BIOS Settings - Boot Order.

This information is for educational purposes only, and is to show how its done but not advised or to be taken as instructions for illegitimate activities, any actions that you do make, you take sole responsibility for and you must be aware of the consequences prior to performing your actions, so use google and do your research.

Ok, now that the boring section of warning you guys is over, here is how to adjust your boot order to allow for USB operating systems.

1) You need to locate the correct way to access your Bios settings, this is usually given within one of the load up screens on your computer, often located at the bottom of the page and usually requires you to hit an F key to access them. Locate the correct key and you will be given access to your motherboards options and settings. Be careful when you do this, alternative F keys can have alternative actions.

Also do not start playing around with the settings unless you know what you are doing. Things can and will break if you do this. If you wish to learn more about your motherboard, you should be able to access the information about what make and model your motherboard is within this section. Seek further information from the manufacturers website.

2) Once you have gained access to your BIOS Settings, if you look for the option usually referred to as "Boot Order". What this little section does is exactly as the name suggests, it searches a series of devices in the order you set, to look for your operating system. Normally this is your Sata or IDE hard drives, but what we want is a USB stick or USB drive, and they should be in the list, so if you follow the instructions that will be located some where within the screen your looking at, you should then be able to adjust your boot order, so that the motherboard looks for the USB options prior to your Hard drives.

3) Save the settings you have selected, and if you have an operating system on an external drive or USB stick, plug it in, restart your machine and you should see that Operating system load. If you do not, then it will simply pass over the USB options you have set and go for your Hard drives and your normal operating system will boot up, just like normal.

Its very simple and very effective.


Resources:
http://compreviews.about.com/cs/pchardwarebasics/a/aaBIOS_2.htm
& My own prior knowledge to this article being published.

Tecknet M958 TV Mobile PDA Phone Review

Well after having to experience Virgins epic failure for insurance cover with my mobile phone, I decided I would venture into the idea of buying a new handset. After a few hours of trawling across Amazon.co.uk I stumbled on the Tecknet M958 and decided to try it out, a mobile phone you can watch TV on for under £100? That just seemed unreal. From the reviews people had given, and the review by PDA Reviews, I thought it seemed like a real thing.

** 2 weeks later, it arrived and here's Sycrids review of the Tecknet M958 TV Mobile PDA Phone **

TeckNet M985 Review
- Box contents

First of all the TeckNet M958 is a UK development but be warned the manufacturing of the phone looks like it was done in China, Japan or Korea, because the box is riddled with a none Latin based language. The contents consisted of 2 Batteries, the phone, a USB cable, a USB plug and earphones.

USB? Well due to the extensive amount of things which can charge a USB connected device, the TeckNet M958 has the option of being charged via a USB port or plug the USB cable into the plug, and there you go. Ive tried the charge via my laptop and to be honest that was a few days ago and the battery is still saying its sufficiently charged. The battery length seems very good.

Handset:
Well the handset is a nice crisp and stylish design, I believe my friend replied with "ooohhh shiny", which implies it goes down nicely with people. The stylus is multi functional, it is both the pen for the interface but also it converts into an arial for the television and radio.

Multimedia:
Well the TeckNet M958's camera is only 2mp, which would be sufficient for that last minute snap, but I have yet to locate any form of auto focus, and as a result it is very difficult to use. The television aspect of the TeckNet M958 is great, it has a built in channel searcher and allows you to set the location for signal, so if you where to change country, you will be able to locate local channels. However, this is an analogue signal, which means more often than not, the signal is very weak and within the next two or three years the signal will be terminated as we all switch to digital. The video watching features are not so good either, for example the preview videos that it comes with appear pixelated when you watch them, so I can only gather it will be the same with your own media, but I have yet to test recording my own video for the TeckNet M958.

MP3's:
Most phones come with an MP3 player now and just like most, the TeckNet M958 does come with one. Which is just as good if not better than any which are on the market. It plays, and it even allows you to switch the sound settings from dance to rock, which as some of you may know, can make a huge difference.

The Operating System:
Ive looked through the TeckNet M958 and it seems like a good buy, which explains why I bought the phone. Never the less the operating system is very functional but you will discover that there are a few things missing, just small shortcuts, example... When viewing an image you cant set it as wallpaper, but rather you have to go into settings, display and then select wallpaper, select your storage location, locate the image and then select as wallpaper.

