Jan’s blogs about life

I always wondered why whenever I start up the Office Word 2007 in Windows Vista and before it could run, it just turn sickly pale and then died by crashing. I have to start it up several times before it finally stabilizes. Very irritating and left me to contemplate using the alternative from Open Office. Read more »

I inadvertently switched on the On-Screen Keyboard when I resumed the Windows Vista PC from its sleep / hibernation mode. Somehow the sleep / hibernation mode disabled my Dell Vostro 200 USB keyboard whenever I resumed from it (this makes another minus point for using sleep / hibernation mode). I had to switch on the On-Screen Keyboard to key in my password to access my PC. However after enabling it, every time I start up my PC, the On-Screen Keyboard would start up too. How irritating. There is no settings on the On-Screen Keyboard to switch it off. The only way to do it was from the Ease of Access Center. Read more »

For the previous incarnation of Windows, you could use the little powertoys called tweakui provided by Microsoft to tweak your system including the autologin feature. It helped automate your startup process and frees up your time to do something else like mix a cup of coffee while the computer boots up. Read more »

I have always wondered what the sleep vs. hibernate vs. the shutdown mode in Windows Vista meant. The last time I used the sleep mode it frozed my PC and it wouldn’t shutdown or startup properly. So while visiting a relative in Kuantan with nothing else much to do, I decided to explore the above three shutdown mode with my Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop. Read more »

Microsoft has come up with a way to measure your hardware and software performance based on its configuration with Windows Vista. I didn’t really pay much attention to it till one day I happened to noticed that my Vista in my Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop was not showing any numbers at all. It took me several days to figure out why it was not working. It turn out that I have accidentally disabled this feature from the TweakVI software. Read more »

This is intriguing. Plugging in a thumb drive Flash RAM and using it as a virtual memory page file instead on a hard disk. I have just started using Vista and there are interesting bits of new technology to explore and use. Using a flash RAM has the advantage of speed up to 10x the speed in comparison with hard disk and it is cheaper cost against the price of DDR RAM. Read more »

Installing Windows Vista was a breeze. I’m able to dual boot to windows XP without any hitch. However stuffing it up with software to make useful is another matter. It seems like many of my software that worked in XP is now not able to work in Vista. What a blow! Now I have to get all the upgraded version for those software that wouldn’t run in Vista! Ouch! An expensive affair indeed. No wonder I see some people in the USA who would want to sue M$. Best of luck, my dear! Read more »

After 3 days of clearing and backing up data from my hard disk, I finally have the chance to install Windows Vista. It was really tedious going through all the data and the additional fact that I don’t have DVD burner didn’t help at all. By installing the Windows Vista on a separate partition I could still use my good old Windows XP since I have lots of software running in it and also to test out and get myself familiar with Vista. Read more »

I’ve been thinking of installing Windows Vista, but I’m not very sure whether it will work well with my current PC and software. Windows has Vista ready checking software, and it found a few hardware and software that might not work in Vista.

After giving it much thought, I’ve decided dual booting would be the way to go. Just in case Vista screws up because there are no proper drivers and updated software that I can run it with. Read more »