A Gift For You

Folks,
To help celebrate this special weekend, I have a nice surprise.

PearlMountain Image Converter is a photo converter as well as batch image converter, which helps you convert images to other formats, resize, rotate, crop, add watermark, apply effects and add border to thousands of images at a time.

Some of the features include:

•    Convert thousands of files at once in batch mode.
•    Supports the most popular image formats: BMP, JPEG, TIFF, RAW, PNG, GIF, TGA, and PSD, and almost all image formats.
•    Save operations that you usually use as profiles and bring convenience to you in the future.
•    Convert between many different image file formats.
•    Resize image for any different use, such as for web, e-mail, photo printing, Facebook, MySpace, mobile phone, ipod/ipad/iphone, etc., with optimum quality.
•    Add image and text watermark for Image Copyright Protection
•    Adjust image brightness, contrast and saturation in batch to make your images look more special.
•    Apply borders to your images.
•    Crop photos, removing unwanted areas.

Product info page: http://www.batchimageconverter.com/image-converter/

Due to time constraints, I only had time to play with test this utility a little bit. So I can only tell you it worked, and that I enjoyed the animated GIFF feature (aka “no product review here.”) And for me, there was zero “learning curve”, as I have used this type of graphics program before. But even if you have not, learning how to make optimum use of this photo/image tool should not take long.. maybe, mere minutes. (The link above has a illustrated How To. Take a peek, and see for yourself.)

PearlMountain has generously donated ten licenses to me, and I have  had the pleasure to give them away – to the first ten people to leave who left a comment with a valid (not Facebook) email (so I can send you the license keycode). This software retails for $29.90.

Happy Mother’s Day! (And thank you, PearlMountain!)

*** Update: Sorry Folks, but that’s all the licenses I have to give away — for now. ***

You can download a full-featured “trial” version, here, if you’d like. It will put a watermark on any output files, but otherwise performs just like the paid version.

Copyright 2007-2012 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

 

Windows 7 – Old Games Won’t Play.. Help! (Updated)

5 6 Methods For Getting Old Programs To Run On New Computers

This article is an updated and improved version of  Windows 7 – Old Games Won’t Play.. Help!, a “reader question” article that has proven quite popular. It seems quite a few people want their 12-year old, 16-bit, Gen 1 games to play on latest generation, 64-bit machines, (I don’t blame them) but it doesn’t always work. Here are some tips for solving the problem. They are in the appropriate order, IMHO. (These work in Vista as well.)

1) Turn off “hardware acceleration”. A common cause of errors and “playability issues” is the old games’ use (or lack of) of hardware “acceleration”, which is referring to the “video card”, or more accurately, the graphics driver. Most graphics drivers allow you to turn off the hardware acceleration (which may resolve your issue).
Click Start in the lower left corner of Windows.
Click Control Panel, click Appearance and Personalization, click Personalization, click Display Settings, and then click Advanced Settings.
Click the Troubleshoot tab, and then click Change Settings.Move the Hardware Acceleration slider until it is one notch to the right of None. This is the basic acceleration setting.
Click OK twice, and then close the window.
Restart the computer.

[you can also get there via the graphic adapter’s Properties in Device Manager]

[Note: Change Settings will be disabled if the graphics card drivers do not support disabling hardware acceleration. You may need to check the video card manufacturer’s website, and download the latest driver.]

2) You may need set the troublesome games to launch in “Compatibility Mode”, and tell them to run under Windows XP SP2. This article, https://techpaul.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/compatibility-tricks-for-old-programs-new-machines/ shows you how. The “Compat Mode” section is about half way down the page.

3) You might need to try repeating Step 2, but this time install directly to your C:\ drive (by default, Windows will install programs to C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files(x86) folder) using the “Custom install” option during set up. This will eliminate some of the Permissions issues that keep older programs from running correctly.

4) You may also – if the game is old enough – need to turn off all but one CPU core. This is called “setting the affinity”. Also see, Compatibility Tricks for Old Programs, New Machines. If this resolves your issue, the article includes a download for a tool to make this setting ‘stick’.

5) For really old, DOS-based games, install DOSBox. DOSBox is a great tool, especially for old games. I would suggest reading the tutorial, here: http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/DOSBoxShortcuts#Windows

6) Though I view this as a bit of a ‘last resort’, you can install a “virtual machine” and run the game in there.
* If you have the Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate edition of Windows 7, you can download XP Mode – which is really Virtual PC – for free. If you have other editions of Windows, grab Virtual PC 2007 from the same place.
* Perhaps a better alternative is using VMWare Server (free), from www.vmware.com/products/server. I have read that the VMWare handles the hardware acceleration better.

