You can start Windows normally, but your computer can’t / won’t / doesn’t boot into safe mode - either the computer reboots itself after listing the drivers, or you get a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) with a STOP 0×0000007B error - generally after a virus or trojan infection. To confirm this solution might work, in Registry Editor go to HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Control/SafeBoot. If it’s not there, or there are only a few empty keys, then something has wiped/corrupted your safe mode configuration to prevent you from entering safe mode where you can run a more thorough malware disinfection.

Read the rest of this entry »

More secure motherboard heatsinks

September 11th, 2007

Apparently there’s an oft overlooked trend in motherboard manufacturing: despite chipset and component cooling solutions growing ever more massive, these heatsinks continue to be secured to the board with cheap, unreliable plastic pins. Luckily these can be replaced with machine screws with minimal effort.

(Applies to v3.1.0.15) DynDNS Updater is a simple, free to use dynamic DNS utility: it automatically detects changes to your external IP address - such as when your ISP renews your DHCP lease - and forwards this information to your DNS service provider to ensure your domain name always points to your most current IP.

However, this utility is distributed by DynDNS.org (although designed and supported by third party Kana Solution) primarily to support the use of their specific service. But with a little tweaking, you can make this well-designed utility work for other service providers - for this example we’ll be using the domain registrar Namecheap.com, one of the better rated affordable service providers.

Read the rest of this entry »

IE is leaving room for ascenders and descenders on characters within the elements - even if there is not text present. To workaround, set the element (div or table cell)’s properties like such:

font-size: 0px
line-height: 0px

Perhaps changing the content’s vertical-align property (to middle?) might also help…