Texas Triangle Sweep !!!

Dreaded Texas Traingle.......really ???

Boston Celtics on Thursday, March 20th of 2008 completed a sweep of the Texas triangle with a 94-90 win over the Dallas Mavericks.

This was the first time since the Celtics of 1987 that any team in the NBA swept the Texas triangle.

Earlier on Monday, Celtics beat defending champions Spurs 93-90 and then ended red-hot Rockets 22 game winning streak with one of the best defensive shows in the season enroute to shutting down the Rockets and Tracy McGrady with a 94-74 win on Tuesday in front of a sell out crowd in Houston.


Texas Triangle Sweep

Celtics have already won the Atlantic division and were the first team to secure a place in the playoffs as early as March 1st week and have maintained an 80% win record overall which includes only 4 loses against a predominately stronger western conference. To add to the impressive record the Celtics have, they have only twice in the season lost a game with double digits and have also had 2 10+ game winning streaks (14 to start the season).

Hopefully, Celtics can keep the intensity going and win it all in 2008.

Go Celtics.....

Texas Triangle Primer

Celtics enter the dreaded Texas triangle

Go Celtics.....

Restore Desktop Icon Positions After Windows Rearranges Layout

More often than with previous versions of Windows, it seems Vista likes to change the desktop icon layout positions without warning after operating system updates, screen resolution changes, or new applications are installed. At first, it's not much of a problem. But as time goes by and you add shortcuts and folders, putting many icons back to where YOU want them position on the desktop, becomes frustrating.

While this problem occurs on all versions of Windows, and not just with Vista, saving and restoring your desktop layout is possible courtesy of a old resource kit utility provided by Microsoft way back in the Windows NT 4.0 days.

Thanks to this tip from jsifaq.com, you can save you desktop icon layout and restore them to the exact positions before they were rearranged by Windows, easily with a right click of the mouse.

- First, you will need to download layout.zip from PC 911 website. After download has completed, unzip layout.zip to your desktop (or folder of your choice).

- Next, copy Layout.dll to C:\Windows\System32 (for Windows XP and Vista) or C:\WINNT\System32 (for older versions of Windows).

- Now double click the file Layout.reg file to automatically add the appropriate changes to your registry.

- If not already, layout the icons on your desktop to the position you want them saved. Then right click on the Recycle Bin and select "Save Desktop Icon Layout".



The icon positions are now saved.

NOTE: Make sure you see the pop up "Desktop Icon Settings Saved" which will verify the desktop layout has been saved. If you do not see the message, right click and select "Save Desktop Icon Layout" again.

Next time Windows rearranges the icon layout again, you can restore the layout by right clicking either:

* My Computer
* Network Neighborhood (My Network Places),
* Recycle Bin

and select "Restore Desktop Icon Layout" to restore the layout back to the way you previously saved it.



You can move the icons around freely, however whenever you want them restored to their original saved positions, right click on Recycle Bin, Network Neighborhood, or My Computer again and select "Restore Desktop Icon Layout" to save the new desktop layout.

UFO's identified

Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience... (Ephesians 2:2)

We want to take this opportunity to speak to the enormous fascination and confusion resulting from the ongoing craze about Unidentified Flying Objects or UFOs. Nearly every day we hear increasingly about supposed UFO activity, alien beings, and their alleged interaction with and even abduction of humans. Reports of visitors from other worlds now permeate our society. Once relegated to the pages of sensationalistic tabloids or fantasy novels, suspected UFO activities are now reported about during the world’s most respected newscasts. During recent times, nearly every newspaper and television magazine program has discussed UFOs and aliens. Radio personality Art Bell became one of the most listened to hosts in history by dedicating multiple hours each night to the discussion of UFOs and the paranormal. Mainstream wire services abound with articles on the subject, asking questions like, "If Aliens Visit Earth, Will They Be Friendly?" and "Speak up ET! Thanks to NASA, If You’re Out There, We’re Listening." The sheer numbers who now report sightings have become dramatically more frequent. Though credibility may be questionable in some cases, and regardless of NASA’s lack of official comment, more than one astronaut has acknowledged that they have actually seen alien craft while in space.

During the last twenty-five years, UFOs have allegedly been sighted over nearly every major city worldwide, as well as over military bases and nuclear sites. From the rural backwoods to the main streets of our cities, sightings of unexplained phenomenon in the skies continue to mount. Entire city populations have witnessed UFO events that local governments could not explain, most notably a saucer-shaped UFO which hovered over downtown Mexico City in broad daylight, producing thousands of eyewitnesses in July of 1997. Pictures and video of that sighting were broadcast around the world. To this date, the much-reported event remains unexplained. It is no wonder that recent polls indicate that a majority of Americans believe that extraterrestrials most likely do exist. The study of UFOs or ufology has now become an obsession for multiple thousands, perhaps millions of people. All of this has contributed to the U.S. government spending millions of tax dollars trying to contact aliens.