In both cases, you’ll have to supply the copy of (old) Windows yourself, and install it (into the “virtual machine”) from scratch.

… I hate to say, but it is possible that you may try all these things and get unsatisfactory results. I keep an old Pentium II machine (Windows 98) around just for playing those old games (which I wouldn’t dream of connecting to the Internet!). The games play best on the hardware/OS of their day. You might need to do the same. Or.. say goodbye to your old friends.

Progress!

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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Part 3 | The Best CPU?

This week I started an article series due to my most recent PC hardware upgrade, as I have a new recommendation for those who are interested in maximum computer performance — I rebuilt a machine into an i7, X58, DDR 3, SLI ‘rig’ and its performance is impressive. I am quite taken with the i7/X58 combo.
[note: each of those acronyms is “clickable” for those interested in learning more details. I will try to avoid Geek jargon here..]
Earlier, I wrote a 4-part series on the ‘How To’s’ of upgrading your CPU, and suggest it as a preface (please refer to part 1, Replacing or Upgrading Your CPU).

In the previous Part 2 | The Best CPU? I started discussing this hardware upgrade by focusing on i7-920 CPU. Hyper-threading, new chip architecture, and easy (stable) over-clocking give this CPU performance numbers that make it arguably the best CPU available to us “consumers” today. And it has been around long enough now that the price has dropped to “reasonable”.

• Turbo Boost technology – To maximize speed for heavy applications
• Hyper Threading – Intel has brought back its hyper threading technology first seen in its Pentium Processors to allow a new level of parallel performance with 8 threads available for multi-tasking.
• QuickPath Interconnect – is designed for increased bandwidth and low latency. It can achieve data transfer speeds as high as 25.6 GB/sec.
• Smart Cache – For better and more optimized handling of cache memory
• Integrated Memory Controllers – Supporting three channels of DDR3 Memory (1066 Mhz) to produce a whopping 25.6 Gb/Sec memory bandwidth.
• HD Boost – For improved performance in a wide spectrum of Multimedia and compute-intensive applications.

[a brief aside: to be fair, this thread on Tom’s Harware.com, (GAMERS ONLY) i7 vs 955/ is 300$ worth it?, posits that a particular (over-clocked) AMD CPU is the smarter way to go for gamers.. and I think the writer’s point may be correct.]

But going with an i7 as your upgrade path does mean that you will also need a new motherboard.

The i-Series CPU’s new design and on-chip features require a new socket, chipset, and also the newer DDR3 RAM memory –> the i7 needs to be matched to a “50-series” chipset.

I went with the newer X58 chipset because I was building a “performance gaming rig” with dual graphics cards, in what is known as an “SLI/Crossfire” configuration (the motherboard must have two or more PCIe graphics “slots”) and the X58 motherboards have the ICH10R chip which allows – for the first time really – both cards to transfer data at 16x. The 55’s don’t have the ICH10R.
(Prior to this, the 16x graphics datapath was ‘split’ between cards in an SLI config to 8x, 8x. With the X58/ICH10R it is 16x, 16x.)

“The Intel X58 Express Chipset supports the latest 45nm Intel Core i7 processor family at 6.4 GT/s and 4.8 GT/s speeds via the Intel® QuickPath Interconnect (Intel® QPI). Additionally, this chipset delivers dual x16 or quad x8 PCI Express* 2.0 graphics card support, and support for Intel® High Performance Solid State Drives.“

Now, I would like to tell you that this effectively doubled my graphics cards’ ability to pump out the frames-per-second.. but if you have been around computers for a while you will know that doubling some performance number or other does not make your computer appear to do things twice as fast. Machines simply don’t work that way.

What it does mean is, the machine is capable of handling a heavier ‘load’ before you notice slow downs. And in computer graphics, ‘load’ means things like driving a larger monitor at a higher resolution. And specific to computer gaming, ‘load’ means ‘features’ — like shading, anti-aliasing, and Vsync, etc. — often referred to as “the bells and whistles”.

I can tell you it is true, if you can run your game on a large screen, with the “bells and whistles” on (or “dialed up”) and you do not experience slow downs, such as lag or a slideshow style framerate, you will have a better gaming experience. Typically that means you become more “immersed” in the game’s environment… mostly because it is more “real looking”.

I will continue this .. hopefully Monday. I hope you all have a great weekend.

News Item: Microsoft uses the courts to shutdown cybercriminals. See, Cracking Down on Botnets.
“Botnets – networks of compromised computers controlled by hackers known as “bot-herders” – have become a serious problem in cyberspace.  Their proliferation has led some to worry that the botnet problem is unsolvable.¹ Under the control of a hacker or group of hackers, botnets are often used to conduct various attacks ranging from denial of service attacks on websites, to spamming, click fraud, and distribution of new forms of malicious software.”

