My computer is an IBM 555X, which is at least 19 years old. The battery on the motherboard ran flat several years ago, so I am thinking of simply disposing of this computer. However, I would like to get some data off the hard drive and then destroy the drive before disposing of the computer. Is this possible and how should I go about doing this? (more…)

A well-known tip in Windows is to right-click on a file or folder and then select “Send To”, to send that file or folder to a particular destination. In Windows 7 there is a hidden extra tip for the Send To menu. By holding down the SHIFT key when right-clicking on a file or folder and then opening the “Send To” menu, a whole range of new items will appear allowing you to send the file or folder to other destinations, such as special folders (e.g. My Pictures, My Documents) on the computer.

When Windows Vista starts a dialog box appears advising that SolutionCenter is being installed. Another message box then appears advising that “The feature you are trying to use is on a CD-ROM or other removable disk that is not available. Insert the SolutionCenter disk and click OK. Source: 1”. Unsure of what to do I have been clicking the close button (red X in the top right-hand corner of the message box) which closes the message and produces the following: “The installation package for the product SolutionCenter cannot be found. Try the installation again using a valid copy of the installation package SolutionCenter”. The computer is a Toshiba Satellite Pro. (more…)

If the text of an email message which I am composing contains diacritical marks, or employs a non-Latin alphabet, the recipient of the message often will get something that is, at least partially, garbage with all sorts of odd characters (such as squares, dollar signs, etc.) appearing in the place of the diacritical characters. These undesired transformations can also happen when an unfinished message is saved as a draft and later recovered using my ISPs webmail interface. I am interested in knowing why this happens and how it can be avoided. (more…)

I have installed VMware Server on my computer but whenever I attempt to run the program it opens a webpage and the following message appears “haralds-pc8333 uses an invalid security certificate. The certificate is not trusted because it is self assigned”. Why do I get this message and why do I need to go to this website? (more…)