Cannot open PDF files in Internet Explorer

If you received an error "There is a problem with Adobe Acrobat/Reader. If it is running, please exit and try again (xx:xx)." in Windows XP/Vista/7 and using Adobe Acrobat Reader X, just simply:

1. Close your current IE browser and open Adobe Acrobat Reader X
2. From the menu select Edit - Preference - General 
3. Uncheck mark the option for Enable Protected Mode at startup
4. Click "Yes" if you are prompted to “manually restart the application” 
5. Press "OK" to continue
6. Exit from Adobe Acrobat Reader X and open your browser again
7. Try to preview or load the PDF files again


If these steps still not working, uninstall the Adobe Reader X with a lower version (9 or 8) or try using another free PDF reader such as FoxIt Reader.

Formula problem in Open Office and Microsoft Office

Be careful when using formula for different type of spreadsheet software such as Open Office 3 and Microsoft Office 2003. Although using the same XLS file extension, the result in formula will be different. The error was slightly simple, but will cause you a lot of problems at the end. The error I found recently:

=IF(A1=0,"",A1)

In Open Office the formula result when A1 = 0 is 0
In Microsoft Office the formula result when A1 = 0 is ""

The result "" will cause error when you try to use it with other formula such as multiply or any other math formula.

Just revise the "" to 0 (zero)

=IF(A1=0,0,A1)

And everything will be fine.

Already tried to open the XLS (Open Office version) in Office 2007, and still got the same "" result. So, it's better to change to string conversion to zero instead.

How to delete Yahoo Messenger Custom Status Messages

Today I just realized that YM don't have the menu/setting to delete the custom status messages.

So, how to delete it anyway?

1. Just type another custom status message
From the Yahoo Messenger official site:

Yahoo! Messenger "remembers" the last 9 custom status messages you create. If there are currently 9 custom messages in Messenger's memory and you add a new one, it forgets the oldest one and replaces it with the new one.

Although there's no way to manually delete the old custom status messages, they'll be deleted as you make new ones.

That's why no available setting/menu to delete it right? It's automatically deleted!

2. Delete it the hard way

a. Click START
b. Click RUN
c. Type "regedit" without quotes
d. Select the tree with the following:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\yahoo\pager\profiles\"Your YM ID"\Custom Msgs

At this point you can see all the custom messages.

e. Right click on the selected messages in NAME column and click DELETE
Repeat this step if you want to delete more status

3. Delete it the easier way

Just download Andy's Clear/Edit Yahoo Messenger Status History utility.

4. If nothing works for you, try to reinstall YM again :)

Just give comments if you want to share more tips to delete it.

Solving "Too many different cell formats" error message in Excel

This error appear when your try to format a cell or a range of cells.

And the reason you getting this message because your workbook exceeds more than approximately 4,000 different combination of cell format. A combination is defined as a unique set of formatting elements that are applied to a cell. A combination includes all font formatting (for example: typeface, font size, italic, bold, and underline), borders (for example: location, weight, and color), cell patterns, number formatting, alignment, and cell protection.

WARNING!
If you are in the middle of saving your files, just save as the file to a different name. So, it didn't temper the previous version of your file.

For the quick fix:
1. Use the same type of font or use the standard font
2. Use borders format consistently. For example do not overlap formatting the same border
3. Remove the patterns by clicking No Color in the Patterns tab of the Format Cells dialog box

Try to save your file after apply these quick fixes.

Some ways to solve this problem:
1. Install or use Open Office. Open the file. Save and replace the file.
Open Office organized and formatting information is slightly different from Microsoft. Hopefully can solve the issue temporarily.
2. This final tip WILL works 100%. Upgrade your current Excel version to Excel 2007. Because the limitation is upgrade to 64.000 different combination.

Hopefully this tip can help. Just drop some other comments that can resolve the issue.

The Basics of Home Security

Sometimes people always forget and careless about how important the security systems on their own home. Although in the neighborhoods the burglary rarely occur, it is better to prevent the crime to take place in our own home.

There are two types, for indoor and outdoor.

For the indoor:

• Just lock the doors and windows as a habit. Even you leave the house for a few minutes. With the modern technology the use of home alarm will help a lot.
• Try to illuminate as much of your expensive property. It will lure the thieves to be the target of a crime.
• When on vacation remember to set the electronic timers for indoor lights, TV or radio.

