231. Windows 7 - Shutdown Fails Solution (Post 221)

If you can't rely on Microsoft, who can you rely on? On 2/7/2010 I selected an optional windows update to update my RealTek PCIe FE Driver. Mistake! The errors I have had (3 now) were all after that update. Solution is to ROLL BACK to older one using Device Manager (I Hope -- just did it and will see if this fixes it). How did I determine the cause? I downloaded WinDbg from Microsoft to explore the minidump created (in C:\Windows\Minidump). When you run AS AN ADMINISTRATOR the Windows Debugging tool WinDbg you need to specify the source (File, Symbol File Path) of the SYMBOLS. Tell it you want to go to http://msdl.microsoft.com/downloads/symbols and the program will pull down the symbols its needs as required. Then open the minidump (File, Open Minidump) in C:\windows\minidump. Let it rip and also click on the highlighted items. You should now see the cause spelled out for you. What did I learn from all this? Don't install a driver unless it is available from the manufacturer of the device or the computer -- be careful with those from Microsoft. Most likely they attempted to resolve a different problem and didn't thoroughly test it and couldn't wait for the manufacturer to do it right.

230. Reid Should Learn to Read

Hey Harry. You do know you are already the bottom fish in the Nevada race, don't you? Do you believe baiting the Republicans into helping to draft a bill and then stripping out their input behind closed doors will only sink you farther into the mud? And O's MOST important subject no less -- the JOB bill. Thanks for helping people decide on their November 2010 choices! Here's an excerpt from this article:

"Leader Reid's surprising decision to abandon a bipartisan job creation bill is an ominous sign and contradicts the president's call for both parties to come together," Hatch said. "This is not how you legislate in the United States Senate and demonstrates a tremendous arrogance of power."

Republican Charles Grassley, who helped craft the initial package, also will probably vote against the bill unless he gets a chance to change it, according to an aide.

"Democracy isn't working when the majority leader decides behind closed doors what's in a package and then doesn't allow any amendments," Grassley said in a statement.

Some Democrats have also expressed dissatisfaction.

Sink Harry Sink. Sink. Sink. Sink. I think even O may leave you stuck in the mud this time.

229. More Mickey Mouse Tactics

Seems like people cannot leave well enough alone. Immediately they jump on a symptom for a problem and want to change it to something that worked decades ago but will no longer work. In this case its the SEC and its proposed short selling restrictions summarized here. With modern trading systems capable of zillions (figuratively, but approaching literal) of trades per second, does it matter if you wait a hundredth of a second for an uptick before you drop it again? Hmmm. Now borrowing billions of dollars through short trading by a super wealthy fund or individual WOULD bother me. Wouldn't this be market manipulation? Maybe the SEC should just GUARANTEE investigation of trades involving huge amounts of borrowed money -- make it a standing threat to do so. Maybe that will prevent the already-in-control hedge funds and others from driving the market down to gain a better buy-in point.

228. Jam Health Care via Budget Reconciliation Process

O, O, O! Do you remember the Budget Reconciliation process where only 51 senate ayes pass the bill? Well, here comes O with his hardball. He is now drafting his OWN Health Care bill. Granted its mostly the agreed upon items between the Democratic Senate and Democratic House bills and will try to shape it to fit the Budget Reconciliation process! The war takes an ugly shift. Come February 25 when he tried to jam this down the Republican throats, he will actually be trying to jam it down OUR throats. Can you believe his audacity and egoism? Stay tuned. You'll be hearing more. Meanwhile read this article for more details to date. It's starting to stink in here again so says MY Common Scents.

227. Windows 7 - Post 217 (Power Mgt) Update

I finally decided to check with Dell about the problem at Post 217 which occurred 3 times so far since 1/6/2010. I decided to avoid the verbal struggle with the overseas 1st line of support and decided to try the Online Chat that I liked in the past. Well, not to get off the subject, but of course just getting to Chat was another problem. I could not get to it via the Dell Website. However, when I brought up Dell Support program on the PC and invoked it from there all was good. Now, let me move on to Post 217. 1st Line was of course snowed by the problem and details I gave them and simply, and IMMEDIATELY, told me to send it into the repair depot. Oh Boy. Motherboard problem he said. Yet, the problem occurs across multiple vendor machines? "Well, I'll send you an A/C adapter too to try!" In other words, he never heard of this problem and had no clue how to provide diagnosis support to isolate the cause. Anyway, I replaced my A/C power adapter yesterday and will see if it was the cause. BIOS is current, so that's out.

