It’s the worst! For years nearly every album on my computer has had Justin Timberlake’s album artwork. This has polluted my media experience ever since I discovered just ONE SONG I liked by JT.

I had tried removing all .jpg files. I had tried deleting all desktop.ini files. NOTHING!

I decided to actually fix the problem and do a little research.

Here’s my find:

This is in two sections, deleting Window’s Media Player’s bad thumbnails, and removing MP3 tag thumbnails (which are in the MP3 file itself). This will likely not fix WAV, WMA, or FLAC thumbnail issues. You likely can go ahead and just fix the MP3 tag issues and most of your thumbnails will be corrected, but I suggest performing the first step since if you, like me, back up, restore, and move around your music; you likely have tons of thumbnail files hiding around. Skip to part 2, which is way simple, if you don’t think this applies to you or if you don’t care about lugging around extra datums.

Pre-flight check: Back up your music. I won’t be listening to your sorry ass complain in the comments that you lost something.

Close your media programs while you do this so it isn’t busy trying to add artwork back as you modify your music. You should also know that there is a possibility that some artwork just won’t get added back depending on how accurate your MP3 Tag data is.

PART 1

First, go ahead and delete Window’s created artwork files. You’ll need to open your main music folder in Windows Explorer. (Quick hint: just hit the Windows + E keys to open Explorer).

Second, you’ll need to enable hidden and system files. Come back to this step later to hide those files again. In the explorer, click “View” in the toolbar, and then “Options.” Click the options to show hidden files and uncheck the option to hide system files.

In your music folder, use the search box to search for “.jpg” (type it in and press ENTER.)

After the search function finishes, you will see all JPG files that were in your music folder. Do not attempt to continue with any folders that have a mix of music and documents, you should only delete these files if they are in a dedicated music folder.

In the search results, press CTRL+A to select all, and press delete.

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PART 2

Right, so now you’ve deleted all thumbnail information placed by Windows/Media Player. Now we just need to remove thumbnails from your MP3 tags, which are in the MP3 files themselves. No worries, there exists free software for this!

Visit www.taghycardia.info and download Taghycardia. Taghycardia is a MP3 tag management program (and once again, the free version only works for MP3 files).

I prefer standalone versions of software like this. Go ahead and download and extract the software.

Drag the music folder you want to manipulate into Taghycardia. Follow the instructions to remove album art. There, that was simple!

Open Windows Media Player or Groove Music, or iTunes or whatever you use. These programs will download artwork data for you.

Other stuff

Taghycardia is great for fixing other MP3 tag issues. It isn’t flawless software, but it’ll guide you through fixing all sorts of MP3 tag issues. Plus, it doesn’t have an exit button once it gets going, so it kind of forces you to sit down and hash it out. That’s a feature, not a flaw :P

Problem: Acer Aspire A515-54G Bluetooth Quit Working

Explanation: A recent driver update available through Microsoft Windows Update does not seem to support this hardware well.

Solution: Rollback the current driver to the previous driver.

Step 1: Search Windows for Device Manager

2: Select the bluetooth adapter under “bluetooth”

3: Double-click the device to see properties

4: Click the “driver” tab in the properties window

5: Click “Roll Back Driver” and follow the on-screen instructions

After rolling back, you may need to restart. I suggest a “cold” restart. Click the Windows button and hold down the SHIFT key while you click on “Shutdown” or “Restart.”

This should resolve this issue on this particular laptop model.

If you need to download the Windows XP service packs (SP1, SP2, SP3) now that the XP support date has ended, you can still download them from Microsoft. Links to each are on this page:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/service-packs-download#sptabs=xp

XP SP1:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=19751

XP SP2:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=28

XP SP3:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=24

Question: Where can I download all the Windows XP Service Packs?

Description: Microsoft does not have a easily located singular location to download SP1, SP2, and SP3.

Answer:
You can check out the Windows Service Pack Center:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/downloads/service-packs
Which has all updates listed for Windows XP, Vista, and 7.

Or, you can download from the individual Microsoft Download Center locations:

SP1: (Sp1a Express) http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=19751

SP2: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=28

SP3: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=24

Keep in mind, download Service Packs manually will be much larger than installing them via. Windows Update

Need the 64 bit version?
SP1 x64: There is no SP1 for XP 64 bit. This is because XP 64 was based on the Windows Server 2003 SP1 codebase (essentially, it already has SP1 in it).
SP2 x64: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17791
SP3 x64: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17791

Did this help you? Comment and let us know!

Problem I: Unable to locate a driver for Citizen GSX140 printers (24-pin color DOT Matrix printer)
Solution: GSX 140 printers, as well as many other dot-matrix printers, actually emulate Epson printers. You can use the Epson LQ 2550 driver for the GSX140 and many other similar Citizen printer series. All features (including color printing) will still work.
Problem II: I can’t find the Epson LQ 2550 printer driver

Cause: Windows does not automatically include the driver and requires it to be obtained via. Windows Update.