Conclusion:
The TeckNet M958 it self is a good phone, even though what I've highlighted above could be seen as negatives. Simply put, its a phone, what do you want it to do? It rings, with customisable ring tones and it sends and receives messages. With the addition of a television signal receiver, radio, mp3 player and a camera, plus its touch screen. All of that for £89 is a bloody bargain!

Be Warned: The only issue I have with the TeckNet M958 so far is that it does not automatically store the text messages you send. I still believe it was an excellent purchase though and recommend it as a first touch screen phone.

If you have any questions or wish for me to test something on the TeckNet M958 for you, then just post a comment and I will try to get back to you as soon as I can. Photos coming soon and I will likely need to update this article as I discover more about the TeckNet M958.

Resources:
http://www.pdareviews.org.uk/pda-phones/tecknet-m958-tv-mobile-pda-phone/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/TeckNet-Mobile-Screen-Camera-Bluetooth/dp/B000YJAKSO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=officeproduct&qid=1239503838&sr=8-2

EarnFastCashwithGoogle.com Scam or Real Deal?

I was browsing through Demonoid earlier and came across an advertisement by Adbrite and it stated "Google pays me £££ Per Hour." and it got me thinking, so I looked into this concept that was being promoted.

I went to the website http://www.EarnFastCashwithGoogle.com and checked out what it said, and to be honest all that was there was some flashy graphics. Tempting, fill out the form, pay the $1.99 and then you will be making $1000's per month and possibly weeks.

At this point http://www.EarnFastCashwithGoogle.com was looking good, very little investment and a very high profit margin for what was mentioned as very little work by Mr Craig Davidson at http://www.craiggetcash.com/. However, I'm a cautious guy and I didnt really want to take the business that was promoting its self and 1 guy as the deciding factor behind why I should register.

I ventured directly over to Google and started to do some quick research and damn I was happy I did that. Simply put the best advice you can get about a product is another persons opinion, who has experienced what the product/service is like. The first thing I looked at about www.EarnFastCashwithGoogle.com was a thread on Yahoo Answers (registered members giving real opinions).

I dont believe I could find a better quote than the following, to describe the company.
"So instead of getting something for free what you really get is a 7 day trial period after which you will have to pay $11.95 per month for the EarnCashFastWithGoogle.com and an extra $4.95 and $9.95 a month for the stuff you never even asked for." by homeoncliff

So should you trust http://www.EarnFastCashwithGoogle.com? I doubt it, it looks like another scam but hey, I cant state wether it is or not, because I did not register, all I can confirm is that through the research I did, I came to the conclusion that its wiser not to register with http://www.EarnFastCashwithGoogle.com.

Research Done:
http://www.craiggetcash.com/
http://www.EarnFastCashwithGoogle.com
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090128052015AA08Y49
http://devoracles.com/google-cash-explaining-why-is-it-a-scam

Hotkeys / Shortcuts for Mozilla Firefox

At work I seem to use a lot of "hotkeys" or shortcuts to get my job done and since a lot of the content management systems I use to wave through the unimaginable data are online, I opt for the Mozilla Firefox browser.

Anyway, I was caught the other day by a fellow employee/friend and they started asking what the heck am I doing since the screen kept jumping so fast and I was not using the mouse, so here’s a small list of "hotkeys" / Shortcuts that can increase your productivity using Mozilla Firefox, and some are also cross browser compatible.

Ctrl + A: Will highlight everything on the page.
Ctrl + B & Ctrl + I: Opens your bookmarks section, pressed again and it will make it disappear.

Ctrl + C: This will copy any text that is highlighted to the computers temporary memory slot.

Ctrl + D: Will present you with the option of book marking the current website/page that you are browsing.

Ctrl + F & Ctrl + G: Gives you the option of finding text on the current page your browsing.

Ctrl + H: Opens your browsing history section, pressed again and it will make it disappear.

Ctrl + J: Opens your download section.
Ctrl + L (or F6): highlights the URL section and any text within it.
Ctrl + N: Will open up a new Firefox window.
Ctrl + R (or F5): Refreshes your current tab.
Ctrl + S: Saves the current page to your computer.
Ctrl + T (shift): Opens a new tab, within the current window (holding shift as well, will open the last closed tab).

Ctrl + U: Shows the current web pages source code.
Ctrl + V: This will paste any text that is within the computers current memory.
Ctrl + W: This will close your current tab, and if pressed enough times, it will also close the current internet window you have open (Firefox).

Ctrl + (shift) Tab: This simply allows you to switch between tabs that you have open in a clockwise fashion (anti-clock wise if you hold down the shift button).

