Cool Melon juice for everyone

A computer that is still in a good condition and that has been used by different users for around 3 years, needed a bit of attention. It had lots of programs that had been installed during all this time and lots of old files in different user profiles. There were start up applications that were just slowing the machine when it was switched on and that were not necessary anymore.  I decided to try to leave it as “new” without re-installing windows completely and I did manged it after I solved a small problem I will describe here.

I uninstalled all the programs that were not used anymore and some that were not necessary at all, like the “Microsoft Live” applications (Mail, picture viewer, live bar, etc., etc.) that one user installed by accident when it was offered them while checking his hotmail email, and that put the computer almost in state of “coma”.

Everything was OK until I tried to delete a user network profile using System Properties (”Start” -> “Control Panel” ->”System”->”Advanced”->”Settings”  or right click on “My Computer” -> “Properties” -> “Advanced” -”User Profiles: Setting”)

When I tried to delete the old profiles, created from users connected to the network, I got an error that started with the following line:

Cannot delete usrclass.dat files

I tried a few things without success. At the end the solution was as simple as to start the computer in “Safe Mode with not network drivers”.

After deleting all the files and profiles, I ran “Disk Cleanup” and deleted everything that was ticked including “Compressed old files”, and finally I ran “Disk Defragmenter”.  Now the computer is running better than when we bought it new (because I also un-installed some programs that were installed when it was new that were never used)

I found the solution at this forum

Please leave a comment if you found is useful.

… or maybe better than the arm we have?

This video shows the development on robotics and human prosthesis, and at the same time it makes me think about how intelligent was whoever created us, by evolution or by design, and how far are we still from replicating this creation. But slowly, I’m sure, by putting all the inventions and discoveries together, we are going to be able to match one day what evolution took millions of years to create. Well, only if we have enough time before we destroy our planet and ourselves.

If only we could find the human “maps”, “plan” or “formula” used by our creators, then we could just keep on improving the design instead of starting from scratch.

Enjoy and be amazed by this video:

I just installed Chrome, the new browser from Google and it’s fast and it looks very clean. Unfortunately at the moment it only works in Windows. I hope to see the Linux and Mac versions soon.

Click here to go to the download page

Very clean interface, no menus and tool bars filling the space:

When you open a new Tab or Window, automatically it show the pages that you use more often:

You don’t need to know the full “address” for the website you are looking for, just start typing the name or whatever you want to search or any words related to it, and the browser will show you the more likely results that match the words criteria:

I have been reading about Chrome, the new browser from Google, and I’m very excited about the possibilities that it is going to offer to “work” the Internet, as a browser and as a platform for developing new applications. At Google they have created a “comic” to explain it, it is so easy that even not technical people can follow it. I have to say that the ideas on security are really good, I hope they work as intended.

Have a look at how Chrome works here: The Chrome Comic

When I saw the robot called BigDog in the next link, I almost felt pain for the effort it was doing to climb  or going through the icy patch. It is almost like an “animal” without a head. But you have to see it to believe it:

BigDog: The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth

If you haven’t hear about this yet then have a look at these videos from the BBC and be impressed, because this is the future of energy generation.

Hydrogen car put through paces

Hydrogen car launched

Running on home-brewed hydrogen

Even though Safari from Apple seems to be a very good browser, having moved from the world of PCs and Windows to Mac quite recently, I’m still faithful to my favorite browser: Firefox. Why? The main reason for me is the amazing world of extensions, but specially NoScript, the extension that keep my computers sane and healthy.

Well, but this post is not about NoScript, it is about a small annoyance with the interactivity between Firefox and Mac: I couldn’t open the Mac Dictionary when selecting words in Firefox. Today I found an extension called “Look Up in Dictionary 0.1” that just create that connection between these two programs, and finally I can search from any word on the Mac dictionary from Firefox as I do from email, safari, skype, etc., etc. It add the missing Look Up in Dictionary option to the options menu when selecting a word.

Sometimes I wonder how many people bother with these problems. Let me know if you find this post useful