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We've all been there; we've got a problem with our server, laptop, PC, website, or blog, and have tried to solve it for hours with no success. At some point, we reach that point where we're absolutely certain that it's just some dumb thing that we're overlooking or forgetting to check. If you've ever found yourself in that situation, you'll probably want to bookmark a list of dumb things to check.

It's a list of (now 36) stupid things to check that you may have overlooked, compiled by Tom Limoncelli with input from members of the SAGE-Members mailing list. For anyone that hasn't found themselves in this situation, it will seem like a ridiculous concept. But for those of you out there that have been there, I bet you're thinking "awesome" like I am.

So, what's missing from the list? What's your best troubleshooting tip? Let us know in the comments.

Microsoft has rolled out phase two of its new advertising campaign. As expected, it's Jerry Seinfeld-free and Bill Gates-light. And it's surprisingly charming. While Apple's Mac vs. PC ad campaign tries to paint Mac as hip and cool and PCs as stodgy and difficult, Microsoft's new campaign shows that many different kinds of people use PCs in many different ways.

The ads don't mention Windows Vista. But the goal isn't necessarily to get you to rush out and buy a copy of Microsoft's latest operating system. Instead, this is a brand-building exercise. It's a way of getting people to feel good about the company.

Of course, the problem about tying your message to the term "PC" instead of Windows or Microsoft is that there's more than one operating system that you can run on a PC. Still, I'd rather watch these ads than the Seinfeld/Gates show anytime. You know, if I didn't just skip past the ads on my PVR.

What do you think? Are the new ads better than the old ones? Better than Apple's? Do they make you want to go out and buy a PC? Or hug Bill Gates?

You can check out some of the new ads after the jump, courtesy of TechCrunch.

Read more →

PCIncubator aims to help you find the right parts at the right prices to build your dream PC.

We've all built a PC at some point. It's fun, isn't it? Pick our your case, the mother board, memory, GI Joe Stickers.

What?

The pain in the neck part of the process is finding the right parts that you need and not paying too much for them...or buying really crappy parts as a default because you don't want to break the bank.

The parts are all out there, the internet is vast, but PCIncubator keeps tabs on the stuff that you need, the prices that are right, and does so very nicely if we may say.

They use NewEgg which is the geek chic place to shop for parts. They also keep a price history of all items so you can wait for prices to go back down if they go up. It's kind of like shopping for airline tickets. It also gives you that Dell and Apple builder feel

Once you've picked your perfect PC parts, you can toss them all into a NewEgg cart and away you go!

Too bad that you can't get Windows XP anymore :(

Please let us know in the comments if you have found this site helpful.

It has come to our attention that there's an Adobe Flash player vulnerability in the wild that may affect your PC.

Simply by visiting a naughty website, the unsuspecting web visitor will be attacked with a piece of code that redirects you to an evil .SWF file that can then execute nasty code on their PC.

Adobe has blogged about the issue, but hasn't issued any releases, or patches to take care of the problem as of yet. Security firm Symantec says that 20,000 web pages may be affected by this style of attack.

Since there's no real way around getting hit with this one, you can either disable your flash player altogether, or get the No-Script add-on for your Firefox browser.

[via webmonkey]

UPDATE: Adobe has issued a fix, click here to update. Read here for more info.

Are you lucky enough to have more than one monitor on your computer? Sure it looks cool, and it's fun to show off to friends..but it's very helpful with productivity too.

What's the first thing you do when you set up a new machine or monitor? Throw up fresh new wallpaper of course! Your mom, your cat, or your wife or girlfriend (hopefully not both, awkward!).

AutoWallpaper comes from a company called AlternativeRealities Software. It solves the multi-monitor / multi-wallpaper problem.

It's out for Windows and Mac and only costs $10. It's well worth it because you can not only manage wallpapers on your monitors, you can add effects and gradients as well.

My favorite feature though? Set your wallpapers to change whenever you want. That's right, if you want new wallpapers at exactly 9pm, you can do it.

Give it a shot and drop a link to a screenshot of your hot new wallpaper in the comments!

[Hat tip to snowbear]

Sync Micorosoft Office documents with Google Docs using DocSyncer

The wait is over, DocSyncer is out of beta and open for all to use. This downloadable application allows PC based users of Microsoft Office and Google Docs to seamlessly sync documents.

DocSyncer is a downloadable application that sits on your computer and automatically finds and syncs all of your document files to your Google Docs account. When it's running, it checks all of your documents and syncs them as they are updated to create a solid backup and work anywhere system. Word and Excel based files can be opened directly from the web interface, and there is support for TXT, CSV and RTF formats.