¹ emphasis, mine.

Skip to Part 4 The Best CPU? Hardware Upgrade, cont.

Copyright 2007-2010 © Tech Paul. All Rights Reserved. post to jaanix.

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Windows 7 – Old Games Won’t Play.. Help!

Attention: I have posted an updated and more complete version of this article, here: Windows 7 – Old Games Won’t Play.. Help! (Updated)

Reader Asks For Help After Installing Windows 7

Q: I had Windows XP and Windows 7 was recently installed. I hate Windows 7. My kids can’t play their games. Something about hardware acceleration driver. I want to know if I can switch to my XP. I do have the 7 recovery CDs that I made when I got the computer. Is there an easy way of switching? I’m not a tech person. I do not know alot about computers, but I do love and miss my XP. Can you help me?

A: Dear Reader,
Unless the person who upgraded you to Win 7 made a full backup of the XP (such as a “disk image”) before they installed, then no — there is no “easy way” back to XP. You would have to format your hard drive, install XP, install all your programs, and then copy back all your data. (Maybe.. that’s what you mean by “7 recovery CD’s”? Did you run Norton Ghost? Or, Acronis True Image?)
But XP is obsolete, not for sale any more*, not terribly secure, and no longer fully supported by Microsoft (and soon to be unsupported totally). It really isn’t the thing to do to “go back”…

Why don’t we focus on getting the issue resolved so that your kids can play their games? There are several approaches.
1) The “hardware acceleration” is referring to the “video card”, or more accurately, the graphics driver. Most graphics drivers allow you to turn off the hardware acceleration (which should resolve your issue).
Click Start in the lower left corner of Windows.
Click Control Panel, click Appearance and Personalization, click Personalization, click Display Settings, and then click Advanced Settings.
Click the Troubleshoot tab, and then click Change Settings. [Note: Change Settings will be disabled if the graphics card drivers do not support disabling hardware acceleration.]
Move the Hardware Acceleration slider until it is one notch to the right of None. This is the basic acceleration setting.
Click OK twice, and then close the window.
Restart the computer.

[you can also get there via the graphic adapter’s Properties in Device Manager]

The path in your address bar is: Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Display > Change Display Settings > Advanced settings.

2) You may need set the troublesome games to launch in “Compatibility Mode”, and tell them to run under Windows XP SP2. This article, https://techpaul.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/compatibility-tricks-for-old-programs-new-machines/ shows you how. The Compat Mode section is about half way down the page.

3) You may also – if the game is old enough – need to turn off a CPU core (or, now, cores), called “setting the affinity”. Also see, Compatibility Tricks for Old Programs, New Machines.

*see Comments

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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How To Add A Second Monitor

Get A Real Boost Using “Multi-Monitor”

One of the best ways to improve your productivity is to double your desktop workspace by adding a second monitor to your computer. Using multiple monitors makes many computing tasks easier by allowing you to keep more windows visible. And, it’s “kewel” too.

There are many ways to add a second monitor to your PC.
* Laptops [typically] have a graphics port, allowing you to use the screen and a monitor.
* Most graphics cards have two ports (often, one is a VGA and the other is a DVI, so you may need an adaptor). If yours doesn’t, you can buy a “dongle” and ‘split’ the signal– as shown.
* You can add a graphics card to your machine. This is a little more advanced but quite do-able. I posted a tutorial on adding “expansion cards”, but it was on adding a Firewire card. No matter. The methodology is the same. See, Add Firewire 800 To Your PC– Fast Video Transfer

Tip of the day: Plug in a second monitor and turn on Dualview

1. Right-click the desktop, and then click Properties.

2. In the Display Properties dialog box, click the Settings tab.

3. Click the Display list and select your external monitor. If you do not see multiple monitors listed, your computer hardware may not support Dualview. Contact your computer manufacturer for more information.

4. Select the Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor check box.

5. Click Identify. Windows XP displays large numbers to identify your monitors. Drag and drop the monitor icons to match the physical arrangement of your monitors.

6. Click OK.

With Dualview enabled, you can drag windows between monitors as if the two monitors are connected. When you maximize a window, it will expand to fill the current monitor.