Until 1954, only ten thousand people claimed that they had seen a UFO. However, it was around this time that the number of sightings skyrocketed. On November 29, 1973, a Gallup poll reported that fifteen million Americans had personally seen UFOs. Senator Barry Goldwater believed he saw a UFO. Boxer Muhammed Ali and Prince Charles both say they saw UFOs. Actor William Shatner claims that his motorcycle stopped in the desert and UFOs led him to safety. Even former president Jimmy Carter claims to have seen a UFO. Christopher Columbus reportedly saw UFOs four hours before he discovered America in 1492. And then there was the highly publicized sighting that guitarist Jimi Hendrix believed he had at the Woodstock Pop Festival in 1968. However, we surmise in Hendrix’s case that what he thought he saw was probably induced by the LSD he had taken! But what about the millions of others?

Perhaps for us the most impressive barometer of just how expansive the study and discussion of UFOs has become happened during the writing of this book. While researching, we went to the World Wide Web and entered the term "UFO" into the powerful Inktomi search engine, which gleans prospective web sites across the Internet according to any desired search term. The results were staggering. As of mid-July 2000, the Inktomi search engine, which supplies Yahoo, AOL, MSN, Canada.com, and other search engines and directories with data, recorded a whopping 428,405 Internet web sites with information on UFOs! And that is just a partial figure, for the technology used in search engines normally picks up only the sites where embedded keywords actually reflect the exact term being searched for, such as "UFO"! Truly, the phenomenal interest surrounding UFOs has reached uncanny proportions today.

Alien Public Relations
Perhaps Hollywood’s spotlight on the topic has done more to further the UFO craze than any other single thing. Obviously, there has been a constant stream of motion picture and television programming built around outer space, beings from other worlds, and space travel. Leading the way were movies like Close Encounters, Alien, and Star Wars, as well as the extremely popular television and movie series’ "Star Trek" and "The X Files." And of course the blockbuster, ET: The Extra Terrestrial.

Over the years, the improvement in the quality of Hollywood’s presentations has truly been staggering. Great advancements have been made since the early days of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. Now, the electronic age has brought with it the capacity to blend ultra-surrealism with near absolute believability in recent box office hits such as, Armageddon and Independence Day. Coupled with the state-of-the-art theaters of today, filmmakers have been able to employ ingenious electronic special effects, making powerful presentations that have deeply impacted viewers. While the special effects may be phenomenal, Hollywood’s "magic" has left an unmistakable effect of a different sort on the lives of many people. The line between fantasy and reality has become more blurred with each passing year. The realism and tremendous effects leave the impression that there is at least a possibility that what one is viewing could be reality. Adding to this is the volume of actual real-life news reports concerning the very things that are now also supernatural subject matter for the big screen. Through news coverage, in books, and in particular, Hollywood’s capitalization on the subject, there is no doubt that a psychological conditioning of the culture concerning the possible existence of UFOs and alien beings has taken place. However, the question remains: What would we do if and when a UFO should land on the White House lawn? What reaction would Americans have to such an event, let alone a hostile attack such as depicted in Orson Well’s classic radio play and subsequent motion picture War of the Worlds?

Have there been government cover-ups intended to shield us from knowing the truth? Are there really alien beings being held by our military deep in the Nevada desert at the secretive base know only as "Area 51" or elsewhere? Was there really a UFO crash and subsequent news blackout at Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947? If so, who piloted the ill-fated craft and where are the remains of the occupants today? Are we really being visited by beings from outer space? Or are we experiencing an elaborate, well-orchestrated brainwashing in an attempt to make us believe we have otherworldly visitors among us? If so, why and by who?


What Do You Believe?
Here are four scenarios that cover the UFO question.

1. UFOs are a hoax and do not exist. There has undoubtedly been some hoaxing through the years, but the overwhelming weight of evidence suggests that there are indeed vehicles or craft in our physical reality that are unexplained, thus Unidentified Flying Objects.

2. If UFOs exist, they are man-made and merely a part of secret military operations, testing and refining secret technologies around the world. This possibility exists also and certainly could be the case in some instances. But again, the evidence seems to suggest that nothing mankind has invented could be responsible for the majority of the sightings to date.

3. UFOs exist and are piloted by beings from outer space. Questions abound if this is the case. Are they here just observing us? Are they friendly? Or will they eventually become hostile? Are all of the UFOs sighted from the same planet or galaxy, or do we have multiple civilizations visiting us simultaneously?

