I had a document the other day that I needed to search through on my Windows laptop and find specific number combinations that started with a specific three digits and ended with another digit. For example I had a list of thousands of numbers and needed to find any number that matched 333xxx4 where the xxx could be any number combination. At first I wasn’t sure what application I should use on Windows but then I remembered that Notepad++ had regular expression search and replace support. Below is an example of searching for the combination I mention above along with a list of other regular expressions that can be used for matching variables in documents opened with Notepad++.

Read the rest of this entry »

I recently had some issues with my printer not working on my home network and during the troubleshooting process I wanted to remove the printer port so I could reinstall the printer all together. The issues ended up being stupidity on my part for adding a temporary device on my network that had the same IP address of the printer so I was able to easily get that resolved once I figured it out by checking the MAC address associated to the IP in question using ARP. I did want to share how I was able to forcefully remove the printer port in Windows 7. These instructions will not only work for Windows 7 but will also work for other Windows versions including Windows Vista and Windows XP. Follow the instructions below to forcefully remove a printer port.

A friend of mine called yesterday asking if there was a way to make his iTunes music files that he had imported from his CD collection smaller. I was pretty sure this was possible but didn’t remember the exact method to accomplish this so I told him I would call him back. I was able to figure out an easy method to convert files located in your iTunes library to make them smaller in size both by modifying the type of file and the bitrate of the music itself. Below I describe how to convert music files already imported into iTunes to a smaller size to conserve space either on your computer or on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Read the rest of this entry »

An issue I had with a clients laptop after reinstalling Windows XP was the CD/DVD drive was not displaying underneath My Computer. When inserting a CD into the drive you could hear the drive spin up but the drive never displayed underneath Windows XP My Computer window. Initially I thought the issue could be resolved with a file available from the Sony support web site but it did not fix the CD/DVD drive issue. Finally after some research I located a registry edit that did resolve the problem so below I describe how to resolve the issue.

Read the rest of this entry »

A client recently had me reinstall Windows XP on their Sony Vaio VGN-TZ180N laptop. There were lots of driver issues after installing Windows XP Professional that were mostly resolved by downloading various drivers from Sony’s support site for the laptop. One that caused me a bunch of problems because I assumed it was related to reinstalling the operating system was the display driver. Once I finally figured out what the issue was it was really easy to resolve but again locating the problem was hard to do. Below I describe the drivers to install and how to resolve the issue of the display only filling about half the width of the laptop screen.

Read the rest of this entry »