226. Windows 7 - Handy Shortcut to ALL TASKS

stueycaster at this forum provided an excellent Shortcut to a program that lists EVERY task available to you. The tasks are listed by category also. With this you no longer have to remember WHERE the task you want is and HOW TO GET TO IT. I recommend it.

Right click the desktop.
Mouse over: New.
Click: Shortcut.
In the location window paste - C:\Windows\explorer.exe shell:::{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
Click: Next
Name it something like "All Tasks" or something similar.
It will give you a shortcut to all the different settings you can make in windows 7.

225. Windows 7 - PowerPoint Viewer

Having problems viewing .pps files in Windows 7? My system came without the .pps defined as an extension. Unlike XP where you can simply ADD an extension and associate it to a program, W7 forces you to do a REGEDIT change. PowerPointViewer did not start when clicking a .pps file. Windows 7 knew nothing about a .pps file (CP, Default programs, Associate a file…). I found a registry edit at http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/unable-to-open-pps-ppt-from-windows-mail-or-wlm/ that, I think, allowed the .pps to show up. I still had the problem selecting the program until I went to CP,Programs and Features and did a REPAIR to PowerPointViewer. After that I found the module needed (PPTVIEW.EXE) in Program Files(x86)\Microsoft\Office12, I was now able to associate it with the newly created .pps entry created by the registry edit. W7 also removed the File Types tab from teh Folders Options rendering it useless too. All these problems started with Vista. Maybe some day MSFT will get it right again.

224. How Does Your Garden grow?

It's garden planning time. Did you plant your seeds indoors yet? We're trying a few new vegetables this year: Arugula, Tyfon (now we learn that its a grazing food -- moo, moo), Sololist (Chinese cabbage), Pickling Cucumbers, soy beans, sweet corn, plus some yellow strawberries which are suppose to fool the birds. To date, we already have 2-3" plants (arugula, tyfon, cabbage, tomatoes). Bought a heated mat this year which works great -- germination is now assured and very fast. The snow is almost melted which means in the next week or two I'm putting the cabbage out and planting the cold-weather crops -- carrots, radishes, spinach (all that I planted in my hot house are still green and growing over the winter), etc. Next week I'll be building a larger, sturdier hot house -- the winds here are the most destructive natural element we need to be concerned with (gotta tie the radishes down). I'll be using the wall-of-waters again this year -- worked great last year -- and planting tomatoes in April again. This year my peppers, squash, and maybe other vegetables will go in early using the wall-of-waters.
Spring is on its way. Get your tools ready and good luck with your garden.

223. Market Update

Oops -- I edited this to put the DJIA in the right ball park. I repeated 11xxx DJIA throughout when it should have been 10xxx. Must have been wishful thinking,

Sorry for the long leave of absence. Lost my red squeaky forecasting toy for a while. We did bounce as predicted, but several new events occurred since the last report that caused some uncertainty, such as, Greece debt, Euro stability across entire Euro Zone, China increasing Bank reserve requirements, China paying games with the yuan, the U.S. still sitting on its hands re Iran, and as usual Obama preaching to his choir. So, what were the net effects? As I stated in a previous post, I think China has taken the right approach to preventing a run away economy and to curb investment speculation. I continue to see positive growth there and at a rate above ours here. They may still dabble with the value of the yuan which may cause O's feathers to ruffle. Hopefully this will pass and not cause O to shout the word protectionism too loudly! If he persists on leaning that way, the market could fold quickly. However, with the earnings looking so positive, economy growing (Fed forecasts even stronger than expected growth for 2010 now), jobless rate holding steady (won't decrease much), Europe with a plan to handle debt crisis with some of its countries, UK rebounding, I'm looking for a positive 25-30 days. Not to say we won't dip; volatility needs to settle down in the next 5 days. I'm looking at a convergence point of DJIA 10,200 for 10-day and 30-day moving averages to be the breaking point of the market UPWARD. In short, we'll play the bouncing game for the next 4-5 sessions and break through around 10,200 when the 10-day and 30-day moving averages converge upward for another 400-500 points, maybe to 10,600-10,700. But, what do I know? I can't even keep my toy dry for longer than a few seconds -- I carry it everywhere. I think my bratty brother Douglas Ray -- a cat no less -- stole it last time. Ha! Like he knows what to do with it! Ok -- ante up, but keep an eye on the wild card protectionism. Although you may hear gossip re Health Care continuance or begin to realize that O's State of the Union promises re nuclear and offshore drilling are NOT near term, the real positive news will be the ongoing progress towards the conservative views. The USS Democrat has taken a few blows and is already under damage control. See you in about 25 days -- squirrels may already be out by that time (warning for the Squirrel Man).