One would think that if aliens actually desired to make contact that we would have at least one rock-solid, irrefutable close encounter of the third kind, complete with credible eyewitnesses and proof to substantiate it beyond question, before the military could seal off the area and deny everything. If they actually wanted to make contact with us and really are of superior intelligence, wouldn’t you think that by now they would have figured out that the best way to do so is to actually appear and land in a populated area—not Roswell, New Mexico, or Sedona, Arizona? This rather diminishes the argument that New Agers have advanced, which states that aliens are here to teach us and help us stave off elimination as a race. As a New Age author or leader, wouldn’t it do wonders for your ego (and probably your checkbook as well), to believe that otherworldly beings have picked you out of the over five billion inhabitants of earth to communicate their still–secretive agenda to?

We can deduce as well that if alien beings were casing earth for a possible takeover, they would have likely made their move by now. If they can come from other worlds, it stands to reason that their technology, and presumably their intelligence, could overpower us quicker than you can say, "Take me to your leader." No, it appears that so far UFOs have purposely eluded mankind for the most part, being revealed only enough to let the mystique and speculation build to unprecedented heights. We believe this is no accident.

Note that evolutionists and atheists could theoretically line up with any of the three possibilities above, but could never agree with our last scenario, which is the one these authors believe.

4. UFOs are not from another galaxy. It is our personal belief that the UFO/alien phenomenon is one hundred percent inspired and engineered by Satan. They are actually demonic materializations in a very well orchestrated plan to deceive mankind and condition him to accept the supernatural in the end days. Thus, any alien beings that have been sighted or communicated with are demonic in nature. In fact, we believe in the very real possibility that aliens/UFOs could play a defining role in either events surrounding the explanation of the Rapture of the church and/or the subsequent rise to power of the Antichrist. We are not alone in this belief. Some of the greatest Christian minds of this century, including Dr. Walter Martin, thought the same.

The Identity of Aliens
In examining the UFO and alien phenomenon from both a biblical and New Age point of view, there are striking parallels. Though New Agers do not regard alien beings as demons, the information that some New Agers claim to have received from them certainly substantiates our belief that the Bible identifies these previously Unidentified Flying Objects and their occupants.

First, if you wish to study UFOs, you need to visit the occult section of your local library to find information. This in itself should be a tip-off. There you will find books with such titles as, Science and the Paranormal: Probing the Existence of the Supernatural, Creatures from UFOs, and The Supernatural From ESP to UFOs. A perusal of the Internet shows the same mixture of UFO and occult information on many of the same web sites as well. In fact, the array of web pages that correlate New Age beliefs, the occult, and UFOs is blatant and staggering. For example, one web site advertised itself as follows:

"This site contains a huge amount of New Age and Spiritual information including Astrology, Wicca and Pagan, UFOs & ETs, Ascension, Earth Changes, Channellings (sic) Crystals, Dreams, Divination, Angels, Magick, Karma, Meditation and Healing."

Another said: "Channeling, Reiki, new-age, metaphysics, Feng Shui, angels, chakras, spirit, Bortner, masters, healing."

Still another ad said: "New Age Web Works Supports and informs the New Age, UFO, Pagan, Occult and Alternative Spirituality communities."

If aliens really are coming from other planets, why are they so closely linked with the occult? Why would occultists and New Agers have a corner on the market in communicating with aliens, if indeed they were actually from another world? The answer is simple but often ignored. The occult is about one thing—power from or communication with the spirit realm. Though most New Agers believe that aliens have chosen them to communicate with due to their spiritual "enlightenment," that’s not really the case. What has actually attracted these beings who claim to be aliens is the proclivity New Agers have for spiritualism and other occult practices. Occultists and New Agers are versed in communicating with the spirit world—exactly where these "aliens" originate. So associating UFOs, aliens, and the occult together is for us a no-brainer. The outgrowth of the UFO phenomenon is doctrinally rotten. It lines up again and again with the world of the occult—not with God’s Word. If for no other reason, this is why we believe these "aliens" to be nothing but masquerading demonic intruders, who are weaving a deceitful web in order to further trap millions today.

