Disable The Program Might Not Have Installed Correctly

While installing or running programs on your computer, the chances are very good you will have encountered a window that pops up telling you “This program might not have installed correctly“. There was a new feature introduced in Windows Vista and 7 which is supposed to actively monitor and detect the known compatibility issues with older programs when you try and run or install them. If it detects any potential issues, it will throw up the not installed correctly window. You will then have a choice whether to try to reinstall with the recommended settings, which is usually detecting issues with User Account Control or trying to run the program as an earlier version of Windows in compatibility mode. Or you can simply tell it there was no problem and carry on.

That’s the theory anyway. Unfortunately, the Program Compatibility Assistant is far from perfect, and quite often will show the window when there have been no issues at all with the program or installer. Even worse, this window will also be triggered by a lot of portable software, or even when you simply cancel an install process. If you are someone that likes to try out a lot of different software, or use a number of portable programs, this window showing up so often can be quite irritating.

Note: We would not recommend disabling this if you are an average computer user, however, if you are an advanced user who knows the complete issue, go ahead and disable this annoying popup window.



This dialog box is showed because of Program Compatibility Assistant service which is running in the background. This service is started during startup.
Head over to Start Search, type services.msc, and hit Enter. Search for Program Compatibility Assistance Service, right-click it, and hit Stop.



Once the service is stopped, right-click it again and go to Properties. From the Startup Type drop-down menu, select Disabled and hit OK.



Now restart the system. To confirm if Program Compatibility Assistant is completely disabled, open Task Manager(Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and search for PcaSvc services in Services tab. If you don’t find it, congratulations the service has been disabled!

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How to Enable and Use Text to Speech in Office 2010

1. Open your Word or other applications of Microsoft Office 2010. Here, we take Word for example.
2. Go to "File" > "Options" like this.
   
3. Well, the options window appears. And click "Quick Access Toolbar". Then choose "Commands Not in the Ribbon" under the "Choose commands from" tab.
   
4. Select "Speak" in the scroll box and click "Add" > "OK".
   
5. Well, you will see the "Speak" button has been added.
   
6. If you want to add the speak button on the Ribbon. Go to "Customize Ribbon" in the options window. Select "Commands Not in the Ribbon" too.
   
7. Click "New Tab" or "New Group" button as you like.
   
8. Then in the "Commands Not in the Ribbon" tab, select "Speak" choice. And then click "Add" > "OK".
   
9. Return the Word, you will see the "New Tab" with "Speak" button like this.
   
10. When you want to use text to speech, just select the text and then click "Speak" button. It will begin.
     

Video: How to enable Text to Speech in Office 2010

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How to Get Back a Useful Windows 7 Network Icon

On the whole, just about everybody who uses it, would say Windows 7 is a great operating system all round and a big improvement over Vista and XP. The visual additions and enhancements to the taskbar is something that helps give Windows 7 a clear edge over it predecessors.

Why then, after all the work on these extra visuals, did Microsoft feel the need to take the network activity icon in the system tray, and make it look so bland and lifeless? Although they said it was to make things look less ‘noisy’ in the tray, I like the old one, because you can see if something like a download has finished in the background, or there’s activity on your network when you think there shouldn’t be. It’s also useful at watching for activity on laptops. To me, this is one of the minor annoyances of Windows 7 where it wasn’t already broken in XP and Vista as well to some extent, but Microsoft decided to try and fix it anyway.

Windows XP’s icon makes it very clear when there is network activity so you don’t have to stare at your router to see what’s going on. Vista’s icon does at least give you the option to right click on the icon and turn icon activity on or off.

            It’s clear in XP               Still visible in Vista…              What happened!

One of the first things I did when installing Windows 7 for the first time, was go on a search to try and find something to bring the activity back to the icon. Luckily it didn’t take too long and came across a small utility by iT Samples called Network Activity Indicator. The program is available in both portable and as a setup installer, but it makes sense to use the installer if you plan on it replacing the default icon. Download and install, a few seconds later, you have this:

                        Activity is back                         With a Vista style icon

Network Activity Indicator uses not much more than a Megabyte of memory, and has a couple of other useful features such as a handy right click menu for access to your network, which is something else sadly lacking in Windows 7 when you right click its icon. Quickly checking or editing network adapter settings is only a click or two away now.

1. Download Network Activity Indicator.
   
2. Double click to make it run.
   
3. You will see a new network connection tray icon.
   
   
4. You can also right click it to choose the "Settings" to set the tray icon.
   
   
   
   

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Sharp begins production of High Pixel Density IGZO LCD panels

In March 2012 at Kameyama Plant No. 2, Sharp began producing the world’s first high-performance LCD panels incorporating IGZO oxide semiconductors. Sharp is expanding production scale through April to meet market demand.

