After much deliberation and decision-making in the last few days; my final plans for this blog have been somewhat set in stone, subject to minor alteration as and when necessary and dependant upon circumstances as time goes by:

The plan is to continue posting to this blog until January 2010. Some of those posts will be duplicated on shazzalive.com; with video if practical to do so. Furthermore, some of the posts that have proven to be popular and valuable that are already posted on this blog will be rewritten/edited and posted on shazzalive.com along with audio and/or video.

As already mentioned; most content will cease to be produced for this blog from January 2010., and I’ll be producing content for shazzalive.com only. – But that doesn’t mean all content will cease production for this blog. – For one thing there are my members-only newsletter subscribers who may well be in for a bonus if they remain subscribed. All existing members-only newsletter subscribers will have the email address that is on record put into the signup process for shazzalive.co.uk (Shazzalive.com simply redirects to shazzalive.co.uk. Shazzalive.com is easier to remember, easier to type, and is used as the URL generally.) as and when. Hopefully people will join the shazzalive mailing list also. If anyone on my list receives a confirmation email for shazzalive.co.uk but doesn’t want to join, then simply ignore that email. I do hope that everyone on my list will join up to the shazzalive mailing list, though, as there’ll be so much more on shazzalive.com: There’ll be videos, audio files, transcripts, probably reviews too. There will be some amazing offers, interviews, technical and business advice…

Of course, all this won’t suddenly appear on the new blog in January 2010 itself: It’s going to take time to build up contributors, readers, advertisers, writers… I don’t promise you the entire world instantly, as if I did I simply wouldn’t be able to deliver. What I am intending is to produce something bigger and better than kkomp.com; whist at the same time allowing kkomp.com to languish online as a reference library.

This week on kkomp.com has seen 3 new articles appear: -

Video

The first of these is simply called “Video”: Video is not something that I’m well practiced in, so I’m going to be creating a number of trial runs leading up to the opening of shazzalive.com. This was my first attempt. It could do with a few tweaks here and there; but it’s passable. The video advertises a product from David Risley; himself a well experienced video-jockey who produces some outstanding-quality videos; but not just videos: David has been blogging since before blogging was invented, and has accumulated a wealth of knowledge which has allowed him to build up and run an online-business generating a six-figure income, with which he supports a family and lives quite comfortably in his home in Tampa Bay, Florida.

Let David Risley teach you the basics of a six-figure problogger business in only 3 days. The course includes 14 videos, and has a 92 page transcript, checklist, and audio podcasts of all modules included. Download my FREE 5-page .pdf report on 3-Day Money

In 3-Day-Money, David shares his wealth of knowledge with you: From the fundamentals of starting up a blog, including choosing a decent market niche, right through to the techniques and marketing tactics he uses to continue to generate an income-stream and keep his entrepreneurship on the rails of success. 3-day-Money also acts as a great forerunner-course for David’s current project; Blog Masters Club, which will be opening its doors again in or around January 2010

How To Launch System Restore From a Command Prompt in Windows XP

- Tells you how to launch System Restore whilst in Windows XP’s Safe Mode.

List All Installed Drivers in Windows XP Professional is an article for those running Windows XP Professional that shows how to get XP Pro to list all installed drivers from the command-prompt.(This post is also duplicated on shazzalive.com.)

Keep watching this space for more articles that show you how to do more with your computer, give you practical advice on practical electronics, and add to your technical knowledge.

That’s all for this newsletter, Enjoy your weekend, whatever you’ve got planned.

This is Part Three of this series.

In Part 1 we went to the Windows Advanced Options Menu…

… And we tried using the “Last Known Good Configuration (your most recent settings that worked)” option. This sometimes, (Usually in my experience.) does the trick, but not always.

In Part 2 we looked at something else we could do if that doesn’t solve the issue: If it doesn’t solve the problem it usually means that one of the drivers is bad/corrupt/dodgy; so we looked at removing that driver by booting into Safe Mode.

What we didn’t look at was what to do if your XP computer doesn’t crash, but rather just boots and goes tits up; to put not too fine a point on it.

If you get a scrambled picture then ‘chances are that your graphics driver is playing up and needs removing and reinstalling, and/or your graphics card is either crap or has developed a fault. Some motherboards just don’t like some graphics cards: I have an Asus mobo that just hates a certain Asus nVidia graphics card. There’s nothing wrong with the graphics card; it works fine in other computers, but it just won’t work properly with this one board.

