William D Buchanan » Blog

Apple Mobile Device Service (AMDS) Causing Slowness with iTunes 10.4

William Buchanan — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 21:28:40 +0000

Some people have been experiencing issues with the latest version of Apple’s iTunes software. There are various symptoms including slowness of your computer system and even overheating (mostly on laptops). What most user’s have reported is that CPU usage for the AppleMobileDeviceService.exe service either spikes, hogging a lot of resources, or it stays at a constant 25 percent of CPU usage for extended periods of time. I ran into this problem recently and here is what I did to fix [...]

Windows Search Can Still Work

William Buchanan — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:44:37 +0000

Microsoft has made a lot of significant changes from the way things worked in Windows XP to how they work now in Windows Vista and Windows 7. One of the most frustrating changes in my opinion is Windows Search. I used the search function in XP on a regular basis to do everything from a basic search for a file to more advanced things like searching for certain text within a file. In the effort to make things "simpler" Microsoft [...]

Security 101: 6 Simple Steps To More Secure Computing

William Buchanan — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 21:19:41 +0000

Security is one of those topics that is all too often ignored by the general computing public to their own detriment. I have put together a very simple, common sense list of steps you can take to keep yourself a little more secure while enjoying the benefits of today’s connected computing world.

1. Update your software – The simplest and most effective way to stay secure is to update your software regularly and stop ignoring those automatic updates that keep nagging [...]

Create Shutdown & Restart Icons for Vista/Win 7 on the Desktop

William Buchanan — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 15:48:00 +0000

If you are not too thrilled with the Windows Vista/7 shutdown menus or just want the convenience of having those options on your desktop it’s pretty simple to do.

Here’s how to create a shutdown shortcut on your desktop:

Right click an empty space on the desktop and select New | Shortcut. In the box labeled "Type the location of the item," type: Shutdown.exe -s -t 00 Click Next to continue. Type a name for the shortcut (e.g. [...]

Enable the Preview Pane in Explorer

William Buchanan — Sat, 29 May 2010 15:28:00 +0000

Windows Vista and Windows 7 both have a great option called the Preview Pane. Instead of having Windows classic style folders with file names, icons, and maybe some details, you can have a pane on the right side of your Explorer window that will preview any file selected including graphics files and Microsoft Office files without having to open them.

To find this option do the following:

While in Windows Explorer click Organize. Mouse over the Layout option and then select Preview [...]

Get Rid of the "Use the Web service to find the correct program" Option

William Buchanan — Fri, 28 May 2010 15:12:18 +0000

When you try to open a file in Vista and the OS doesn’t recognize the file extension because it’s not associated with an installed program, a dialog box pops up that gives you the option to "Use the Web service to find the correct program" or "Select a program from a list of installed programs." Most of us want to do the latter, and so you have to go through that extra click to get to your list of programs. [...]

"An Unexpected Error Occurred" When You Right Click on a Network Connection in Windows XP

William Buchanan — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:41:00 +0000

When you try to right click a network connection in the Network Connections folder in Windows XP and select Properties, you get an error message that says "an unexpected error occurred". Not very descriptive, so what is the problem? The most common cause of this problem is damaged registry settings that prevent you from viewing the network connection’s properties.

To repair this problem:
Click Start | Run In the Open box, type: regsvr32 %systemroot% \system32 \ netshell.dll Click OK in [...]

Unable to Upload Files to Live Meeting

William Buchanan — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:10:16 +0000

I ran into an interesting problem recently with a client who was trying to upload a file for a Live Meeting in which she was the presenter. Her presentation was created in Power Point 2007 and had the extension .pptx. When she attempted to upload the file to Live Meeting she was prompted to install an ActiveX control to convert the .pptx file to a Live Meeting (.lmp) file. The problem came when installing the ActiveX file, when she clicked [...]

Slipstreaming Service Packs into Windows XP

William Buchanan — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:30:00 +0000

If you need to reinstall Windows XP and only have the original disk you are in for a long process to get the operating system installed and up to date. There have been hundreds, if not thousands of security patches and updates released for Windows XP since its release in 2001. So, you could install XP with the original disk, then install the latest service pack and updates, but you may run into problems such as the fact that the [...]

"Windows has disabled remote access to this computer"

William Buchanan — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:04:00 +0000

Sometimes when you try to share a folder on an Windows XP computer, you may receive an error message that says "As a security measure, Windows has disabled remote access to this computer. However you can enable remote access and safely share files by running the Network Setup Wizard." This is caused by a local policy setting, read on for the step by step instructions for resolving this problem…

To resolve this issue, modify the Network access: Sharing and security [...]