IGZO (InGaZnO) is an oxide comprising indium (In), gallium (Ga), and zinc (Zn). A thin-film transistor using this material has been developed by Sharp in collaboration with Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd. (a company based in Kanagawa, Japan, and led by President Shunpei Yamazaki).
 
By using IGZO oxide semiconductors, Sharp will be able to produce LCD screens that require lower energy consumption through smaller, thin-film transistors and increased pixel transparency.

The technology lends itself well to mobile devices that require low-power components. With a new breed of ultrabooks promised by Intel and updates to Apple's mobile lineup, it seems highly likely that Sharp will work its way in as a primary supplier of display panels.

Sharp has converted Kameyama Plant No. 2, which had previously been used to create advanced LCD panels for televisions, to produce small to medium-size screens for smartphones and other mobile devices.

A year ago, Sharp was rumored to be converting Kameyama Plant No. 1 from TV displays to low-temperature, polysilicon LCD screens to be used on a next-generation iPhone. Peter Misek, according to 9to5Mac, claims that up to 5 million Apple television units (iTVs) are being produced by Sharp for a May or June release.

Just as the new iPad was about to be released, it was reported that Sharp was not able to meet Apple's requirements for producing its IPS displays, despite earlier rumors that Sharp's IGZO technology would replace IPS for 2012's iPad.

Now, with an official company statement that Sharp is producing IGZO displays for mobile devices, expect to see plenty of rumors resurfacing that Apple's iPhone, iPad, and perhaps even iMacs and a television set, could all be using Sharp's IGZO displays.

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Apple announces earnings Q2 2012 for April 24

Apple will let us know on April 24 whether it's doing fabulously, pretty darn well, or -- the horror -- just so-so.

That's when the company will reveal its revenue and earnings for its second fiscal quarter, the one in which it released its new iPad. Consumers scooped up 3 million of those devices in the first weekend alone, in what Apple called "the strongest iPad launch yet." Not too shabby for a tablet that has come to define and dominate the marketplace and popular perception.

Apple plans to conduct a conference call to discuss financial results of its second fiscal quarter on Tuesday, April 24, 2012 at 2:00 p.m. PT

As is customary with its earning calls, shareholders and press will be able to listen to the call live via the Apple website, allowing iPhone, iPad and iPod touch owners to listen using their devices if they run iOS 4.2 or above, and of course via a Quicktime-enabled computer.

On January 24, Apple released its earnings for its first fiscal quarter of 2012. Apple’s revenue amounted to $46.33 billion, with earnings of $13.87 per share and net profit in Q1 was $13.06 billion. The numbers destroyed industry estimates across the board in every area of hardware sales and profitability aside from iPods.

Apple sold 37.04M iPhones, up 128% year over year, and 15.43M iPads this quarter, up 111% year over year. Apple sold 5.2M Macs during the quarter, bringing sales up 26% when compared to the same quarter a year ago. iPod sales were down 21%.

Apple's shares are trading at around $630 this morning. The company's stock crossed the $400 barrier just at the end of 2011, and it hasn't looked back since.

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Protect or Deny Access to your USB Drives

The most common removable device through which viruses spreads into Computers these days is Pen drive or USB flash drive, Windows Autorun gives the possibility for these viruses to easily enter into users Computers which is not a surprise- that’s why it is recommended to disable autorun functionality in Windows for removable drives. There are several freeware portable utilities available on internet to write protect USB drives and further prevent autorun viruses execution, meet USB Disk Manager, a freeware utility offers more than what you want to control your USB drives and protect your system from viruses in it.

Disabling Autorun in Windows is a step forward in stopping these devices trying to infect a machine as soon as it gets plugged in. Along with the security aspect, there are many times when you just don’t want anything on the USB drive to be deleted, moved or even executed. There are some sticks that come with a write lock but you pay a premium for the function. Using an SD card with a lock and an adapter is also an option which is what I use myself when needing to transfer files to another computer.

There is a small utility that can write protect any USB storage devices when plugged into your PC so there can’t be any unauthorised access. The program is called USB Disk Manager and along with write protecting your drive, has a few more features that may be useful if you want more protection from USB threats.

Other things it is able to do include blocking any executable file running itself from the USB device, meaning no virus that spreads itself this way can run. Another feature is being able to completely block read or write access on USB removable disks so any kind of file transfer is not possible.

The program is portable so simply download and extract it to your chosen location, and open the USB Disk Manager.exe (you may have to right click and ‘Run as Administrator’). If the program has not popped its window into view, click on the icon in the system tray.

Write Protect USB Drives with USB Disk Manager

You can turn on write protection for removable disks where you can restrict the applications to only read files from the pen drives. You can turn write protection off from USB Disk Manager preferences.