And for the outdoor:

• Please don't leave any house keys near the door, such as doormat, potted plant or even above the door. It's too easy for the thief to find it. Nowadays, this silly act can be change by simply using the latest home security device such as fingerprint door lock.
• Remember to lock the garage door, because it's not funny to know that thieves will use the tools available in the garage to break into your house.
• Use timers to maintain the outdoor lights. This simple tip will create illusion that is somebody in the house.
• Be a good neighbor. When on vacation, we can the neighbors to pick up the mails or newspapers, so it looks like there are people in the house.

With all the precaution we take, technology surely can help us more. By installing a complete home security system in the house such as burglary detection, CCTV, fire and smoke detection, carbon monoxide detectors, gas detectors and other safety devices.

Delete DrWtsn32.log to free up space

Just found a large file while defragmenting my hardrive. The DrWtsn32.log file holds about 400MB. That's a lot!

It is safe to delete this file?

After googling, I found out that the file was generated from Dr. Watson Windows XP application itself. It is a program error debugger that detects and diagnoses program errors and creates User.dmp and DrWtsn32.log files to contain the diagnostic data.

In Windows NT these files are stored in the %systemroot% folder. In Windows 2000, these files are stored in the %systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\DrWatson folder.

For Windows XP, these files are stored in the %systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Dr Watson folder.

The DrWtsn32.log file is appended each time a program error occurs; the User.dmp file is overwritten each time.

To turn off the Dr Watson debugger, apply the following Windows NT / Windows 2000 / Windows XP registry hack:

Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Key: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug
Name: Auto
Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 0 disable
Value: 1 enable

To re-enable Dr Watson, you can change Auto back to 1 or from the command line type drwtsn -i.

For the conclusion, just delete DrWtsn32.log anyway. It's no harm whatsoever.

How to delete and block friends in Facebook

Firstly go to this person's profile and at the very very bottom of their page just click Remove from friends.

This person never knows when existing friends had already removed from their Facebook friends list.

The numbers that represent your total friends will decrease but Facebook won’t reveal the name of the person who just removes you.

To be sure that this person is not being able to see your profile anymore put this person on your blocked list.

Click Settings on the main menu and select Privacy Settings, find the Block List and type the name on the Person text box and click Block to match the name. After you confirm the name, in the Block List will appear the person's name.

You can remove this block if you change your mind later on; it's really not a permanent blocking.

With this action the person won't be able to see any of our activities on Facebook just like you deleted your account to this person. Hope this tips can help.

Microsoft Office 2007 File Converters

Still stick to your current Microsoft Office 2003 and can not open the latest Office 2007 files? Do not waste your time by searching some freeware or utility to convert it. Microsoft already has that tool for you.

By installing this File Format Converters all the Office 2007 files can be directly open with Office 2000, Office XP or Office 2003 such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint. But remember to save it again with your current Office version.

I'm already patching my Office 2003 with Service Pack 2 while installing this tool. It's written in Microsoft System Requirements. So, remember to download the latest Office Service Pack first before installing this tool.

You can download it here.

Easy Animated Banners with Easy GIF Animator

A few weeks ago I really need a small software that can create banner quickly and hustle free. After searching the internet, I decided to try Easy GIF Animator to a temporary solution in my urgent needs. This software let you try 20 times. So I give it a try.

Installment only takes a few minutes away and learning to use it was an easy task. In a short time I had already created my first animated banner. Looks great and nice!

I use a couple time after that for some quick modifications. And I realize that Easy GIF Animator is a powerful and really easy to use program for design and edit GIF files. And not only banner, it also can create animated pictures and buttons with great visual effects. Convert the animated banner to SWF file is a bonus!

I'm downloading Easy GIF Animator version 4 when trying it. Sorry guys, but this is not a free software. But it can help you while you're in a hurry.

You can visit their website on Bluementals Software for more information and screenshots.

> Operating Systems: Windows Vista, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows 2000
> Additional Requirements: Windows Me/2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista
> Limitations: 20-use trial

Unable to save the resume file in uTorrent

I received this error on uTorrent a few days ago.

"Unable to save the resume file. some data may be lost.
Another program might have the file open, or the disk is full. please correct this and click retry. If you press cancel, the resume file will not be saved."