Today’s free link: Judge orders Microsoft to stop selling Word

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Some Guidelines For Purchasing a New PC

Recently, my duties included an unexpected shopping jaunt. I had been asked to purchase and set up a new PC and home network (a service I provide at Aplus Computer Aid). Inspired by that, and in light of the fact that Shopping Season is nigh upon us, I have reposted an article on guidelines for purchasing a new PC, which first appeared 8/17/07–

How much RAM do I need, and other guidelines for buying a new PC. To conclude this series, I am going to review the topics covered, assume that you’ve decided that, yes, it is time to buy a new PC, and then give some advice on what to look for in a machine. I’m not going to get into a Mac versus PC debate, or talk you into trying Linux. I am going to focus solely on hardware (the ‘capabilities’) options of a non-Mac desktop or laptop PC.

Tip(s) of the day: Laptop computers. Most of what I am going to recommend today applies equally to laptops and desktops with very few exceptions. Today’s portable machines (notebook and tablet PC’s) very nearly rival the hardware capabilities of a desktop (or “tower”), and some models market themselves as a “desktop replacement”. They have large hard drives for storage, can ‘burn’ dual-layer DVD’s, have nice large screens, can access the Internet wirelessly, and are fast. Some have high-end graphics adapters that can keep up with the latest games.

Where laptops are different is: they are comparatively more expensive, they (often) depend on a battery, and they’re limited in terms of “expansion”. Expansion, quite literally, is room to “add stuff”, commonly referred to as “upgrading”. For this reason, I advise (when purchasing a notebook/laptop/tablet) differently than when buying a tower, to wit – buy the most machine you can afford.
Also, I advise buying the battery “upgrade”.

If you have to penny-pinch, reduce the RAM and/or go with a smaller hard drive… because these are the two components on a laptop that it is relatively easy to “upgrade” at a later date, when your finances have recovered. The other things – CPU, graphics, motherboard, sound, etc. — are not so easy to swap out/upgrade. In a tower there is practically nothing you cannot replace: in a laptop you’re kind of stuck, so buy as high up the scale as you can. Not just what you think you’ll need today, but buy for tomorrow as well. Because that’s the way the machine will be for its lifetime.

When deciding which model laptop, do not forget to compare battery life (these stats are published). Also, and I can’t stress this enough, do not buy a laptop that you haven’t typed on. Yes, you can make your purchase online or out of a catalogue, but go into a store and touch it first (sorry, all you Best Buy salespersons out there). Each keyboard and touchpad is different. Make sure you like the layout and “feel” of typing on the keyboard. There’s nothing worse (in laptop computing) than trying to work on a keyboard that just isn’t “you”–IMHO.

Desktops: When considering which tower/desktop to buy, there’s basically three categories of machines; budget/student, workstation, and “performance”/gaming. Low, middle, and top-end. You can spend as little as $300, or as much as $8,500. (Yes. $8,500. But, those systems are cool!) I have mentioned before that to do it right, you can get everything you want/need for $700 – $1,100, and that even the budget machines have the “good stuff”.

My advice for what to look for in a desktop, is a little more flexible. First, decide roughly what you’d like to spend. If you really are in the $300 -500 range, do not rule out “refurbished” machines. Rebuilt/refurbished machines are an excellent value. Any negative stigma they may have is unjustified.

Get the most RAM you can. If your machine is coming with Vista (and most of them are), you should avoid Home Basic — and Vista really should be run on 2 Gigabytes of RAM.

Go with a mid-to-high end CPU. The Athlon X2 chips are better than the older “dual core” Pentiums, but not quite as good as the Pentium Core Two Duo. (I know that’s confusing: there are two types of dual-core Pentiums. The D-series is the older type. You want either the Athlon or “Core Two Duo”.)
The quad-core CPU’s from Intel are very good, and are the latest ‘generation’. If it is in your budget, go quad.

Optical drives. Unless you really need a ‘high def’ burner and you want it right now, hold off on going for a “Blu Ray” burner just yet. Two optical drives, while nice, is not a necessity. Do, however, make sure your “combo drive” can burn (“write”) to a dual-layer DVD.

Graphics. Most people do not need a $800 graphics card (only us hard-core gamers, and other boys-of-all-ages, do) nor do they need an “SLI” set up. However, whenever your budget allows, it is almost always better to have a “graphics card” than “onboard graphics”. Onboard graphics chipsets are built into the motherboard, and while they do a quite adequate job, they “share” your RAM … and by that I mean “steal” your RAM.
Please note, you can buy, and install a graphics card at any time..

Do not skimp on your monitor.

Power Supply. Do not forget to check the Wattage of the machine’s power supply. Here is another area where more is definitely better. It constantly surprises me how many seemingly unrelated computer ‘glitches’ and quirks turn out to be caused by an inadequate or failing power supply. Shoot for one that’s rated in the neighborhood of 350W, unless you’re going for a more “loaded”, high-end performance machine — in which case 500W, or higher, is not unreasonable.