222. Robin Williams as the American Flag

You'll enjoy this.

221. Windows 7 - Shutdown Fails

Anybody else getting a Shutdown failed message in the morning when they think they are just going to unhibernate? After 3 times, I turned off automatic install of Windows Updates. If you didn't already know, the defaults in Windows 7 is to WAKE your computer up, if in sleep or hibernation, to download AND install Windows Updates at 3 A.M every day. We all know that some of these updates might require a RESTART which means a SHUTDOWN first. My assumption is that it hangs up trying to do the restart, actually during the Shutdown phase. Thus, there is a conflict between the Shutdown process and hibernation mode or the power manager settings. Quite possible my power manager settings which are set quite short cause the computer to sleep when it's waiting on Shutdown processes to complete. Who knows. But, my theory is to not allow it to install updates automatically anymore -- ok to download them. Next morning my Action Center will alert me that something was downloaded and ready to install. I'll see if this circumvents the problems.

220. Spending Cuts OR Tax Rises

Sorry, I need to laugh again. Bet you never heard a dog laugh so much! This time its over the bill O just signed raising the debt ceiling another $1.9 TRILLION. Guess I shouldn't be laughing, but I need to understand why we need to raise the debt ceiling when EVERYTHING O will approve will be paid for by spending cuts or tax rises, i.e., hello PAYGO; didn't we hear about you several years ago. Nice to see you're back out of the closet. I hope you liked the closet, 'cause you'll be right back in there very soon. Now, the bill I would like to see is one that doesn't raise the debt anymore and considers spending cuts AND cuts to existing approved earmarks! I would also like to see the stimulus money RETURNED for for projects like the latest one from California where TWO jobs were created to study why some people lack self-control and become obese, or the ones in Pennsylvania in non-existent districts, or for police cars in Florida (now that created a lot of jobs). But no-o-o-o. Make the banks pay for the government's slop! That way, they will have to increase service costs to you and me to cover the new fees/taxes and thus, gives the government a reason to blame the banks even more. Just who does this administration think their kidding. We dogs even have better Common Scents.

219. 2/25 - Another Ridiculous Event

I assume you all heard about O's invitation to HIS February 25th Health Care discussion event. Having led strategic and Tactical planning sessions for corporate companies for over 20 years I can only LAUGH (Ha-Ha) at O's HALF-DAY session to negotiate bipartisam solutions for Health Care reform. The planning sessions I held were both 1-year plans and 3-5 long-term plans, each lasting 2-4 FULL days. Now, you could assume the annointed one has far better skills than I -- I doubt it. This article introduces you to the number of participants, 40+, and who. Here comes another wasted half-day of 40+ expensive people who will get their ears filled with Obama-malarkey. What could be good is the posting of bills from each side. What won't be good is O pushing the Democratic bills asking what needs to change in them to get them passed! I'd love a contract to lead a strategy session for him. Heck, I'd do it for only expenses. Get out the dog and pony.

218. Nuclear, but not NOW!

"The Southern Co. has applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a construction and operating license for the plant, one of 13 such applications the agency is considering. NRC spokesman Eliot Brenner said the earliest any of those could be approved would be late 2011 or early 2012." Is this really helpful Mr. President? This quote came from this article where O sprinkles fairy dust in front of We the People to get us to believe that his State of the Union words re building Nuclear plants AND creating jobs NOW were serious. I find it appalling that APPLICATIONS to build from companies that have already built plants in the past would take 1.25 to 2 years to SIMPLY APPROVE! Let's get on with it! What do you want to bet off-shore oil drilling will also be deferred until 2011+? I hate to keep beating the guy up, BUT his naive butt seems to be clouding all Common Sense!

