Month: December 2006

I’m starting to look like a Cranky Geek from writing about so many PC problems recently. So here’s a good thing, the HP Photosmart C6180 All-in-One printer.

About a month ago a friend of mine was looking to buy an All-in-One printer/scanner/fax to save on desk space. She had seen a few different models from various companies that looked good to her and wanted me to check them out. I checked online reviews and specifications for them all and then recommended the HP as the best buy.

Everything works very well and it has everything but the kitchen sink built-in. Just today she told me how much she loves the printer so, I’m giving a big thumbs up to this great product.

Here’s a nice little program, Icon Restore, to restore your desktop icon positions when they get messed up badly by safe mode or resolution changes.

I received a copy of Intervideo MediaOne Gallery when I purchased Ulead DVD Movie Factory 5 Plus yesterday. So today I decided to check it out since I’m stuck at home with a cold trying to relax and get well. I should have read this review by CNET about it’s sister application first.

This program is yet another all in one media organizer but with a twist. The installer is terrible causing WinXP hard crashes and then the uninstaller won’t work. Using information in the CNET review and my general knowledge I was finally able to eradicate the program but it took many hours. On the bright side while I was ripping out the Intervideo MediaOne Gallery, I also completely eradicated WinDVD and the Interactual player. My system now seems much faster and more stable.

I think I’ll keep far far away from Intervideo products in the future.

Dr. Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer has blogged his favorite astronomical photos for 2006. His top pick is this awesome photo of Saturn taken by the Cassini orbiter.

I hit a problem when trying to get both Acrobat Reader 7 and 4 available under the WinXP “Open With” right-click menu. When ever I’d point the WinXP dialog to Acrobat 4 it would just use Acrobat 7 instead. The problem seems to be caused by both executables having the same name even though they are in different paths.

The solution is to copy the Acrobat 4 executable AcroRd32.exe and rename it, I named it AcroRd4.exe. Now the “Open With” selection works and I can choose either version to open a PDF.

On the other WinXP PC that I use regularly this problem didn’t happen. The only major difference between the PC’s is that the one that it worked on had Acrobat Reader 7 and the full Acrobat 7 program both installed.

IMHO, Mr. Walt Jung is one of the greatest engineers of analog electronics of all time. His IC Op-Amp Cookbook is a must have for any engineer who uses Op-Amps. I personally own two copies, the 2nd edition I bought in 1980 and the updated 3rd edition I bought in 1990. Unfortunately the currently available print editions are reported to be very low quality that is why the link above is set to find an older printing (like my newest copy). See the books page at Mr. Jung’s site for more information about this and his other excellent books.

The library section also contains PDF’s of many of Mr. Jung’s excellent articles and even a complete book written for Analog Devices. I am particularly excited to find his articles from The Audio Amateur magazine as I had to part with my complete TAA collection due to space constraints when I moved last year. Mr. Jung’s writing in TAA was one of the primary motivations for my career choice of electronics design especially my favorite work, analog circuit design. A very important lesson that was driven home from his TAA writings was the need for rigorous scientific methodology in assessing analog circuits especially audio circuits. The audiophile world has always had people who fall for pseudo-science, The Audio Amateur and especially Mr. Jung did a great job of debunking pseudo-science with science whenever it reared it’s ugly head.