Liz and I recently came across a very helpful little application – CrossLoop.

One of our biggest roadblocks when trying to help our clients with the occasional tech support problem is being able to see what exactly the problem they are having is. Now, with this handy little tool we are able to give our clients the power to request help from us either by giving us complete control of their computer or allowing us to view their screen while we walk them through to a resolution.

There is no setup required, no networking knowledge needed, and we cannot connect to you without your invitation. Best of all, CrossLoop is free to download and use.

If you need our help, please call or email us first to setup an appointment. Once we have confirmed your appointment, please visit http://www.crossloop.com/ipage.htm?id=download to download the application. Installation instructions can be found on that same page.

We hope you will take advantage of this tool by giving us the power to better help you.

This is a quick little post for those of you who are as annoyed at Google for changing my iGoogle page as I am. My screen’s real estate is way too precious to give up any of it to a useless tab. So here’s what you can do to get it back to the top where it belongs.

Now, I’m going to assume that this fix will only be temporary until Google catches up and changes all the themes, but until then I’m going to take advantage of it and hopefully help someone else out there in the same boat. Apparently, they have not moved the tabs to the left on the UK version of the page so if you change your language settings you will get your old page back.

To do this click on “My Account” at the top right of your page, and then click iGoogle > settings, change your language setting (it’s the first option) from English (US) to English (UK) and voila your tabs are back where they should be!

I just have to start off by saying… what a stupid bunch of !#$%^&*! Who you ask? Well, the whole darn lot of support techs and Microsoft employees.

I recently got a new pc. It’s a decently powered machine, came with Windows Vista but customized with a downgrade to Windows XP Pro, my operating system of choice. Well, I personally miss the days of a boot to a C:\ prompt, but that’s another tale… So, my new pc comes with a Windows Vista sticker on it so I’ve got my Windows Vista Product Key in case I ever want to install it (Ha!). However, there is no Windows XP Pro Product Key sticker to be seen on the machine, in the machine (like they’d put it there!), or on any of the paperwork (not that there is much of that), CDs, or CD envelopes. So, my quest for a Windows XP Pro Product Key begins. Why? Because I know that eventually I’m going to have to reinstall it, it’s a fact of life when you run a Windows machine. You either reformat and reinstall to blow out the cobwebs or your machine slowly screeches to a halt and you buy a new one. I prefer to get the most out of my machines, so a good reformat happens eventually.

I called support and asked my simple Windows XP Pro Product Key question. Yes, I feel this is a simple question. However, it apparently is a political hot bed of finger pointing and as usual the customer is the one who pays the price. Whatever! I’m told that I can’t help you find your Windows XP Pro Product Key, I can, however, tell you to go to Google and search for “how to find your Windows XP Pro Product Key within the registry.” Huh? Why can’t you tell me where to look? Because it’s against Microsoft rules, I am not allowed to tell you how to hack your registry. What? I’ve been in my registry five million times, I’m not doing anything illegal, it’s my product key, I own the software, I’m not trying to steal anything. Sorry, but I cannot tell you how to edit or view your registry. Whatever, thank you very much.

Inspiration… Belarc! Doesn’t Belarc tell me everything about my pc? I installed Belarc, I know I did, oh where is that wonderfully simple, delicious little program. Tada! Windows XP Pro Product Key!!! AHA, I am victorious. Bite me Microsoft! Bite me Tech Support! I HAVE THE POWER…

Oh, and I did search Google just for the heck of it and after a few looks I determined that after Win 98, Microsoft decided to encrypt the windows key within the registry so to get it now, you’d have to download some program. Ha, don’t need to deal with that when I have the mighty Belarc!

Sites with Default Favicons | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Sites with Custom Favicons Aquatics by Design, Inc. Aquatics by Design, Inc. Jon’s Karate Academy Jon’s Karate Academy O’Neill’s Restaurant O’Neill’s Restaurant Sacred Heart Parish Sacred Heart Parish X-Session X-Session

When looking for that web site you bookmarked two weeks, two months, or even two years ago, isn’t it easier to find it using a visual clue? Well, that’s where your favicons come in. For those who don’t know, a favicon is short for Favorites Icon, which is a small image that appears in the address bar of your browser when visiting a site. It shows up in other places to, but for now, we’ll keep the definition short!

Above is a list of web sites. The first list all have the same icon and the second list each has it’s own representation as a favicon. Isn’t it easier to find what you’re looking for in the second list than the first? We think so. So when IE decides to change them all to the same boring blue “e” what’s a Webchick to do? Well, thank goodness, we have a fix for that.

Here’s how to do it…

In Internet Explorer, go to Tools > Internet Options > Browsing History > Delete > Temporary Internet Files > Delete files…

Never let IE mess with your favicons again … at least not for long!

During the process of setting up my pc, I attached my external hard drive. It was automatically found and assigned drive letter E. All is well with the world. Since the external is used for my backups, I set my backup software to copy various sections of my hard drive and my entire drive on my preferred schedule. I backup a lot of data, program configuration files, and pretty much anything that will save me from a nightmare if I lost my pc to some catastrophic failure. All runs smoothly for a month or so.

However, the other day I booted my pc and attached my external hard drive and my backup failed. Why? For some reason Windows decided to assign it to drive letter F. Huh? What’s up with that? I disconnected the drive and reconnected it, drive F. I disconnected the drive, shutdown, rebooted, and reconnected it, drive F. I shutdown, rebooted, left the drive connected, drive F. Huh? Since when? I went searching…

I found that I could assign the external to a drive letter of my choice by doing the following:

Click start on your taskbar, then click run and type diskmgmt.msc and click ok.

The Disk Management utility will load and you can now right click on the drive letter you want to change, and select Change Drive Letter and Paths.

I made my change and my external was once again drive E. However, I was worried about what would happen when I rebooted so I ran a little test. I disconnected the external, shutdown, rebooted, and reconnected it, drive E. All is well with the world once again.

Of course, be very careful when changing drive letters. Make sure you’re not changing your boot drive (usually C:) or any other drive used to run software on your pc. If you’re not sure about what you’re changing, then don’t change it!