Download it here.

After running the appropriate tool for your installation head to Windows Update and install the provided updates.

Well, I’ve done some in-house testing and have come to a different conclusion. The hardware works perfectly with Windows 7; everything with the exception of webcam is picked up through windows update.

So, in the tradition of messing with Dell’s strategy and giving consumers the ability to do what they want with their purchased products, like overclocking their laptop GPU, here is the guide to getting your Studio 15 webcam working with Windows 7.

Step 1: Update all your drivers. Check that your microphone works: Control Panel > Sounds > Recording
If the green bar goes up when you tap the microphone (hole right next to webcam lens) the green bar should jump. If its not working make sure you have updated your windows. If the driver works fine but you cannot record anything with the microphone: read my comment below.

Step 2: Download driver R213648. You may download it directly from BATP in a non-annoying installer-less zip file.

Step 3: Extract the file somewhere, figure it out.

Step 4: Go to the driver directory, find setup.exe, rightclick on it and go to properties, find the Compatibility tab and select run in compatibility with Vista SP 2. Look at the picture if you get confused.

Step 5: Hit next a bunch of times and reboot your computer.

Step 6: Your webcam now works. Test it out by going to chatroulette (NSFW) and hitting Allow flash or using some sort of software.

Step 7 (optional): Ads don’t pay, donations do. Give me money.

What you will need to do is find the corporate (optional: and personal) mailboxes of head people at the said company, The Consumerist runs a fairly decent directory.

Now that you have the emails of these people head over to gmail and login:

1. Click on settings in the top right
2. Click on filters tab
3. Click create new
4. In the from field enter the email address of the spammer (ie: news@acclaim.net)
5. Click Next
6. Check Skip the Inbox, Delete it
7. Check Forward To and enter the email address(es) you earlier acquired (ie: MMackin@acclaim.net)

Great Success! Now every single piece of spam that used to annoy you will no longer show in your mailbox, and maybe it will even get past the spam filter of the villain you are forwarding it to.

Protocol: XMPP

Username: Your Facebook Vanity Name
Domain: chat.facebook.com
Jabber ID: vanityname@chat.facebook.com
Password: <Facebook password>

Connect port: 5222
Connect server: chat.facebook.com
Use SSL/TLS: no
Allow Plaintext Authentication: no

So if you are setting it up for Pidgin, your settings should look something like this:

If you are still having trouble, check out the official support page.

UPDATE:

• 12/18/09): Patch Released:

Apparently missing the point, or facing an improbable time frame, pandemic has released the patch which still requires it to run under a single core…

If you are using Windows 7 you have to do this:

1.) Boot the game.
2.) Wait for the main menu to load, then press Ctrl-Alt-Delete.
3.) Select Start Task Manager.
4.) If the game is visible, press Alt-Tab, otherwise continue to the next step.
5.) Inside the Task Manager, go to the Processes tab.
6.) Find Saboteur.exe, right-click it, and select Set Affinity…
7.) De-select CPU 2 and CPU 3.
8.) Click OK.

In any case, grab the patch here, be sure to get the latest latest ATI drivers here,

• (12/11/09): Real patch is now in internal testing.

We are currently digging into the issue at hand & are working as fast as possible to find a solution. In some of our tests we have found one workaround that seems to allow users to run the game. Some have posted adjusting the affinity process via “Task Manager” but our fix truly puts the system in a 1 core mode and will allow you to run the game. Overall this is not a final fix, nor a perfectly stable fix, but it will allow you to run the game. This work around is entirely base upon CPU processing power & will possibly only work for certain systems.

Steps to turn off cores: (For Windows 7)
1.) Open MSCONFIG (You can open it by entering MSCONFIG in the search bar)
2.) Select the “Boot” tab
3.) Click on “Advanced Options”
4.) Check “Number of Processors”
5.) Select “1” from dropdown menu
6.) Click “Apply”
7.) Restart machine

Steps to turn off cores: (For Windows Vista)
1.) Open MSCONFIG – Start> Run > Type MSCONFIG
2.) Select the “BOOT.INI” tab
3.) Click on “Advanced Options…”
4.) Select the check box for /NUMPROC= set it to 1 & click “OK”
5.) Click “Apply”
6.) Restart machine

Thanks, GameGuru

Opinion: EA’s business strategy seems to depend on pushing release dates. Game developers don’t have the time they need to smooth out bugs and finish testing, and consumers are paying for it by buying an incomplete product.

This week The Pirate Bay confirmed it would shut down its tracker for good, instead encouraging the use of DHT, PEX and magnet links. This move confounded many BitTorrent enthusiasts, who although wishing to adapt, were confronted with hard to grasp terminology and technology. Time for some explaining.

The Pirate Bay’s recent confirmation that they had closed down their tracker since DHT and Peer Exchange have matured enough to take over, was coupled with the news that they had added Magnet links to the site. This news has achieved its aim of stimulating discussion, but has also revealed that there is much confusion over how these technologies work.

The key thing to understand is that nobody is being forced to use Magnet links or trackerless torrents. While these long-standing technologies may prove to be the future, they will co-exist with tracker-enabled torrenting for quite some time. For now, nobody will be forced to immediately change their existing downloading habits, although it may be wise to switch to a BitTorrent client that is compatible with these technologies.

In an attempt to clear some of the mystique surrounding DHT, PEX and Magnet links we will walk through all three briefly, hoping to assure those who’ve become confused earlier this week.

DHT and PEX working in utorrent

DHT

Using DHT instead of trackers is one of the things The Pirate Bay is now trying to encourage, and torrent downloads that rely solely on this technology are often referred to as “trackerless torrents.” DHT is used to find the IP addresses of peers, mostly in addition to a tracker. It is enabled by default in clients such as uTorrent and Vuze and millions of people are already using it without knowing.