OK so we’ve covered a lot so far in parts 1 & 2; but there may be a couple more things that’s preventing XP from starting: –

These are operating system/data corruption and/or file system corruption.

Operating system corruption can result from too much buggering about and trying to be clever; – The usual scenario in my case. – or from a phenomenon (specific to Windows – ?) known as “software rot”. For whatever reason, Windows moves things around, writes, copies, deletes, all in normal operation. Eventually it makes a tiny error; which can go unnoticed. – But when a number of tiny errors build up over months of operation, then a big error happens, and things start to go downhill from there: A cascade of errors causing errors, until eventually the system becomes inoperable.

The above can take years and stay unnoticed until the machine simply stops working, or it can happen suddenly. File system corruption is much the same: The NTFS, or in some cases, the FAT32, file system, is the storage medium’s file storage structure on the disc. In short the computer stores tiny bits of data made up of a few bytes in many tiny storage areas on the disk. These are marked out before the data is added to the disk: It’s accomplished by process called “formatting”; which is the first thing that needs to be done if a new hard-drive is installed, or if the old one needs to be wiped. Also in the file system are indexes of these little areas of data; which can also be prone to error.

Since we’re on the subject of the file system; the way to correct a file system error is by using the chkdsk function built into Windows. In Windows XP this can be activated from the command prompt as well as the GUI. Open a command prompt (Start>Run and type “cmd”.) and type “chkdsk C: /f”. (Assuming that C: is the disc that you want to check for file system errors.) This instructs Windows to run chkdsk on drive C:, and the parameter f instructs the operating system to check specifically for file system errors and repair them.

Similarly; chkdsk can also check the disc for file system and data errors, and repair them. To instruct Windows to do this, open a command prompt, (Start>Run and type “cmd”.) and type “chkdsk C: /r” (Assuming that C: is the disc that you want to check for errors.) Using the parameter r instructs the operating system to repair any errors it finds on the disc: These include file system errors, corrupt data, and bad sectors. As you may imagine; this can be a long process on some occasions.

While chkdsk attends to disc errors, there is another process that checks further for data errors in the essential operating system files. This process is called the system file checker. To run it; first insert your (original) XP CD into the optical drive, then open a command prompt, (Start>Run and type “cmd”.) and type “sfc /scannow”. This instructs the operating system to run the system file checker, check the crucial system files that Windows needs in order to be able to operate, check their parity, and, if there are any errors; delete the file and replace it from the files on CD. – Short of performing a repair reinstallation, this is the best way to clear operating system corruption.

So that’s covered pretty much everything. If you’ve done everything suggested and it still won’t boot, then you have a choice of a repair reinstall or a disk-format-and-reinstall.

Before you do that, though, try pulling out all the USB plugs and other peripherals and seeing if the machine boots with no peripherals connected. If it does then you have a faulty peripheral device. Plug things back in one by one and boot after every device you plug in. When your computer fails to boot you’ll know that the last peripheral device you plugged in is faulty.

“ – After I’ve spent hours doing all that, from Part 1, 2 and 3; and now you tell me it’s a faulty peripheral device!”

- Don’t worry: You’ve just given your machine a full software service, and it’ll work a lot better as a result.

At NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland they have a problem: The Hubble Space Telescope went tits-up on September 27th 2008. When the team tried to activate redundant backup systems they hit a couple of snags which caused the telescope’s 486-processor-driven systems to go into what they describe as "safe-mode" and halt most of its science operations. No that wasn’t a typo: The processor running the main computer is an Intel 486 from 1989.

The Hubble Space Telescope: I wonder if the aliens thought it was an orbiting trash-can at first?

From what I hear they have worked things out and now have the issues under control. They’re hoping that operations will restart this weekend; 25/6th October 2008. The 486 will probably take a month to add a few numbers together and realise it cocked-up perhaps?

Let’s face it though: This massive machine has been in space for 17 years beaming back some amazing images of things we could never hope to see from earth-based equipment. When it was designed back in the 20th Century an Intel 486 was leading-edge technology. – But having now related the truth that we have many tons of ancient technology orbiting our planet; a lot of it still working, the people at NASA say that the old technologies are reliable.

If they do the job that they are supposed to do and keep doing it regardless then there’s no reason to complain. What’s that adage? "They don’t make things as good as they used to."

You could even build it using a 486 if you wanted?

Do you think the technology we put into space is too old; keeping in mind that most of it starts off being designed up to 10 years before lift-off?