Solution: Go to the Control Panel “Add Printer” wizard.
If you are installing a network printer, do not select “Use a Network Printer”.
Complete the installation as if you were going to install a local printer  on the LPT port (selecting any port at this stage is fine).
When you reach the driver selection screen, press the “Windows Update” button. Window will begin downloading hundreds of legacy drivers — included is the Epson LQ 2550. This will take awhile on slower connections and cannot be paused or stopped.
If you were installing the printer as LPT or as USB with an LPT converter, you can continue. If you were meaning to install a Network Printer, cancel the wizard  and start it again for network printers. You can now select the LQ 2550 driver under “Epson” manufacturer printers.

An alternative is to use the Epson LQ Series 2 (136) driver, but this will only support 180×180 printing in black and white.

Reworded: For Citizen GSX 140 series Printers, use the Epson LQ 2550 driver.
If you need the Epson LQ 2550 driver, but it is not available, use the Epson LQ Series 2 (136) driver which will not support high resolution or color (also works for Citizen GSX 140)
Many other dot-matrix printers use the same drivers.

One important note! The LQ Series 2 (136) driver will not support color printing or high resolution printing. We are currently investigating as to why our trial run of this yielded only black & white printing which may have been from a variety of causes (wrong driver, our CUPS server, the Windows computer connected, etc).

Problem: On Windows Vista or Windows 7, or Server 2008 (XP activation could very well have the same bug) After I try and activate Windows, I receive the error code “8007232b” and the error message “DNS name does not exist.”
(Variations on message might also include: “Key management services (KMS) host could not be located in domain name system (DNS), please have your system administrator verify that a KMS is published correctly in DNS. “)

Cause: According to Microsoft, users who downloaded these operating systems from the MSDN/Technet are using the product under volume licensing, which requires KMS on your domain — a domain you likely do not have in the first place, with a service you probably wouldn’t be running in a home installation — though this issue could easily affect the commercial world as well.
Microsoft words it like this: “If you use MSDN, TechNet, or MAPs, you probably have volume-licensed media and were supplied a Multiple Activation Key (MAK).”

Solution: Open Command Prompt as an administrator
(Press Start, type CMD, right-click CMD and click “Run as Administrator” — a UAC prompt may ask you to verify this action.)

Type the command:
slmgr -ipk product-key-here
(where “product-key-here”, type the product key you received from the MSDN/Technet WITH dashes.)
Example: slmgr -ipk FGX5-AFDA8-85ASD-5ADF5-FDA5
(That product key is fake)

Press ENTER after typing the command, and wait for a box to prompt that the action has completed (takes 10-15 seconds in most cases).

Run the activation wizard again (Right click “Computer” from the start menu, click “Properties”, and scroll down to the bottom of the properties window to “Windows Activation”

 

Sources:
Direct from Microsoft (contains two other solutions you can try if this fails)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929826

Technet Forums:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/winservergen/thread/3d1e007e-a5b0-453a-b92c-17696b93dfc2

 

If you use MSDN, TechNet, or MAPs, you probably have volume-licensed media and were supplied a Multiple Activation Key (MAK).

Problem description: For a brief moment after typing, the mouse on a laptop using a trackpad is suddenly disabled.
Hardware affected: Most notably Synaptics mouses (using Synaptics drivers and software)
Operating systems: Both Windows and Linux

Cause: Synaptics mouse software has a featured called “Palm Check” which, in order to help the user avoid accidentally clicking on things while typing, disables the mouse while you are typing and for about a second after you stop typing. While this feature may be useful in an office environment, a user who is gaming or switching back and forth between applications frequently may find this incredibly frustrating.

Solution:
Easy (all software changes, no changes to hardware).
In Windows, press Start and type “Mouse” to find the mouse control program (or go to Control Panel> Hardware and Sound> and click “Mouse” under Devices and Printers.)

Click the last tab titled “Device Settings” from within the mouse configuration window. Select the device (Usually “Synaptics Touchpad”) and click “Settings”.

From here, it varies from various versions of the Synaptics driver and software versions. Search around for options related to “Palm Check” (usually under Pointing> Sensitivity> “Palm Check”).

While you cannot fully disable Palm Check, you can set it to its minimum setting which is sufficient for most users. You can also simply lower the value, as it is a useful feature to have with a touchpad (though it infringes on productivity at its default settings).

In Linux (Specifically Ubuntu), “go to [1] System > Preferences > Mouse > Touchpad and uncheck “Disable Touchpad while Typing”” (from here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SynapticsTouchpad)
[1] You should also be able to hit the Super Key and search for “Mouse”.
Different Synaptics drivers in Linux may yield different results.

If this helped you, please comment and let us know (and let us know if it didn’t as well!)

 

Question: Can you play The Sims 3 online for free?

Answer: Yes! At the date of this post, July 2011, EA is running a beta trail run of the Sims 3 through an online cloud-gaming service called Gaikai. You can play it here: http://www.thesims3.com/trial

Limitations: You can play for one hour. You cannot save your game. Slightly different from the PC installed version, but generally the same idea.

You can read an in-depth review of this online play on our main site, here.

Is this what you were looking for? Please comment and let us know.

I finally found a good guide to create a Windows 7 Bootable USB Drive. It is definitely the best on the internet, and has instructions for creating within XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

Visit it here: http://maketecheasier.com/boot-and-install-windows-7-from-usb-flash-drive/2009/01/23

Problem: A DOS program running in DOSBox used the mouse, and now you can no longer get the mouse of the DOSBox.

Solution: Press CTRL+F10

If that does not work, press the Windows key on your keyboard.