DHT’s function is to find peers who are downloading the same files, but without communicating with a central BitTorrent tracker such as that previously operated by The Pirate Bay.

DHT is by no means a new technology. A version debuted in the BitTorrent client Azureus in May 2005 and an alternative but incompatible version was added to Mainline BitTorrent a month later. There is, however, a plugin available for Azureus Vuze which allows it access to the Mainline DHT network used by uTorrent and other clients.

Peer Exchange (”PEX”)

Peer Exchange is yet another means of finding IP addresses. Rather than acting like a tracker, it leverages the knowledge of peers you are connected to, by asking them in turn for the addresses of peers they are connected to. Although it requires a “kick start”, PEX will often uncover more genuine peers than DHT or a tracker.

Magnet links

Traditionally, .torrent files are downloaded from torrent sites. A torrent client then calculates a torrent hash (a kind of fingerprint) based on the files it relates to, and seeks the addresses of peers from a tracker (or the DHT network) before connecting to those peers and downloading the desired content.

Sites can save on bandwidth by calculating torrent hashes themselves and allowing them to be downloaded instead of .torrent files. Given the torrent hash – passed as a parameter within a Magnet link – clients immediately seek the addresses of peers and connect to them to download first the torrent file, and then the desired content.

It is worth noting that BitTorrent can not ditch the .torrent format entirely and rely solely on Magnet links. The .torrent files hold crucial information that is needed to start the downloading process, and this information has to be available in the swarm.

Pirate Bay links cf. Mininova links: When the Magnet link specification first came out, in January last year it called for a particular format (”base32 encoded”). The links that EZTV, Mininova and ShareReactor have displayed for some time all conform to that original specification. In May of last year the specification was changed, in favor of “hex encoding”, and that is the format of the links being displayed by The Pirate Bay. Torrent clients should accept either format.

Compatible Clients

All the main torrent clients: uTorrent 1.8.5, Vuze 4.3.0.2, BitTorrent 6.3, BitComet 1.16, and Transmission 1.76 (and others) support Peer Exchange and DHT (via a plugin in the case of Vuze). Neither BitComet nor Transmission yet support Magnet links but Transmission is planning to include Magnet link support in the upcoming 1.8 release. Bearing in mind that no site, including The Pirate Bay, has yet abandoned support for traditional torrent files, there is plenty of time for support to be added.

We hope that this article has cleared some of the smoke that was generated by The Pirate Bay’s announcements earlier this week. There is no need to panic, cry or be angry, and it’s not a problem if you’re still confused after reading this article. Torrents will still be available and aside from some extra downloading options thanks to sites that add Magnet links, nothing drastic will change in the near future.

This article was originally published on TorrentFreak by a contribution from user Adapa
via LifeHacker

Temporarily bypass Reduced Functionality to rescue your files and operating system capabilities and pave the way for a clean, genuine, windows install.

On the Windows Activation, click on Access your computer with reduced functionality option.

Once the Internet Explorer loads, click on File on menu bar and then select Open on the pull-down menu.

On the Open dialog window, type in C:\Windows\Explorer.exe and then click OK.

Click OK button on “IE needs to open a new window to open this webpage” confirmation prompt.

Click Run button on “File Download – Security Warning” dialog prompt.

Click on Run button on “File Download – Security Warning” warning dialog related to unknown and not verified publisher.

User shell will load, and the desktop, taskbar, start menu and etc will be restored.

The computer has recovered from Reduced Functionality for this session. To permanently stop RFM to happen again, Windows has to be rearmed.

Click on the Windows Start button.

Type Cmd in Start Search box.

A program shortcut will show up in the Start panel search results. Right click on the shortcut and select Run as Administrator.

In the Command Prompt window, type in the following command and then hit Enter: slmgr.vbs -rearm

Restart your computer.

Sometimes you are born a noob...

If you’ve ever wondered just what costs $200/h when you hire Geek Squad, find out. These 11 manuals, which you should learn for yourself, are a source of Geek Squad expertise.

Check them out

• Data Backup Checklist
• CSI FAQ
• Data Backup Checklist
• DA handbook
• DA job description
• handbook.pdf
• Interview Guide
• Media Center
• VoIP Training
• Warranty Guidelines
• WIFI Leave Behind
• Wireless Network

No labels, no workarounds. Archived all your messages and want to view them in chronological order, from latest received?

A simple URL change is all you need!

Now, some bloggers suggest creating a filter; this is fine and dandy if you like doing extra work and having useless filters. Google’s auto suggest suggests typing in:anywhere in the search bar, which is ok if you don’t mind sifting through spam.

The simplest solution is a simple URL change:

Simply edit your URL to https://mail.google.com/mail/#all and, behold, corn your archived messages together with your inbox, in chronological order, just like it should be.

Whether you are looking for an alternative to PG2 because it fails to function properly, or simply looking to cut down the number of processes you are running – the information here is for you.

It is possible to block ip-ranges with utorrent’s built in ipfiltering system.

First and foremost, you will need the latest utorrent beta. Be sure to check this out if you are noticing degraded download speeds running utorrent in Windows 7. After you finalize your utorrent install, get a blocklist: a good place to get this is at BISS – get nipfilter.dat.gz, open with an archiver and extract the “ipfilter.dat” to C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\uTorrent or its XP equivalent of C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\uTorrent .

A simple way of reaching the utorrent application folder, regardless of the OS, is by typing ‘%appdata%/utorrent’ in the run menu, without the quotes.

Right click > peer traffic logging > Log Blocked Connections in your Logger tab to see it in effect.