Well, that should get you started. Buying a new PC should not be a stressful thing. It should be an enjoyable and rewarding experience. Just remember to test drive before you buy, and do a little comparison. It really doesn’t matter if you decide upon a no-name, a HP, a Sony, Dell, or whatever. You may want to take advantage of the many mix-and-match-components “custom build” option, and design your own PC.

Here are the links to the prior parts of this series: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Today’s free link: To help shop for a new PC, another excellent shopper’s resource can be found at the PC World magazine’s website. Click here.

Hotmail users: please help me with an upcoming article by answering this Yes/No survey question.
Hotmail Poll*

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Dust off that old WordArt feature

In a recent articleI lamented the fact that with each new version of a software release, the program bloats with new code and new features. The other side of that coin happens when a feature you’ve come to value and rely on doesn’t make it from CoolProgram 4.3 to CoolProgram 5.0. You wait, and hope and pray that the makers of CoolProgram will re-add your feature in Version 6.0… but they don’t– and you’re stuck using a ten year-old program just for that one feature.
(And then Microsoft releases a new OS, and your program won’t run at all…)

Sometimes, though, those old features aren’t gone; they’re just forgotten. Like Word’s (6.0, I believe it was.. tho it may have been 5.3) revolutionary (for its time) graphic text tool, WordArt.
People loved WordArt like the new toy it was. Colorful, twisty (or “ballooned”) words showed up in the most unlikely documents. The brand-new technology — color printers — occurred at roughly this same time, and then we really had something. We went crazy with color and WordArt, and eventually Management had to make it Company Policy: NoWordArt. Period. Ever.
And like any fad, or new toy, WordArt faded into memory and lore.

A question I received from a fella who got himself volunteered into working on a church newsletter reminded me of that old feature, and I went and did some digging and I’m pleased to report that, yes, WordArt still is a feature in Microsoft Word. It hasn’t changed much over the years.. if it’s changed at all. It’s just sorta hard to find.

So take a trip with me down memory lane with me (or, if you’re too young to remember this little tool, just play along) and open Word and click on the “Insert” menu on your toolbar. Then select and click “Picture”.  And then, click “WordArt”.

Word 2007 users will find WordArt on the “Insert” ribbon.

And you will be presented with the WordArt Gallery, which (some of you will remember) is where the fun begins.

While some of these representations may strike you as rather too-whimsical for any practical use, the elements are adjustable (color, ie.) and a little experimentation will bring you some very professional-looking results, and may provide just the “oomph” needed to spice up your document.
Select a style of WordArt — I have selected the lowest/left-est corner — and click on “OK”.

Select a font (I have chosen “Stencil”), a size, and you have the option to set for bold or italic, though I wouldn’t.. at least, not right away, and enter your text where it says, “your text here”.
Since I am thinking to create only a banner headline for my document, I have limited myself to three words– “tried and true”.  Here is what the top of my new document looks like, with those options selected:

But I want it bigger and… snazzier. So I double-clicked on the three-words (which is the WordArt “object”) and an “Edit” menu opened which allows me to make those adjustments I mentioned earlier. I left the color alone, but changed the size.. and the shape.

If WordArt is something you want to use often, I suggest adding it to a Word toolbar. Doing so allows to to have the full-featured WordArt editor at a touchbutton. To do this, right-click on a toolbar, or better yet, a blank area next to a toolbar, and select the bottom choice from the context menu– “Customize”.

Place a check in the checkbox next to WordArt (shown highlighted, but not checked).
Now one of two things will happen; either your existing toolbar will have new WordArt buttons (Insert, Shape, Font, Font Color, etc.), or a small WordArt toolbar will appear which is “floating”. In this latter case, move your cursor to the upper-left corner of the new toolbar and drag it to an open toolbar area, and “drop” it there. You have your choice of the upper (main toolbar) area, or on the bottom area where your word count is. That choice is up to you.

So whether you want to be whimsical and just add some color to your correspondence, or are trying to make a newsletter look like you’ve spent some money at the printers, dig into that “Insert” menu and do some WordArt. Experiment with the 3D effects, or shadows. Have some fun.

Today’s free link:Those of you with an eagle-eye noticed that I have Acrobat linked into my Word 2003. This is so that I can use Word to create PDF formats (which, frankly, I can’t remember ever doing…) as MS Word didn’t have this ability prior to the release of Office 2007. For those of you looking for this ability and you’re using an older Office version, you don’t have to pay for Acrobat. Download the free PrimoPDF.

Copyright 2007 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved.

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