CoNetrix

Blog: General

My BlackBerry had been acting up and I was afraid that it was going to delete my contacts before I could get them moved over to my new phone.  All I had to do is go to http://www.google.com/mobile/sync/ and then verify my cell phone number and Google account.  After that you will receive a text message with a hyperlink in it.  Next, click on the hyperlink and verify your Google account and then all of your contacts’ phone numbers, birthdays, and anniversaries will be synched automatically with your Google account.  After I activated my new DroidX all I had to do was enter in my Google account information and then all of my contacts’ information was on my new phone.  This means, I got a new phone and didn’t even have to go to the Verizon store!

General, BlackBerry, Drod,
 

I have a ThinkPad T410s.  I was running without power the other day & was almost out of batter, so under Power Manager, I moved my power setting all the way to “High energy savings.”  This allowed my battery to last longer. However, when I went back to my desk to doc my system I could not get both of my monitors to work (only one would come up).  I checked power, tried changing cables, rebooting, etc. with no luck.  Finally, I remember I had changed my power settings… [more]

What I found out was that with the T410s there are two graphics cards, the integrated Intel GMA & a NVIDIA NVS 3100M.  Under your energy setting plans, there is an option for “Switchable Graphics.”  You can set it to either “High Performance” or “Energy Saving” for both Batter and AC.  The only plan that had “Energy Saving” selected for AC was the “High energy savings” plan I had selected.  Once I changed it to “High Performance” it switched to the better graphic card and began to allow for dual monitors…

General, ThinkPad, battery,
 

A couple months ago I bought a new HP desktop at home and it was working great except I kept noticed letters were missing after I typed sentences, passwords, etc. It seemed to happen at random and out of a couple sentences there was usually one letter that would be skipped. I thought it was me at first and maybe I just wasn’t used to the new keyboard, but after I started paying attention and made sure I was striking all the keys I realized it wasn’t me. I reinstalled the keyboard drivers and unplugged the keyboard and plugged it into a different USB port. The problem persisted. I was to the point where I was going to buy a new keyboard when I realized it was only happening in Internet Explorer. I found that disabling the Windows Live add-ons fixed the problem (i.e. Microsoft Live Search Toolbar, Windows Live Sign-in Helper, and Microsoft Live Search Toolbar Helper). I didn’t install those add-ons myself, so they must have came preloaded from HP. To manage your IE add-ons go to Tools -> Internet Options -> Programs and click the Manage add-ons button.

General, Windows 7, HP,
 

I am having trouble with my machine overheating. I found two useful tools to look at the temperature on the cores of the processor.  The programs are: 

RealTemp - This program will monitor the temperature on each of the cores (for any modern Intel processor) and also periodically log the results to a file.

Tpfancontrol - This is a program specifically for ThinkPads which shows the temperature and allows you to control the fan speed somewhat. It does show the fan speed and how it changes as the temperature on the cores change.

General, ThinkPad, Software Utility, Lenovo,
 

The multi-tasking feature released with iOS 4.0 is a great feature to allow you to run more than one application at one time; however, the implementation assumes you always want to keep each app running (in a minimized fashion) rather than closing them – so, with iOS 4.0 instead of closing the app when you click the home button, it simply allows the app to run in the background.  To see what apps you have running, press the home button twice.  This will bring up the multi-task bar which shows all the apps running in the background.

To close an application that is running in the background, follow these steps:

  1. Push the home button twice.
  2. Push and hold down one of the app icons showing in the multi-task bar - this will cause the app icons to jiggle (similar to when you re-arrange apps on the main screens) & have a red circle with a minus sign.
  3. Push the minus sign to close the application.

You may want to close applications you don’t want running in the background for the following reasons: [more]

  1. Memory – each application running is taking up memory
  2. Security – applications may be running services in the background that you don’t want running
  3. Battery – having multiple applications running in the background will drain your battery quicker
General, Apple, iPhone, iPad,
 

To find a "lost" window (displays off the side of the screen after undocking from multiple monitors):

XP:  Right click the icon on the taskbar, select "move", then use the arrow keys to move the window to where it is visible.

Windows 7:  Hover your mouse over the icon on the task bar until the thumbnail appears, right-click the thumbnail, select "move" and then move the window with the arrow keys.  Alternately, you can click the icon on the taskbar (so that the application has focus), hold down the Windows key, and press the right or left arrow key.  This will snap the window to the side of the screen.  (Sometimes, you have to hit Windows-arrow multiple times.) [more]

Windows 7 has "mouse gestures".  You've probably seen what happens when you drag a window to the top of your screen, but try grabbing a title bar and giving your mouse a shake.  It will minimize all other windows (or bring them back if you just minimized them that way).

General, Windows 7, Windows XP,
 

One of the new features in Outlook 2010 that I absolutely love is the ability to create “Quick Steps.” At home, I’ve got several email accounts that download into Outlook. From those separate inboxes, I file them into folders kept completely offline. A problem that I run into is that when using the preview pane, the email isn’t marked as read (intentionally) unless I click off and back onto it. When I click-drag the email to a folder to file it, it keeps its unread status unless, once again, I click off and on. This is not a very efficient way for me to work and Quick Steps fix that.

When you create a new Quick Step, you can define a set of actions that this one button performs. [more]

As can be seen below, the following Quick Step will ask you which folder to move your email to and mark it as read.

You can create a shortcut and tooltips for these and add as many actions as you would like. Very helpful!
General, Outlook, Outlook 2010, Office 2010,
 

If you are having problems opening iPhoto (no photos are displayed, etc.), you might can fix it by rebuilding the iPhoto cache.  Just hold Command + Control when launching iPhoto, then select all rebuild options and click Rebuild.

General, Apple,
 

I purchased a new iPhone, but when I tried to sync my old iPhone to my new iPhone it kept crashing my system (laptop would shut down – not blue screen, just turn off).  The event logs showed nothing…  Below is what I tried:

  1. Reinstalled iTunes
  2. Changed USB ports I was plugged into
  3. Changed cables I used to connect my iPhone to my laptop
  4. Restored iPhone to factory default

Then I started synching only pieces at a time and found that it only crashed my laptop when I tried to sync photos…

Not sure exactly which photo or why the sync of photos caused the crash – I have tried only synching a few photos and did not have a problem, but I have not synced all photos since.

General, Apple, Windows 7, iPhone, iTunes,
 

I was forced to change my network password the other morning.  No big deal.  However, around lunch I noticed my iPhone battery life was down to 17% (from 100% at 8:00am).  I had forgotten to update my ActiveSync password on my iPhone after the change (which seemed to cause the phone to continually fail to sync my e-mail and killed my battery).  In the future, I’ll need to remember to change both passwords at the same time.

General, iPhone, ActiveSync,