Really scare you out when you are still downloading a few gigabytes files and the status was 80-90%.

Advise from uTorret FAQs :

How do I fix Error: Unable to save the resume file?

Simply create two blank files named "settings.dat" and "resume.dat" (without the quotes) in the same folder utorrent.exe is saved in. Make sure Windows is not hiding the file extension when creating the file (in Explorer, Tools -> Folder Options -> View, uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types", hit OK)

But I didn't find all that files in uTorrent.exe folder. You can find it in :

c:\Documents and Settings\Your Name\Application Data\Resume.dat.old

WARNING!
If you ever try to tweak the uTorrent, please remember all the settings before you perform this fix.

Just delete resume.dat.old, resume.dat, settings.dat and settings.dat.old. After that create a blank files by opening notepad File>Save As and type in resume.dat.old, File>Save As and type in setting.dat.old, File>Save As resume.dat and File>Save As setting.dat

Please stop the uTorrent service when you do this!

If you find another error message that says :
"Cannot delete resume.dat: The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable."

Try to run chkdsk. Start -> Run -> chkdsk /F C:
Click yes when it asks, then reboot.

Also, you may check out Bit Defender. Sometimes it can causing the problem to uTorrent.

Solving Error 1304

I've recently try to uninstall one of microsoft software and this error showed up.

Error 1304. Error writing to the file File name and location. Verify that you have access to that directory.

I've checked the permission issue, but everything was OK. I try to create and delete some files in that directory and there's no problem with that. Still received the same error after restarting the PC.

Next I try to Add/Repair the software and still displaying the same error.

After desperate for three hours, later on I try to replace the troubling file by downloading the same file from the internet (it's a dll file).

And it took me by surprised because I neither delete nor rename the file!
Now I really understand what the error message try to tell me. How stupid of me!

The way to solve this problem is by running the chkdsk utility from windows XP. You can find that menu by right click on your hard drive properties, select the Tools tab and click Check Now button. Check mark both option and click Start. It will display a message that chkdsk will be perform after restarting the windows XP. Just restart the windows and the system will perform the check disk procedure.

In my case, chkdsk will repair the trouble file that I'm having.

After chkdsk finish, I can continue uninstall the software smoothly. Whew ..

Auslogics Disk Defrag

I just received a brand new hard drive for my notebook. My previous hard drive was crashed due to bad sectors. After a couple hours of installing and set up some default software, I try to find a better defragmenter tools that are available to use from the internet.

So, after spending two more hours searching and comparing, at last I choose this Auslogics Disk Defrag that was more recommended by the users. And it's absolutely FREE.

Auslogics Disk Defrag is a good utility for fast hard drive optimization. After optimizing it will speed up your hard drive start up and shutdown time, also increase the bottleneck of the system performance. As you know, hard drive is the slowest component in our computer. CPU and memory work faster because they don not have moving parts.

Auslogics Disk Defrag supports FAT 16, FAT 32, and NTFS volumes.

I already try this utility a few times and it works out great.

You can download it from their website here

MP3 bitrates converter using CDex

I've just downloaded one of my long time favourite mp3. The huge file size about 13 MB really took me by surprised. What the heck?! 13 MB for one mp3 file?

It's sure big because of the sound quality is marvelous, near CD Audio quality!

Below are the common bitrates for mp3:

96kbs: The sound clearly lacks definition: as an example, hall's noises are perceived as some breath. The result is comparable to a good FM radio.

112kbs: The sound seems less present and less natural than the original. The definition is a bit less good, the voice is less clear. Attacks are less spontaneous. The spatialization is different from the original recording: the sound seems to be located more far and more lower. There is however a very noticeable improvement compared to 96kbs.

128kbs: Hall's noises are slightly less defined than the original. The violin is a bit less present and the piano attacks a bit less sharp. The voice is nearly identical to the original recording but sibilants are less pronounced. We can notice the same spatialization problem as with the 112kbs's one although there is again a good improvement compared to the 112kbs rate.

160kbs: The sound is more natural than 128kbs but the improvement is less spectacular than during the two preceding stages. The sound is different from the original, without however being possible to tell in what. I think that the difference resides more in what we feel rather than in what we hear.

192kbs: The sound is not felt as the original recording. It is however totally impossible to tell in what.