Deny Software execution from USB drives

You can able to prevent spread of viruses though USB disks by selecting ‘software execution Denied “option from the program window (by default Software execution is Allowed option is set) so that no application or program doesn’t run from the device.

Disable /enable USB removable disks: you can disable all your flash drives to disallow read and write on the USB removal disks, enabling this setting also prevents the transfer of files to and from the USB drive to your system.

USB Disk Manager offers read and write protection to the USB drive that is connected to the system that’s running the program, what if you want these features for USB drives when connected to systems in cybercafé or in your friend’s house, USBDM offers option to “automatically copy this application to USB disks as Autorun in its settings which you can enable and this program will be autorun on new machine.

After enabling any above of the options you may need to reconnect your pen drive or restart your System for changes to take effect.

USB Disk Manager is compatible with XP, Vista and 7 32 & 64bit
Website

Download

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Deals April: ASUS Zenbook UX31E-DH72 Core i7 Laptop $1,299.99

It looks like nothing you've ever seen. It feels like nothing you've ever felt. It's breathtakingly beautiful. It's ultra-thin – with a minimum thickness of only .12". It's ultra-light – the brushed aluminum alloy body weighs only 2.87lbs. It's ultra-fast – powerful 2nd Generation Intel^® Core^™ i7 processor, SATA 3.0 SSD and USB 3.0. It resumes active mode in just 2 seconds, and the SonicMaster Audio delivers astounding sound. Introduce yourself to the most incredible Ultrabook^™, the ASUS ZENBOOK^™ – it will be love at first sight.

 

Key Features

• Spun metal and hairline aluminum finish throughout the entire chassis that only measures a minimum thickness of .12" and weighs only 2.87lbs
• 2nd Generation Intel^® Core^™ i7-2677M processor with Intel Turbo Boost 2.0 Technology for smart multitasking that automatically senses what you're doing and boosts performance
• ASUS exclusive Super Hybrid Engine II with Instant On 2-second resume, double the standby time, automatic data backup and recovery, and 25% longer battery life
• SATA 256GB solid state drive for an amazingly smooth and fast computing experience
• SuperSpeed USB 3.0 for quicker device charging and up to 10x faster transfers than USB 2.0¹
• ASUS SonicMaster Technology co-developed by world-renowned audio experts at Bang & Olufsen ICEpower^® increases audio performance with lifelike surround impact 

Specifications

• Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
• Display: 13.3-inch HD display (1600 x 900)
• CPU: 2^nd Generation Intel Core i7-2677M Processor (Turbo Boost up to 2.9Ghz)
• Graphics: Intel UMA
• Wireless: 802.11 b/g/n (@ 2.4GHz)
• Bluetooth: BT 4.0
• Memory: 4GB DDR3
• Storage: 256GB Solid State Drive
• Camera: 0.3 megapixel
• Speakers: Stereo Speakers powered by Bang & Olufsen ICEPower^®
• Microphone: Microphone
• Card Reader: SD Card reader
• Input / Output:1 x Mic-in/ Headphone-out, 1 x mini VGA port1x USB 2.0 ports, 1 x USB 3.0 1x micro HDMI
• Battery: 6 cell
• Dimensions: 12.8 x 8.78 x 0.12 ~ 0.71" (W x D x H)
• Weight: 2.87lbs (with 6 cell battery)
• Color: Silver

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ASUS Zenbook UX31E-DH72 13.3-Inch Thin and Light Ultrabook (Silver Aluminum)

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Windows 8 supports Retina-class displays

All the talk these days is of the new iPad and its magical screen. Apple isn’t the only one who can do that, you know. In fact, most display makers are looking forward to post-HD resolutions as one of the big selling points of the next generation of displays. Other tablets are already approaching iPad levels of pixel density and it would be foolish of the likes of Google and Microsoft not to be planning for it.

Fortunately, Microsoft is well aware of the trend and has plans in place for dealing with pixel-dense displays (or “Retina” to the vulgar).

The specifics are laid out with no quarter given to laymen in this post at Building Windows 8. The gist is that they have analyzed the expected range of display sizes and resolutions, and have identified a sort of “Goldilocks Zone” for the three general classes of resolutions: standard, HD, and quad-XGA (2560×1440). Inside this zone, text and UI elements aren’t blown up to cartoonish proportions or shrunk down to a size that’s frustrating to touch.

Microsoft have come up with the following

    * In the first case (Standard), buttons and text will be shown with no scaling.
    * In the second case (HD), they’ll be 140% normal size (i.e. elements 100 pixels wide will become 140),
    * For the third case (Quad-XGA) they’ll be blown up by 180%.

There is an alternative solution which is known as “independent continual resize” and that would render every button and character the same size regardless of the size or resolution of the display. However the way that we currently store and render text means that this advanced solution just isn’t possible at this point in time. Perhaps in the future it will be possible but for now it isn’t practical.