Even without integrating biblical understanding we see that both New Agers and UFO researchers concur, that there is indeed reason to believe that UFOs actually originate from another dimension and not from other planets or galaxies. Jay Allen Hynek, probably the world’s foremost expert on ufology, said: "I do not believe they are coming from another planet. I believe they are coming from a parallel reality." We believe the parallel reality he is referring to would be the non-three dimensional supernatural realm described in the Bible. Entertaining this idea should be no quantum leap for the Christian. After all, Scripture reminds us that the Devil IS the "prince of the power of the air" (Ephesians 2:2) and the "god of this world" (2 Corinthians 4:4). Plus, we have instances throughout Scripture where angels appeared and operated in the natural physical realm in which we live. Let us remind skeptics for example that angels came to Abraham to announce Sarah’s pending pregnancy (Genesis 18). They also came to Sodom and led Lot to safety (Genesis 19). And an angel appeared at the tomb of Christ announcing that He was risen to the two Mary’s (Matthew 29). In the first two instances, the angels were presumably dressed in the garb of the time and ate human food. They all communicated in the earthly languages of those they met as well. This harmonizes perfectly with the warning we are given in Hebrews 13:2 to be careful to entertain strangers for they could be angels. All of this biblical evidence certainly gives good explanation as to how UFOs and their occupants could indeed maintain prolonged physical materialization. To magnify his plan for this age, Satan could, will, and does use many means to deceive his prey. He is the father of lies and illusion and his leash seems to get a bit longer with each passing day as we race toward the climax of the church age and the Tribulation to follow. That plan includes UFOs.

In her 1979 best-seller, Aliens Among Us, Ruth Montgomery broke new ground within the New Age community by laying out a case for the idea that some "humans" had evolved beyond the point of being born or going through childbearing. She believes that these beings who have come from "beyond the veil" are actually living as humans here on earth. She deemed these ETs "walk-ins." Millions say they’ve had past life experiences, which seems to verify the concept of reincarnation, so why not the belief that you were previously an alien life form? Sound far out? Well, there are a number of Internet web sites, some very intellectual, some very weird, that advertise themselves as touch points for these "walk-ins" to meet and share ideas and experiences. The first line on the back of Montgomery’s book reads: "Prepare to meet our wondrous gods from beyond the earth." In researching "walk-ins" we found it interesting that the common denominators appear to be a belief in angels, UFOs, and the occult. To us, this is just one more confirmation that aliens and demons are one in the same.

How To Always Save Tab Session In Internet Explorer 7?

Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) is a little too late coming back into the internet browser game after their infamous win defeating the Netscape Communicator into oblivion in the late 90s with almost all Windows flavors come installed with IE. Since that win, Internet Explorer has seen few upgrades, I mean "few".

With feature-rich browsers like Firefox, Maxthon, Opera and Safari that emerged after that and has been growing non-stop, Microsoft really did have a heavy task at hand. Apart from the popup blocker and phishing filter in the latest IE7, I don't see anything new that could entice me to convert from Firefox back to IE.

Unfortunately, many still use Internet Explorer, most of the time not for its features but for its compatibility with most websites and also the important thing is, it comes along with almost all flavours of Windows including Windows Vista. So, many (the un-enlightened ones ) don't see the need to install an alternative browser on their PC.


I've been using IE7 on and off for sometime now because some of my company websites just don't run on Firefox. I used to use Maxthon (which uses IE as the engine) but due to some unforseen circumstances, I've since fully converted to Firefox. I'm glad to say that I'm a very happy user except for the memory consumption part (as is the problem with tabs browser). I currently have 32 tabs on my Firefox and Windows is consuming some 240MB of memory and 227MB of virtual memory with 15% CPU Usage. However, I doubt Internet Explorer can handle 32 tabs with Windows running smoothly at the same time on my notebook.

One gripe I have with the Internet Explorer 7 is that I cannot set it to "always" save the tab sessions. Whenever I close Internet Explorer 7, I have to make sure I check the "Open these the next time I use Internet Explorer" option.

The next time I close Internet Explorer 7, I've to check the option again. Internet Explorer 7 does not remember my preference and the option always remained uncheck, EVERYTIME!

I've tried searching around to find a remedy to this problem in the form of registry patch or tweak but found none. From the Internet Explorer forum, I found that even the IE developers said that there is no way to make that option checked by default. What the hell... I even tried looking inside the registry, but no luck there as well. I stopped looking soon after that.



Open these the next time I use Internet Explorer

Fortunately, I finally found a solution a few days ago. It comes in the form of an add-on for Internet Explorer. It is known as IE7Pro. IE7Pro is currently in version 1.2 which was released on October 30th, 2007 and weighed in at 1.57MB. I don't know how I didn't come across this earlier. Better late than never I guess. IE7Pro looks like a stripdown version of the Firefox's Tab Mix Plus.

Upon installed, you can find the IE7Pro preferences at the IE7's Tools menu.