320kbs/256kbs: The sound is indiscernible from the original. It is impossible to make the difference with the original recording.

After understanding the bitrates quality stuff, I wanted to convert that 13MB file for standard listening in computers. That is 128kbs. I don't want to waste my hard drive space for only one song.

So, I found this great software, called CDex (it's FREE!).

CDex is a tool to do all sorts of things audio related. Mainly focused on ripping and converting, things like turning your home Compact Disc collection into an mp3 collection on your hard drive become extremely easy.

I try to convert the 13 MB file using 128kbs and the size had been change to 5MB. Whew, that's really save my space a lot!

But remember not to improve your sound quality from lower bitrates to higher bitrates, because whenever mp3 file has been compressed to lower bitrates, it is certain that part of the volatile sound which can not be compressed has been lost. So the result after the conversion is the same quality!

Ever try to convert mp3 before? Drop your comments to share your experiences.

You can download CDex here.

PicMarkr - Free Watermark

PicMarkr is online tool that will add custom watermark (image or text) to your images. Usually image watermarking being used to protect your copyrights or add some descriptions to your pictures. You can see the image examples from my previous posts.

The steps for creating this watermark are easy:
1. Upload your photos
You can either import it from Flickr (you must have the account) or just upload it from your computer. You can upload 5 files and total file size less than 25MB. PicMarkr has the option to resize your uploaded pictures to 500 pixels, 800 pixels and 1024 pixels.

2. Set watermark to your images
PicMarkr has 3 options, Text watermark, Image watermark and Tiled watermark. It has the option for the presets and watermark align.

3. Save your images
After creating your watermark, you can upload the images back to Flickr or save it to your own computer.

That's it, with minimum settings and don't need to download or install everything, PicMarkr has help me to create watermark the easy way. And yes, it's FREE.

Email notifier for multiple email accounts

I'm very sure that all you guys out there were having more than one email accounts.
There are lots of free email services available and it might be weird to have only one email account on these days.

On the other side, it's really waste a lot of time to directly log in to every email account you have. And I had found three email notifiers to make life easier.

1. Gmail Notifier
The original notifier for Gmail. Supports checking multiple accounts as well as Gmail Hosted accounts. Allows you to monitor multiple Gmail accounts right inside your browser's UI.

2. Gmail Manager
Allows you to manage multiple Gmail accounts and receive new mail notifications. Displays your account details including unread messages, saved drafts, spam messages, labels with new mail, space used, and new mail snippets.

3. WebMail Notifier
WebMail Notifier checks your webmail accounts and notifies the number of unread emails.
You can use multiple accounts in a same host. Currently supports Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail/MSN/Live and many more.

I personally prefer WebMail Notifier, because it support different email service.

Do you have other email notifier better than my list?
Just drop your comments...

SpeedConnect Internet Accelerator

SpeedConnect Internet Accelerator is a powerful Windows application designed to optimize existing Dial-Up Modem, DSL, Cable, Wireless, LAN, High-speed internet connections.

This Web Accelerator adjust certain settings on your Windows TCP/IP settings, to result faster Web browsing, faster e-mail, quicker downloads, and improved overall Internet performance.

SpeedConnect prevents fragmentation in data transfer using the TCP/IP protocols used on the Internet, greatly increasing modem throughput and download-upload speed.

The installation steps :
1. After installing SpeedConnect, you can try the Connection Tester by downloading certain files. The default is Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0. You can change it with other file. Below is my Telkomsel Flash internet connection result: POOR.


2. In the main menu, select Tools & Wizards tab and click next
3. Connection Type : Using Broadband connection that is always on
4, Connection Details : LAN / Cable/xDSL connection
5. Network adapter : WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface
6. Maximum Bandwith : 4000 Kbps (Telkomsel Flash maximum bandwith is 3600 Kbps)
7. Optimization mode : Automatic
8. Click Optimize and Apply Changes
9. Restart windows

For Windows Vista, XP.
Note: Requires Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 to run.
You can visit their official homepage here.

Do you have any comments after using this utlity? The connection getting better or still the same as usual? Want to suggest better utlity? Just leave your comments ...