As you can see from the screenshot above, the different resolutions can change the way the user will view an app dramatically, which is why it’s so tricky scaling and re-sizing programs for different displays.

Because of the increasing size of resolutions, it’s starting to make traditional UI features like drop down menus cumbersome and unpractical. They end up being far too small to use accurately with touch. That’s why Microsoft have brought in an array of touch gestures with Windows 8 to try alleviate this problem.

Microsoft talk in great detail about this issue and how they’ve worked hard developing good solutions for Windows 8 over on their blog, so if you’re interested in going into more technical details feel free to check it out.

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Tests durability of latest iPad by shooting it with rifles

A man carried out a durability test on the new iPad by shooting at it, a media report said.

The video of the Apple gadget being destroyed has become an online hit, The Sun reported.

It shows Richard Ryan using different guns, including an assault rifle, on a range to shoot at the new iPad.

The slow motion video shows the screen smashing in the spot where the bullet passes through, but it does not shatter entirely.

'It didn’t do as much as I’d hoped to it,' said Ryan after the first test, before deciding to use a higher powered M4 gun, which blasts a large hole through the centre of Apple’s latest must-have gadget.


The video is the latest in a series produced by Ryan, who has also shot an iPhone, Xbox 360, iPad 2 and other gadgets.

He also has an unusual take on another popular online series of videos, called ‘will it blend’, where the latest gadgets are placed in a blender to see if they survive.

Ryan’s take on the series involves a blender being shot using a series of rifles.

But the gun lover's latest video has divided opinion among YouTube users.

One user said: 'Why would you ruin a good ipad. I’ve wanted one for ever and couldn't afford one.'

However, others are fans, claiming the video is ‘awesome’

By: dailymail.co.uk

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Adapteva Inc Announces 700 MHz, 4096-Core Processor

Adapteva Inc claims that the chip will be achieving a performance efficiency of 70 GFlops per watt. The flagship processor would produce more than five times the floating point performance of the ASCI RED, a supercomputer that used 9,680 Pentium Pro processors back in 1997, which was good for a total performance of 1 TFlops.

Adapteva's Epiphany chip is planned to be available in versions with just one core with a die size of 0.1 mm2 (28 nm) and 0.5 mm2 (65 nm), 16 cores (2.05 mm2 and 8.96 mm2 in 65 nm and 28 nm, respectively), 64 cores (8.2 mm2 in 28 nm), 256 cores (32.7 mm2 in 28 nm), 1,024 cores (131.1 mm2 in 28 nm) and 4,096 cores (524.3 mm2 in 28 nm). However, Adapteva Inc said that it has only built up to 16-core processors in actual silicon so far.

The single-core chip is said to deliver 2 GFlops at 1 GHz, while the 16-core processors provides up to 32 GFlops at 1 GHz. The 4,096-core version (700 MHz) is estimated to deliver 5.6 TFlops of sustained floating point performance while consuming only 80 watts.

There was no information about the availability of the Epiphany processors.

By: tomshardware.com

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New iPad 2012 jailbroken within hours

The new Apple iPad (third iPad, iPad 3) has already been jailbroken in at least three different ways. On the same day that Apple started shipping the new iPad out to consumers, there were reports that at least one hacker had already jailbroken the latest tablet.

That did not take long. Just hours after today’s launch of the new iPad, jailbreaker MuscleNerd posted (via iFans) screenshots of what he claimed is a jailbroken third-generation iPad. Do not get too excited, because MuscleNerd warned there is “still lots of work to do.” Therefore, the jailbreak is far from prime time. There is “No ETA,” but he provided screenshots of Cydia running for further proof that it is on the way. We will keep you updated as progress is made.

Jailbreaking an iOS device allows you to access files and settings that would otherwise be hidden. This makes it possible to install apps that aren’t available from the official App Store, and most jailbreak utilities install the Cydia Store which is basically a one-stop shop for apps and patches for jailbroken iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad devices.

There you can find apps that change the default behavior of the tablet by altering the boot logo, notification system, multitasking, or other features.

We can confirm that the method used to jailbreak the iPad2 4 months ago (before corona) still works even in 5.1.  That means we’ll at least be able to get our foot in the door to get the required kernel dumps on the iPad3.  That’s an important step, but by no means is it the end of the story.

Those of you following @i0n1c may have noticed he’s already tweeted pictures of his iPad2 jailbroken at 5.1.  As far as we know, he’s using a method completely unrelated to the one mentioned above.  That would be great news!

We’ve also seen bits and pieces of an entirely different jailbreak method being investigated by someone close to the Cydia repo scene.

Don’t update your new iPad3 past whatever iOS it comes shipped with

By the way, it’s rare but entirely possible that some of you may find your iPad3 comes with an iOS version that’s not quite 5.1.  If you do, be sure to let us know

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