217. Windows 7 - "Plugged in, not charging"

For a couple of weeks my laptop power manager was reporting "plugged in, not charging." Scores of people have reported this problem on the Internet (Google the message) with really nobody wanting to accept the problem as theirs. You will find that the problem is not unique to manufacturer (some I saw were Sony, HP, Compaq, Dell, Lenovo, Acer). Operating systems reported were basically Vista and Windows 7 (now there's a clue). Solutions included replacing power adapter (can't imagine the exact same adapter being used for all manufacturers), popping battery out and reinserting it (sometimes several times and in particular sequence with disconnect and reconnect of AC adapter), BIOS upgrade, Motherboard adapter soldered weakly, etc. You'll find this problem starting on Vista in 2007 and continuing right into Windows 7 currently. So, what was exactly my symptoms? I always have my laptop connected to A/C power and after first charging to 100% it stayed there for some time -- don't know exactly how long. However, after changing power management options I began to notice the battery power decreasing every day along with the message above in title. After endless research, I decided it had to be software (Windows 7) and forgot it was A/C power sometime -- maybe when hibernating or sleeping. I was getting strange hibernation -- it would appear to hibernate, but came up as fast as sleep mode. Plus, had a few crashes to Windows 7 while in hibernation mode that recovered on complete restart. Whatever the problem is, I reset it back to normal (this time) by removing power cable AT PC (not wall), cleaned it off good, and plugged it back in. Immediately it restarted charging to 100%. Now was it dirty? Couldn't tell. Maybe it was just having it out for about 40 seconds. If I were to guess, the laptop senses when the cable is attached (plugged into wall or not -- just physically there) and notifies Windows to begin monitoring the power port for power and problems. Quite possibly it wiggled loose (but I doubt it) sometime while moving the laptop to its bed each night on the floor. Who knows -- I'm just a dog and can't smell anything wrong. See also Post 227.

215. What Can We Learn From the Greeks?

I heard all about the Greeks: one fraternity party after another. Remember those barn parties? Toga Parties? Mixers? Socials? Oops, wrong Greeks.

Seriously, Greece is up to its nose in pig doo. What will the Socialists do? Read this article or this one to get caught up. I think you'll agree that Obama's Socialist administration should be closely watching the activities in Greece to avoid a similar problem -- I do believe we already have the problem -- and get out their togas and act Greek. Can you imagine the uproar in our future because this administration continues to kiss Labor Union butts, delaying corrections to our huge deficit. This is scary stuff folks. Thus why I have my Bear outfit out and ready to wear -- the Bull will go in the closet very soon. Google a few more articles re Greece Deficit problems and compare us to them.

214. Some Humor-1

213. Some Humor-2

212. How Much is Defense Worth?

In football, defense is probably more valuable to a team than offense. How about America's Defense programs? As this article points out, the 2011 Defense Budget (separate for the overall budget) has been increased to a record high. I'm still pondering the highlights in the article, but have a better feeling that Gates is looking out for our interests both defensively and financially. The back-to-the-moon project is being cut from the non-defense budget; the early-warning defense satellite project in the defense budget is being superseded by the infrared defense satellite project. If I were to guess, the one cut was the alarm, whereas, the infrared is the hammer. I can live with blowing things out of the sky -- don't need sirens to get me scared. And, yes, C-17 transport aircraft are handy for the catastrophes of the world, like Haiti; but, isn't it time other countries ante up for these aircraft? Again, I think Gates realizes this and is correct. Just where the entire $708B goes I have no clue. However, when they state that we need to invest in new technologies, I wonder why they think the building of new command ships with that new technology is not important; they could be right in that any new technology would be retrofitted in older command ships for less. If this is true, I commend them again. A 3.4 increase in Defense is well worth the money considering the restraints also documented in the article. Better than a bridge to nowhere. I sure hope some of the big bucks goes to the personnel. Did you realize some of the Congressmen and women get paid more than the military generals? How about a little rob-Peter and pay-Paul bill?

211. The Right Health Care Reforms - the States Listen

As the Democrats still churn to push out a Health Bill to please the anointed One, the states, 34 to date, are pursuing their own constitutional amendments to ban forced health care insurance and the assessment of any penalties to bilk residents into buying health care. They are also looking at mandates to create larger insurance pools which could lower rates. Finally we could be making headway. This article highlights the state mandates and also that in the end the Federal Government could still prevail. However, as this other article points out, the states can organize to call a convention and submit U.S. Constitution amendment proposals that could be enacted should three quarters of the 50 states vote for them. The People speak!