Speed up Firefox browser

There are ways to increase your browsing speed with firefox:

Tweak the browser

1. Start Firefox and type: about:config in the address bar
2. Type network.http.pipe in the Filter search bar on top
3. Double click on the network.http.pipelining string to change its value to TRUE.
If you use a proxy, set network.http.proxy.pipelining to TRUE as well.
4. Double click on the network.http.pipelining.maxrequests string to change its interger value to 35.
5. Right click anywhere on the Configuration screen and select "New" and then "Boolean".
6. Enter browser.turbo.enabled as the new Boolean name and click "Ok". Now set the value of the Boolean to TRUE

Browser settings

1. Disable Images
Firefox allows you to disable loading images automatically. To disable image in your Firefox browser, from the menu bar choose Tools-Options-Content and uncheck "Load images automatically".

2. Disable Stylesheets
Disabling stylesheets help to keep website load times down as well. From the file menu choose View-Page Style and select "No Style". It's important to note that websites will display differently with their stylesheets disabled, but in most cases the navigation will not be negatively affected.


Using add-on or software

- Download Fasterfox (Requires Firefox 1.5 - 2.0)

- Download FireTune for Firefox

How to select a good blog template

When selecting a new blog template, keep in mind the basics:

1. What kind of website you want to create? (business orientation, personal blog, forums, etc.)
2. Who will be your target visitors? (friends, students, adult, etc.)
3. What is the content of your website? (information, daily life, hobby, etc.)

From these points of view we developed to the next step by choosing the right layout:

** How many columns do you really need (for starter, just select two-column)
** Title, header, body and sidebar design
** Type of font
** Color patterns
** Easy to use navigation (site map, search feature)

I realize all this tips are not easy to implement. It's really hard and takes a lot of time and effort to finish. But not to worry, just keep changing and experimenting. You might end up learning something. Ask the visitors about your web design. Although you can not make everybody happy, at least you know what your visitors taste.

You may try to visit my favorite template gallery. Maybe these sites can give you some idea about blog templates and designs.

- Free blogger templates and premium wordpress theme
- BTemplates

Do you have more favorite sites? Or do you have some idea how to choose a better template? Just drop some comments to share it.

How to speed up your PC

It is a common question to all PC users when sometime they feel that their PC is getting slower. But we can not entirely blame the PC, but rather the applications are getting fast. Every program was developed using the latest computing technology.

Another possibilities are because PC users spending most of their times working with fast computer. And felt the older PC at home is getting slower and slower. Actually it may be just as it ever was.

Below are some steps to increase the speed of your PC. But before proceeding to any of those tips, I recommended to backup all important documents, emails and favorites software.

Full scan for virus and malware
You never know what kind of malware that hiding inside our PC. Some of them are not harmful, but will slow your PC if you have lots of malware or adware. Just use the general anti virus program such as AVG and Adware. It's free and very helpful.

Clean up and defrag the disk
Remove unneeded software and try to run Disk Cleanup. Don't forget to delete the internet temporary files from your browser. After that try to Scan and Defragment the disk. It may take hours if you run it for the first time. It is getting faster if you can do it regularly.

Check auto start up and registry
You can try to run msconfig at the prompt to check what programs are include in the start up. Select the start up tab to view it. Uncheck anything that looks useless. But try not unchecking the windows system files. And for cleaning the registry you can try CCleaner. It's free.


After performing all those steps and the pc still running slow, maybe it is the time to:

Reinstall windows
Try formatting the drive and install all the windows and other software. It's really
clean up your drive from junk temp internet files, orphan registry and other old applications that had been upgraded. Please backup all the important files before doing this.

Upgrade the drive and increase RAM
This trick really can boost your PC speed. Using the bigger RAM and faster hard drive also increase the performance.

Any more tips from other readers? Please submit your advice.

How to extend cell phone battery consumption

One of the features in today cell phones is gaming. There are lots of good games to play. Playing more games mean juice up the battery. Here are some good tips how to reduce the power consumption:

1. Turn off Bluetooth and the dual band feature when you are not using it. It is one of the most power hungry applications.
2. Lower the screen brightness.
3. Disable the vibrating alerts and sounds. You do not need keypad tone when playing right? And just use vibrating alerts in a meeting or crowded places.
4. Disable any animation on screen saver mode.
5. Turn off the cell phone in remote area such as no signals places. Your phone will use much juice in attempts to find a network.

Want to add more tips about this topic? Just leave some comments to share it.