Perhaps one of the coolest features is the 'disconnected' mode. If you are disconnected from the internet, DocSyncer will auto recognize it and load the document locally in the default application without trying to connect to the internet.

Read more →

Bowing into pressure from customers, Microsoft has decided to continue selling the Windows XP operating system in stores for another five months.

Previous versions of operating systems released by Microsoft have generally been available for up to two years after the shipment of a new OS. Microsoft had planned on cutting XP in stores just one year after the release of Vista, however, due to its slow sales and customer demand Microsoft has added a few more months and will let it stay on store shelves until mid 2008.

Many current customers have not been interested in switching to Vista, with computer giant Dell even going so far as to start up offering XP pre installed on new PC's instead of Vista early this year. Now what does that say about a new OS compared to a six year old one?

If you've switched to Vista, how is it working out for you? Do you recommend upgrading yet?

Lost data, the words should make any user cringe at the thought. Hours of time spent creating documents, all gone in a matter of seconds. It's something that we never want to happen to us.

Of course there are ways to ensure that data can be recovered. Microsoft has been so kind as to build in a back up program on Windows XP and Vista operating systems. Wired has an outline of all the goodies users are going to need in order to achieve a proper backup of files. This includes a secondary external hard drive, the built in Windows XP or Vista backup options, 3rd party software options, and online backup options like Xdrive and Mozy.

Maybe we will be lucky enough to see system backups unnecessary in the upcoming years as operating systems evolve. After all, it would be a nice feature to build in.

[Updated July 8, 2007] The post containing the videos has mysteriously been pulled, and there appears to be no explanation. Commenter Au Yong Chee Meng points us to Google's cache of the post, however the videos are not working there either. Attempting to view them at YouTube shows that the videos have been made private, so it appears Parallels really doesn't want these to be available any longer.

Running Windows on a Mac is no longer a difficult thing to do; technology like what Parallels and VMWare now offer makes the experience virtually seamless.

Parallels has decided to take advantage of Apple's well-known and long running "I'm a Mac" commercials by creating their own versions, but in their versions Mac and PC end up getting a long. They're well produced and certainly worth a chuckle or two, but they're probably most interesting in that they are probably more true than the originals. While Windows and Mac users alike get a kick out of making fun of PC, the truth is that both operating systems are useful, and it's extremely useful to be able to use them at the same time, on the same machine.

Kudos to Parallels for making some fun at nobody's expense; everybody wins.

It was online, then it was offline, now its back up. Will Adobe Photoshop Lightroom ever see the light of day? Ok, it will, with a ton of cool new features.

Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom 1.1 was made available online, then quickly removed on Monday, not to be seen again until today. The new version of Adobe's professional photography toolbox, provides a way to easy manage, adjust and present large volumes of digital photographs. It was designed for professional photographers and offers and uncluttered space to get things done a lot quicker than with any other application on the market, including regular Photoshop.

The new version of the application that was released has a way to create and open catalogs, remembering and tracking the location of files. Synchronizing folders has now been made possible with the application checking catalogs and removing files that have been deleted, while scanning metadata for updates. DNG support has been enhanced, and now supports a full set of conversion options, with JPEG preview sizes set to a preset size. The metadata panel includes new options for large captions and location information, as well as spaces for emails and URL's. Hierarchical folders are now in place, so additional folders can be created with parent-child relationships. Labels, flags, ratings, develop settings, metadata and rotation settings can now all be applied to photos as well.

This new Lightroom seems like a photographers dream. Less time on the computer, and more time out in the field! There is a 30 day trial on Lightroom 1.1 application, with a regular cost of $299 for the full version for Mac or PC.

Check out some screenshots of Adobe Lightroom in action:

Gallery: Adobe Lightroom 1.1

Getting around Wikipedia could take shorter than you have been previously use to. For instance, do you know about the keyboard shortcuts?

Keyboard shortcuts aren't a well known feature for users of the popular online encyclopedia, but they do exist. I recently came across a post by Steve Rubel reminding me of this fact.

These keyboard shortcuts work with any browser, and on both PC and Mac platforms, and don't need to install any special Greasemonkey script, and will surely speed up your time when searching for useful content.