That’s all for now, I may need to update the list from time to time, as new versions of Mozilla Firefox appear, which is likely due to the amount of add-ons that keep getting built and seem to appear very useful. New Add-ons often mean new hotkeys / shortcuts.

You can download Mozilla Firefox from the following location and its free, so ditch Internet Explorer and become a Firefox fan. Mozilla Firefox Link

Google Search Commands

Ok, list of stuff for increasing your efficiency with google and solving your curiosity some times..

Type the following commands and you will get the results you want. Replace the word Test with what you need.

- "site:http://sycrid.blogspot.com/" = This will list every page of a website that is in google.
- "define: Hello" = This will define any word you enter.
- "link:http://sycrid.blogspot.com/" = This will show you all the pages that link to your website (other websites)
- "cache:http://sycrid.blogspot.com/" = This will show you the last time google checked your webpage.
- "info:http://sycrid.blogspot.com/" = This will show you the basic information that google holds about your website.
- "related:http://sycrid.blogspot.com/" = This will show you websites that are related to yours.


Anyway the site command is very useful if you want to see website pages that you need to be a member to access... if its a badly developed website. Its useful. lol. =)


I will update this post from time to time.

System Information

As part of my job I often have to ask people to send me information about there computer, this is used by the department that I work in to check that the users system is compatible with our software. Within this blog post, I aim to highlight multiple ways that a user should be able to view system information about a windows machine.

Command Prompt
To open Command Prompt, click on the Start button in the bottom left hand corner of your computer, click on all programs, then accessories and it should appear as a small black icon called Command Prompt. Once open you should see the option to enter text into the new window. What you should see is explained below with an example.

Explanation: Windows Drive\Documents and settings\Username>
Example: C:\Documents and Settings\Marcus>

Once this screen has loaded and you have something similar to what is above, type the command “systeminfo” and then press enter. Once this command has been processed, you will now see a lot of information about your computer. Things that you will see include,

O.S. Name, this is the type of operating system that you are running.
O.S. Manufacturer, this is the operating system manufacturer, should be Microsoft on a Windows Machine.

Registered owner, this is the registered owner of the computer.
Orignal Install date, this was when Windows was originally installed on your computer.
System Uptime, this is the amount of time that your computer has been on
System Manufacturer, this is the manufacturer of your computer.
System Model, this is the model number/name the manufacturer gives the computer.
System Locale, is the location that your computer had windows installed. This is only country specific.

Windows Directory, this is the location where Microsoft Windows is installed on your computer.

Input Locale, this is the region that your keyboard is set up for, only country specific.
Time Zone, this is the time zone that your computer is set to.
Total Physical Memory, is the amount of random access memory (RAM) that you have installed on your machine.
Available Physical Memory is the amount of random access memory (RAM) not currently being used.

System Properties
This is the more common option that people use to see there computers information and at first it will appear like you have very little information about your computer. However this option works like a link to more options. Once you have located the initial window that “system options” appears in. You will also be able to click on tabs at the top to view more details about your computer.

To access “system options” click on your Start button, normally located in the bottom left of your computer screen. From here you should be able to see an icon called “My Computer” on the menu that pops up. You need to right click on “My Computer” and then select “Properties”.

You should now see a new screen appear with the following information. A collection of tabs named (General, Computer Name, Hardware, Advanced, System Restore, Automatic Updates, Remote). Most of the tabs are self explanatory. Advanced gives you access to more advanced controls for your computer, System Restore allows you to restore your computer to a previous date. Remote allows you to share access to your computer with some one else via the internet, this is often useful if you have friends who can fix the problem you are having and it also allows you to access your computer from another location.

Dxdiag
This is the third option that I frequently use. To use this you have to run the command from the run option that is given in your start menu. Click on the Start button in the corner of your screen, once the menu loads up you should see an icon called “Run”. If you click on “Run” you will then have a small text box pop up and in there if you enter “dxdiag” and press ok you will have another window pop up.

Once this final screen called “Dxdiag” pops up, you will see a lot of information about your computer system. There are a few tabs that run across the top of this screen and they will highlight information about different aspects of your system, but the basic system information that you wish to look at, is presented on the first tab called “System”.

This is often the option that most computer gamers prefer to use because it appears to list the more relevant information, when checking if your computer will be compatible with a game or piece of software that you want to install.

Hope that helps you guys out there, if there are any questions, just post them here and I will try and get back to you as soon as possible.