Author: Dave Farquhar

Depending on how you look at it, a free upgrade. Or bloatware.

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , ,

Here’s a tip for those of you who own HP or Compaq laptops and netbooks. Most of these machines ship with HP Wireless Assistant, which basically does two things: display a popup telling you if your wireless network is on or off, and in some cases, enable a wi-fi on/off button on the keyboard.

But some versions of it moonlight by causing WMIPrVSE chew up 20% of available CPU power. People sometimes pay hundreds of dollars to get 20% more CPU power, so that’s not exactly welcome.
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Why publish in Classic Toy Trains?

Dave Farquhar Personal, Toy trains , , , , , , , ,

On one of the few remaining train forums where I do anything but lurk, the magazine Classic Toy Trains came up in discussion. Someone said, “It ought to call itself Classic Lionel Toys and be done with it,” and the discussion progressed from there.

Being that my next published work will be in that particular magazine, I thought I’d address some of the concerns/comments that came up.

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A Syrian-American’s view of current events in the Middle East

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized ,

Rany Jazayerli is a Syrian-American dermatologist, baseball fan, writer, and blogger. Not necessarily in that order. I’m familiar with him because he writes about the Kansas City Royals a lot. But every once in a while, he writes about something else.

His perspective on Egypt is interesting. It’s not what we’re used to hearing here in the States, and for that reason alone, it’s worth reading. You’ll probably find yourself agreeing with parts of it and disagreeing with parts of it, but there’s a very good chance a lot of what you’ll read will be things you’ve never heard before.

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On troubleshooting

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , ,

My Windows 7 upgrade was supposed to be a one-hour project on a Saturday afternoon. It dragged on until Wednesday. I’m at the point now where I probably have an hour’s work left on the machine–it’s Thursday now–but it’s late and I’m not sure I feel like it.

The answers–loading the BIOS defaults and changing the parallel port settings–seem obvious. Now. But when I look for my keys, where I finally find them seems obvious too, even though it sometimes takes a long time to find them.

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How I fixed an infuriating printer problem

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Troubleshooting, Windows , , ,

Windows 7 and my HP Laserjet 4100 weren’t getting along. And I was pretty livid about it. I paid $125 for my Windows 7 upgrade, and for that money, I got to mess around for 4 days trying to get better-than-1997 functionality out of what’s supposed to be the latest and greatest. I was about ready to trade it even up for a copy of Windows ME and Microsoft Bob. Because at least then I’d be able to print.

I finally fixed the problem, but finding the solution wasn’t easy. So I’ll present the symptoms and the ultimate solution here.

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How I fixed a maddening Code 43 in Windows 7 (no firearms involved)

Dave Farquhar Windows , , , , ,

Gatermann talked me into trying one last time to re-install Windows 7, and if it didn’t work, he’d help me go Office Space on it.

Those of you who’ve been following me for the past week will know I started installing and trying to use Windows 7 on Saturday, and it didn’t go well. Among other things, my video driver constantly died with a Code 43, and I could print anywhere from 0-1 documents in between reboots. Basically, the computer became less useful to me than a Commodore 64. And given all the hype about how this was the best Windows ever, I wasn’t happy.

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Contingency. Or how I escaped from Windows 0.7

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized , , , , , , , ,

I thought I traced my Windows 0.7 printing problem to the presence of a USB bluetooth adapter, but it turned out that was wrong. My wife called about mid-day to say the machine wasn’t printing anymore.

Fortunately, I’d never gotten around to downgrading my netbook from Windows XP to Windows 0.7. It saved the day.

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I sure hope Windows 7 SP1 gets here fast

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Windows , , , , , ,

So I’ve been running Windows 7 for about a day on an Intel motherboard. And I don’t know for certain if it’s the shoddy Intel hardware, or Windows 7, but I don’t think I’ve been this un-impressed since the first time I laid eyes on Windows ME.

Yeah, it’s that bad. I’m sure the Microsoft fanboys will jump in and chew me up, but let’s see if they can explain this away.

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Yep, I think I’ve just about had it with Intel

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Personal , ,

I’ve been messing all weekend with this stupid Intel motherboard, trying to get the video working in Windows 7. All I can see is that I have some kind of conflict. Code 43, whatever that means. Thanks loads, Microsoft.

Except this is an integrated board, with nothing plugged into it. Can’t Intel manage to make a motherboard (using its own chips, no less) where the integrated peripherals don’t conflict with each other?

I’ve upgraded the drivers, upgraded the BIOS to the newest version, everything.

Since Intel can’t get the simplest of things right, it’s Asus or nothing for me, from now on.

Cheap, custom project enclosures

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized

I found this papier mâché enclosure project on the always excellent Hackaday.

I’ve gotten a bit… creative before with enclosures for my projects, but this takes things to a couple of different levels. It’s cheap, and infinitely customizable, and stronger than it looks. The only downsides I see are the amount of time required to make it, and the enclosure won’t be very water resistant at all.

If you can live within those two limitations, it’s a very clever solution.