This week provides another tip for iPhone owners. The hands-free kit which accompanies the iPhone also functions as headphones for the iPod functionality on the iPhone. As you may have found, when an incoming call is received, the music pauses and allows you the opportunity to answer the call. In order to answer the call, you just need to press the microphone on the headset lead once. To decline a call (and divert to voicemail) press the microphone twice quickly. Additionally, when you are listening to music, you can pause the music by pressing the microphone on the headset lead once. To skip to the next rack, press the microphone twice quickly.

When in Windows Explorer I have opened the My Pictures folder which contains a few hundred digital photos. I select the “View” menu > “Thumbnails” but the thumbnails for the photos do not appear. I have had a look through the different menus but cannot find anything that is stopping us from viewing the thumbnails. The computer is running Windows XP. (more…)

When my Coby MP3 player is connected to the computer a message appears saying “CardReaderLookupWindow”. I never had this problem before connecting the Coby MP3 player and am worried that the computer is infected with spyware or adware. Could you provide advice on how to stop this error? (more…)

Microsoft PowerToys are small utilities which provide additional functionality for Windows. An excellent PowerToy is ImageResizer (www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/Downloads/powertoys/Xppowertoys.mspx) which allows you to easily resize images without the need for a graphics package. However, this utility only works with Windows XP. Another third-party (i.e. non-Microsoft) variant called the Image Resizer PowerToy Clone (sourceforge.net/projects/phototoysclone) works on other versions of Windows, including Vista. Thanks to a colleague for this tip.

Recently I purchased a new brand name computer. Two days after receiving the computer a blue screen of death message appeared: “A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. If this is the first time you’ve seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps: Check to be sure you have adequate disk space. If a driver is identified in the Stop message, disable the driver or check with the manufacturer for driver updates. Try changing video adapters. Check with your hardware vendor for any BIOS updates. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, press F8 to select advanced startup options, and then select Safe Mode. Technical Information: *** STOP: 0×0000008E (0xC0000005, 0×81C91323, 0×84D27790, 0×00000000)”. I restarted the computer and it booted and was usable without any problems. However, when I started the computer the next day the BSOD message appeared again and it also appears randomly when using the computer causing me to lose work. I have not tried any remedies yet, as I wanted to obtain your advice beforehand. (more…)