Depending on which browser you are in you will have to use hold down this combination of keys, then hit your access key:

Mozilla Firefox 1.5: hold Alt, press access key
Mozilla Firefox 2: hold Alt-Shift, press access key
Internet Explorer: hold Alt, press access key, and then press Enter
Opera: press Shift-Esc, then press access key
Mac OS: Control and a key

Check out a cheat sheet for the key shortcuts after the jump:

Gallery: HyperComic screenshots

ThumbStrips is a Firefox add-on which allows you to see your search results in the form of a filmstrip at the bottom of your screen. This is way handy since the alternative is peeling your eyes on your history view and stabbing at a string of single line text results, which for whatever reason, don't get you what you were looking for.

When you download ThumbStrips, it loads an icon in your toolbar and your status bar. When you want to start using ThumbStrips, you just click on the icon and it will load.

While it doesn't take a lot of page space, you can hide ThumbStrips (and it will still record your search results) by clicking an arrow icon. You can also press a button to make ThumbStrips stop recording your search results (which will keep it a little more private).

There's a way to share your ThumbStrips on the web -- just choose the "share on innovation.intuit.com" option when you save a ThumbStrip, and then anyone with a web browser can see what you saw and saved.

ThumbStrips has a tendency to slow down Gmail, as well as some other Ajax sites. There is a quick fix for Gmail by going to https://www.gmail.com/ instead of http://www.gmail.com/. It's a nice little work-around, since ThumbStrips ignores secure sites (https instead of http), and because Google allows you to see Gmail both securely and unsecurely. While you're there, you can update your bookmarks to do the same.

Developed by Intuit's Innovation Labs (think Quickbooks), ThumbStrips system requirements are Firefox 2.0 or later, PC or Mac.

Download and let us know what you think of Thumbstrips - thumbs up or down?

[via Digital Inspiration]

Its official, Apple will be boosting its browser market share by releasing Safari for Windows. Apple announced this at the WWDC event in San Francisco this afternoon. It was speculated upon back in January, and is now a reality.

Currently Safari accounts for about 5% of users, all Mac. It is reportedly twice as fast as IE7, and 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2. If the speed alone hasn't hooked PC users to test the Beta out, think about the user interface, easy bookmarking features, and private browsing abilities.

But most of all, you want to bring some friendly Mac attitude to your PC, check out the Beta version of Safari for PC now. Its available now for Windows Vista, and XP users. What will Bill Gates think about this?

google gears takes online applications, offline

Online applications are great, but what happens when you can't get a connection to the internet? Whether it is because you are on an airplane, or in the middle of nowhere camping, and have to get certain emails, calendar items, or files, you are quite possibly out of luck. Its sure a bummer, and one of the reasons why so many people are hesitant about using online applications for their most important information.

Now Imagine being able to take your online applications, offline, and store that data locally in a completely searchable database? Google is making this possible with Gears. Google Gears is an open source browser extension that enables web applications to provide complete offline functionality. Google hopes that developers will use this new toolset to create offline web applications using JavaScript APIs to store and serve the applications resources locally, as well as store data in searchable databases. All of the syncing runs in the background without burning out the browsers memory usage, or slowing anything down.

The Google Gears Beta is currently available for installation on Windows XP,Vista, as well as on Mac and Linux machines. The plug-in works with Firefox 1.5+ and IE 6+. Google's first stop with Gears is Reader, with JavaScript APIs getting released shortly for data storage for use in applications like Docs and Spreadsheets.

The official Google Gears announcement will be made tomorrow to over 5,000 developers at Google's Developer Day gathering.

#	Blogger	Posts	Cmts
1	Jay Hathaway	116	5
2	Lee Mathews	87	25
3	Sebastian Anthony	70	255
4	Brad Linder	39	4
5	Jason Clarke	23	0
6	Dolores Parker	7	2
7	Grant Robertson	6	5
8	Matt Heerema	6	3
9	Victor Agreda, Jr.	5	1
10	Nik Fletcher	4	0
11	Paul O'Brien	2	0
12	John Burke	2	0
13	Download Squad Staff	1	0

Download Squad

pc posts

A list of dumb things to check

Microsoft's latest ads don't suck

So you want to build a PC, eh? PCIncubator is here to help

NewsFLASH - Your PC may be vulnerable

Auto wallpaper multiple monitors with...AutoWallpaper

Sync Microsoft Office documents with Google Docs using DocSyncer

Microsoft extends XP sales

Avoiding lost data on a Windows PC

Parallels does tribute "I'm a Mac" ads

Adobe Lightroom 1.1 in the dark, no wait, its online again

Gallery: Adobe Lightroom 1.1

Navigate Wikipedia faster with keyboard shortcuts

Make your own comics with HyperComics

Gallery: HyperComic screenshots

Thumbstrips - great way to see and track your search results

Safari for Windows, its official

Google Gears takes online applications, offline

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