PC Memoirs

In my quest to find more computer pranks, I stumbled upon the BNet Web site and found many new ideas on how to fool PC users. I have listed some of these, but to get the full description and instructions, I suggest you visit the BNet Blog (don’t forget to read the comments too).

Most pranks listed are harmless and easily reversible, except one, where you are supposed to program a new shortcut which, once you click on it, asks the user to cool down the computer or the hard drive will be deleted! This one is risky as some people might pour water on the PC to cool it down (no kidding, this happened – just read the comments on that blog). A much safer prank would be to display some other message, such as: “Restart your computer and count to 100 before you turn the PC back on”, or something like that. The message should look legitimate and at the same time slightly over the top 🙂

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Have you ever tried to log in to your PC but couldn’t get the password right, even after several attempts? This happened to me the other day, when I tried to log onto my laptop. I know that CAPS Lock was not on, because no warning message appeared.

I thought maybe I forgot my password or someone hacked into my PC or something was seriously wrong, but then I noticed that the Num Lock light was on. Instead of letters, I was typing numbers! This is harder to spot on laptops, as the same keys are used for letters and numbers. On regular keyboards you have your additional number keypad on the right side and you know when it’s on or off. Laptops have less space, and so everything is squeezed in the same small keypad.

So I found out what happened, but I didn’t know why. Num Lock is usually disabled by default, and it’s like this in most PCs, but suddenly it was enabled after startup. I wanted to change this.

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If your laptop turns off unexpectedly, the most likely reason is overheating, but it can also be due to a power overload in the AC adapter, intermittent short circuits and less likely, an operating system problem or virus/spyware.

If you have time to do this before it shuts itself off, perform a quick spyware and virus scan. If you cannot do this, try it again in Safe Mode (restart the laptop, press and hold F8 and select Safe Mode from the menu). If the laptop doesn’t turn off in safe mode, then the problem is probably not caused by hardware. While in safe mode, remove spyware and viruses and clean the registry (check my Resources page if you need free cleaning programs).

I assume the laptop will turn itself off even when in safe mode, so the problem is probably due to overheating. First, check whether the battery has anything to do with this. Remove it from the laptop and work only with the AC adapter. If everything is ok, then you need to replace the battery. If it still shuts off, then try to work only with the battery, without the AC adapter. After this test, you’ll know if you need to replace the cable with the AC adapter.

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Update 2013: this also applies to windows 7.

I came across a new problem in Windows Vista: the laptop I was given to repair wouldn’t load a user profile and no one could log on. Every time I typed the logon password, it would display this message: ”The User Profile Service failed the logon and the user profile can’t be loaded”, and all I could do is restart the machine. I couldn’t log on with another account because there weren’t any. Administrator account was hidden (read on and learn how to enable it).

I collected several possible solutions on the Internet and tested most of them. If you have the same problem, please try some of these solutions:

First, you should test whether the computer will load in Safe Mode. To do this, press and hold F8 after turning on the computer, and select Safe Mode from the new menu.

1. If successful, try System Restore first. It should restore the user account and profile. To access System Restore, go to Start, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore. Then simply choose a date when you think the user profile last worked and restore those settings.

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If you’ve read my blog before, you may have noticed that I usually don’t review software or hardware. I write about ways to fix various computer problems and prevent attacks from the Internet, and I only recommend programs that I have tried myself. Similarly, I only recommend computer parts or laptops that I have tested myself.

I had to include this post because I just bought a new laptop: The Hewlett Packard HDX 16. It costs less than $1000 and includes all features I expect from a new laptop: The speed, long battery life, the screen size and built quality. You can see the HP HDX 16 here.

The great thing about buying from HP directly is that you can customize your new laptop. For example, you can choose the processor speed (2.2-3 GHz), amount of RAM (3GB to 8GB), hard drive capacity (up to 500GB), graphics card (up to 1GB of RAM) and the optical drive, which can be either DVD burner, Blue Ray reader or Blue Ray burner.

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