble that I’ve been having tonight. Well, basically, I need to be able to print from a laptop to a different computer on the network. What really irritates me is that they just don’t understand what you’re saying.
I think that Bell and other big corporations should stop making these people who have
english as a second language do the support chat! This is what I got:

System Welcome Connor.
System Connecting to server. Please wait…
System Connected to server.
System Muthu (SCI-12047) has joined the session.
System Connected with Muthu (SCI-12047).
Muthu (SCI-12047) Greetings Connor,

Thank you for choosing Bell, my name is Muthu (SCI-12047), how may I help you today?
You hi
Muthu (SCI-12047) Hi Connor.
You I need to be able to use a printer on a different computer than the one i am using right now
You I want to install it so I can connect through the router and access files on that computer too
Muthu (SCI-12047) May I have your b1 user id?
You ok it’s ——–
Muthu (SCI-12047) Thank you for your information, give me a moment to retrieve your account.
You sure
Muthu (SCI-12047) I apologize we do not offer support for this specific issue. I request you to configure your printer provider for assistance.

The one before that was much worse, but you get my idea! It’s not the printer company’s modem, it’s YOUR modem.
And by ‘configure’…
I’m sure you mean ‘call’.
I’m fed up and I’m going to bed.

---

Now it’s the morning and I still have to fix it. I’m going to start another support chat.
I have suspicions that it’s the new modem/router that’s causing the problem.
Also, with our new internet we’re supposed to be getting around 5 mbps!
I wonder if anyone else is having this problem.
First I’ll try and fix the network issue and then I’ll fix the speed issue.
I was also searching on Google, and found that people were also having issues with home networking. I just went through another chat:

System Welcome Connor.
System Connecting to server. Please wait…
System Connected to server.
System Vinod R (SCI-9020) has joined the session.
System Connected with Vinod R (SCI-9020).
Vinod R (SCI-9020) Greetings Connor,

Thank you for choosing Bell, my name is Vinod R (SCI-9020), how may I help you today?
You Hi, I need to be access files on a different computer from the one I am on.
Vinod R (SCI-9020) May I have your b1 number and your e mail address please?
You ——–
You ——.——-@sympatico.ca
Vinod R (SCI-9020) Thank you for your informations.
Vinod R (SCI-9020) May I confirm that you need to connect your computer wireless?
You I need to access files on a different computer wirelessly
You yes
Vinod R (SCI-9020) I certainly can help you with that Connor
Vinod R (SCI-9020) May I know that you are connecting wireless for the first time?
You No, I connected before
Vinod R (SCI-9020) So, you need to reconnect. Am I right?
You No, I can connect, but I need to access files on a different computer in the network
Vinod R (SCI-9020) Would you mind if I ask a few questions before we proceed? This will
give me a better understanding of your problem.
You sure
Vinod R (SCI-9020) Thank you.
Vinod R (SCI-9020) It seems that already you are having wireless connection. Now you need to access the files on your first computer from your second computer. Am I right?
You yes
Vinod R (SCI-9020) I apologize we do not offer support for this specific issue. I can redirect you in to the proper direction and you should be able to get the information you need regarding this.
You ok
Vinod R (SCI-9020) I would suggest you to contact your local network technicians.
Vinod R (SCI-9020) Thank You. Is there something else we can help you with today?
You no thanks

NRRGH! I AM THE LOCAL NETWORK TECHNICIANS! I’m sorry but, I don’t live in a company. I AM the computer administrator, vendor and network technicians!

Help!

Here’s a chat I had with someone about our speed issue.

System Welcome Connor.
System Connecting to server. Please wait…
System Connected to server.
System Paul (SCI-11624) has joined the session.
System Connected with Paul (SCI-11624).
Paul (SCI-11624) Greetings Connor,

Thank you for choosing Bell, my name is Paul (SCI-11624), how may I help you today?
You Hi, we recently ordered a Bell Total Internet Performance package, and I ran a speed test and there was no difference in speed
You we’re supposed to be getting around 5 mbps
Paul (SCI-11624) Connor, I certainly can help you with that
Paul (SCI-11624) May I have your b1 number please so that I can pull up your account?
You ——–
Paul (SCI-11624) Thanks for the Information, Connor.
Paul (SCI-11624) Please give me a moment.
Paul (SCI-11624) May I have your service telephone number?
You — — —-
Paul (SCI-11624) Thanks for the Information.
Paul (SCI-11624) Please give me a moment. Let me check with your line profile.
You sure
Paul (SCI-11624) Connor, I checked with your line profile and its seems a problem with your line profile.
You ok
Paul (SCI-11624) I can walk you through a few steps right now if you wish and I am sure we can fix your issue.
You i would like that very much
Paul (SCI-11624) I would suggest you to verify your physical setup:
1. There should not be any filters or extensions between the modem and the phone jack. The should not be a router or hub between the modem and the computer.
2. The cable should not be longer than 2 meters (7 feet).
3. Make sure the modem is at least 30 CM (1 foot) away from any electrical device including the computer.
4. Verify that filters are installed on every phone except the one plugged into the modem.
5. Ensure that the wires are in good condition.
6. Unplug all phone devices. Plug one phone at the time and try to browse one more time to see if the service have improve.
Paul (SCI-11624) Thank you.
You should I try that now?
Paul (SCI-11624) Yes.
You thanks
System The session has ended.

