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WinExtra

Bringing back the Xtra in Windows

A new use for your kid’s Easy Bake oven – fix video cards.February 1

Over the years spent working with computers; some 25 odd years by now, I have seen all kinds of weird and wonderful things that people have done to t heir hardware. From overclocking to submerging in cooking oil the fixes and tweaks have run the gamut.

However this is the very first time that I have ever heard of baking a video card in the oven as a way to fix it.

For most of us when the video card starts to go it’s because – well it’s broken or just outright dead. Little did I know that; according to the vid card backing crew, small micro-connections between the chip and the board can get fractured over time because of the constant heating and cooling.

This baking thing apparently those connections will expand until they reconnect and then upon cooling they will be permanently reconnected again. The time recommended for this baking procedure? 8 to 10 minutes.

Thanks to the crew over Addictive Tips for the images and video embedded below.

Converting SMF forums to bbPress – the processJanuary 26

Ever since having to move the WinExtra Community Forums from their original home on my own NNTP server to a web forum format I have been using a software from Simple Machines Forums. When I first went looking the SMF package seemed to be the best that was out there, getting plenty of plus reviews, and it helped that it was free.

In the last year though I have become dissatisfied and wanted to look elsewhere for something newer and that would at some point blend in easily with this blog. I don’t know if you have ever looked at the code behind SMF or the way themes are handled but after working with Wordpress it is a painful experience.

The additional thing that had to be dealt with was the migration of data that had accumulated over the years on the existing SMF forums. This was issue was further hampered by the fact that I was running a beta; followed by the Release Candidate, of their version 2.0.

While there might h

The uncertainty of a post-Microsoft worldJanuary 25

Sure we all like to talk smack about Microsoft and how evil it is. Even though that crown is looking more at home on the heads of companies like Google and Facebook the freetard and OSS divisions of the great OS war dream of a day without Microsoft.

The thing is, what would this world really be like?

Would it really be as idyllic as many would have you believe?

Randall Kennedy over at Infoworld asks this question and while his thoughts will produce nothing but snickers of contempt from some he makes some interesting points. This is one such point

Such thinking is naïve, at best. Rather than freeing IT, the demise of Microsoft would plunge the industry into an apocalyptic tailspin of biblical proportions — no visions of hippie utopia here. The withdrawal of the Redmond giant’s steady hand would cause today’s computing landscape to tear itself apart at the seams, with application and device compatibility and interoperability devolving into the kind of Wild West chaos unseen since the days of the DOS big three: Lotus, WordPerfect, and Ashton-Ta

Take a trip down memory lane with Win 3.1 – onlineJanuary 24

Uhm.

Okay I can see the fun in doing this but seriously Windows 3.1 online with a working Minesweeper?

One of the things I would really like to see Microsoft doJanuary 23

Microsoft gets a lot of flack for big bloated software and in many cases I’ll be the first one to agree. What they don’t get a lot of praise for is the software that they get right.

In that camp most definitely has to be Windows Live Writer. While this isn’t a program that would appeal to a large base of users for bloggers it is one of the best blog editors out there. The other really nice thing about it is that it is a part of the large free Windows Live Essentials pack.

Now the one thing that I would love even better is if Microsoft took their OneNote application out of the bloated expensive Office suite and made it available for free as part of the Essentials pack. For those of you not familiar with the program it is one of the best note taking applications around.

I would even be happy if they made it a slimmed down version – say with out the sharing feature. Granted you can buy the full blown version sep