After I talked to this guy, I got back on the phone about our network issue (again) and the lady gave me dell’s phone no – 1 800 847 4096.
She said that you might need admin privileges which I agreed with, but I’m not sure what calling dell will do. So I called them.

And they said they don’t help with that…

Sometimes you get a good one, and sometimes you get a bad one, is what I conclude from this.

Digg is a free online service that is growing in popularity that can also get you some serious web traffic too!  Here’s how it works:  People post in blogs, and so if they want, they can put a digg button at the end of their posts.  When people click on those buttons, it takes them to a page telling them either to sign in or to make a new account.  When you sign in then you can digg a news story or a web post.  The more diggs something gets, the higher it is in digg’s rankings.  I decided to include digg buttons on my posts from now on, because if people find that my posts are interesting, then they might click on my button!

I’m sure that by now, you want to have one on your blogger blog.  Well, here’s how.  The way I’m going to do this is to make it as simple as possible so that someone who’s not tech-savvy at ALL could to this for their blog.

First, go to Blogger.com and sign in to your account.  Then on the dashboard that comes up, click on Settings.

Then scroll down to the bottom, and be careful – this step’s a bit complicated – but copy this following text into the box you see on Blogger.

Sorry if it’s a bit hard to read.

Then click Save Settings.  Here’s a picture to help explain everything in the big picture:

Then, everytime you make a post, you will have a digg button.
But wait!  There’s one more step that you have to do for every post you make from now on - the steps that I’ve just talked about are a 1-time procedure!  This last step is to change the circled part in the following:

How do you change that and what do you change it to?  Well, first, publish your post even though there may not be anything in it, and then visit your blog’s address in a new browser window.  Click on the title of the post which you want to put the digg button on to and then that post’s permanent page comes up.  Then go up the address bar where you see the web page’s address and highlight that and press Ctrl + C on your keyboard, and then go back to your blogger post page.

Paste that in where ’URLofyourstory’ was, and then you’re done!  You’ve got a working digg button.  If you want to see how it works, or if you just want to digg this article, click on the digg button below.  

Thanks :)
Connor

I don’t have to go to school this morning, because I have an orthodontic appointment at 10:00. I woke up and finished my history page for our history group, and right now we are researching about New France and the seigneurial system. Then my dad had me take AJ to school, so I put on my jacket and gloves and then I hopped on my scooter along with my brother and it was actually quite fun! I got back and had to take out the garbage and put the compost into the composter, and then after that, I came back and now I am writing this. I’ll post a picture of my braces some other time. When they put on your braces, it doesn’t hurt, it’s just uncomfortable, and they stick a giant plastic thing in your mouth (uggh!). It’s 9:46, and I have to go now, so wish me good luck!

Snow is coming! It almost snowed a couple days ago – actually, it only just kinda ‘slushed’, but still, that shows that the white stuff is on its way! I love snow, because it is really so much fun.

In the winter, I build snow forts and castles, and since I have a park across my street, and to get into it there is a big hill, we slide down that hill on toboggans into the park. The hill isn’t that long, but the drop is huge, and you get some crazy speed when you go down it. If you’re not careful, then you might hit a tree when you toboggan down the hill! Even in the summer, sometimes I bike down into the park, narrowly avoiding trees as I speed by with blazing speed .

Skiiing is also one of my favorite parts of the winter. Sometimes I go with my family, but even if I go with my family one single time in the winter, I still will go skiing, because our school goes skiing on Ski Day. There are two ski days in the year, and it is so much fun! I love skiing, and picking up speed as you go down a slope. I don’t know much about skiing, and I definitely will probably never (that’s a bit of a jumble of words) try to snowboard. But, hey, I like it anyways!

Before you can even start skiing, you have to take a test, and then you get either a Green, Blue, or Red sticker to put onto your ski pass. If you get green, then you can only go on one of the two bunny hills. If you get blue, you can go on the bunny hills, and the two blue hills. The blue hills are 10x as fun as the bunny hills because there are winding passages, and there’s even a jump on one! If you get red, then you can go on the bunny hills, the blue hills, and the wicked red hills. I didn’t get to go on a red hill, because I got blue, but if you get red, you can even go on the half-pipe! Awesome!

The bunny hills are boring, so I’d hate to get a green – and that’s sort of what happened to me on the first ski day. Last year, on the first ski day, I thought that I would get a blue sticker, and as I thought, that was what I got. I decided to go on the bunny hill first, because this would be my first time skiing that year. That decision was actually not the best decision, because while I was trying out the bunny hill, the half-decent blue hill’s lift broke down, and was closed the rest of the day, and, not being a red, I had to stay on the green hill all day. The only good thing about this was that while I was wasting time on the red hill, I found a different way down to the bottom of the hill – a bit of a ‘secret passage’ that had a jump. I went off the jump, and almost didn’t make it, but I recovered and made it to the bottom of the run. I still had a thriller of a time that day, and I cannot wait till this year’s ski day.