IE7Pro Preferences Menu

IE7Pro allows you to customize the tabs behaviour which was not available in the plain vanilla IE7. Besides that, there are quite a few other available customizations as well like AD Blocker, Super Drag and Drop, Mouse Gestures, Shortcut Keys, Alias, Plugin Management and some.



IE7Pro Preferences

But all I am interested in are 'Enable Tab session restore' and 'Close tab when double clicked'. I'd be using the Alias too to add in search engines for easier searching but since I'm using Firefox as my default browser, I don't see the need for that.

Now, you can disable the message that is prompted everytime you close the IE7.



Disable message

So, the next time you open IE7, you will be prompted to choose which tabs that were saved in the previous session that you want opened.



Open saved tabs session

Firefox's Tab Mix Plus not only saves the last session but also the previous to last session. That means if the last session can't be recovered when your browser somehow crashed, you still have the choice to open the previous to last session. This is not available in the default installation of IE7Pro. If you want, you can install an IE7Pro plugin called Session Manager to save and restore multiple sessions.

IE7Pro also opens your default homepage everytime as well as your saved tabs, and there's no way to turn this off. If you open more than one instance of Internet Explorer 7, be warned that IE7Pro doesn't save tab session in the other instances.

IE7Pro should look into improving on these issues and perhaps look into Tab Mix Plus or other add-ons for more inspiration. But I bet that many are already requesting such features in its forums.

Well, at least installing IE7Pro solved the biggest issues I have with Internet Explorer 7. I am now able to save tab sessions and double-click on a tab to close it. That should be enough to make me a happy once-in-a-while user.

Microsoft still has a lot of work to make Internet Explorer 7 at least comparable to the likes of Firefox, Maxthon, Opera or Safari. I'm sure they can do it as they have a great track record in bouncing back and make whatever they do a standard for everyone to follow. The question remains whether they want to do it or not.

Download: IE7 Pro

Choices = Headaches

I'm sure there's a whole team of UI designers, programmers, and testers who worked very hard on the OFF button in Windows Vista, but seriously, is this the best you could come up with?

Image of the menu in Windows Vista for turning off the computer



Every time you want to leave your computer, you have to choose between nine, count them, nine options: two icons and seven menu items. The two icons, I think, are shortcuts to menu items. I'm guessing the lock icon does the same thing as the lock menu item, but I'm not sure which menu item the on/off icon corresponds to.

On many laptops, there are also four FN+Key combinations to power off, hibernate, sleep, etc. That brings us up to 13 choices, and, oh, yeah, there's an on-off button, 14, and you can close the lid, 15. A total of fifteen different ways to shut down a laptop that you're expected to choose from.

The more choices you give people, the harder it is for them to choose, and the unhappier they'll feel. See, for example, Barry Schwartz's book, The Paradox of Choice. Let me quote from the Publishers Weekly review: “Schwartz, drawing extensively on his own work in the social sciences, shows that a bewildering array of choices floods our exhausted brains, ultimately restricting instead of freeing us. We normally assume in America that more options ('easy fit' or 'relaxed fit'?) will make us happier, but Schwartz shows the opposite is true, arguing that having all these choices actually goes so far as to erode our psychological well-being.”

The fact that you have to choose between nine different ways of turning off your computer every time just on the start menu, not to mention the choice of hitting the physical on/off button or closing the laptop lid, produces just a little bit of unhappiness every time.

Can anything be done? It must be possible. iPods don't even have an on/off switch. Here are some ideas.

If you've spoken to a non-geek recently, you may have noticed that they have no idea what the difference is between "sleep" and "hibernate." They could be trivially merged. One option down.

Switch User and Lock can be combined by letting a second user log on when the system is locked. That would probably save a lot of forced-logouts anyway. Another option down.

Once you've merged Switch User and Lock, do you really need Log Off? The only thing Log Off gets you is that it exits all running programs. But so does powering off, so if you're really concerned about exiting all running programs, just power off and on again. One more option gone.

Restart can be eliminated. 95% of the time you need this it's because of an installation which prompted you to restart, anyway. For the other cases, you can just turn the power off and then turn it on again. Another option goes away. Less choice, less pain.

Of course, you should eliminate the distinction between the icons and the menu. That eliminates two more choices. We are down to:

Sleep/Hibernate
Switch User/Lock
Shut Down

What if we combined Sleep, Hibernate, Switch User and Lock modes? When you go into this mode, the computer flips to the "Switch User" screen. If nobody logs on for about 30 seconds, it sleeps. A few minutes later, it hibernates. In all cases, it's locked. So now we've got two options left:

(1) I am going away from my computer now
(2) I am going away from my computer now, but I'd like the power to be really off

Why do you want the power off? If you're concerned about power usage, let the power management software worry about that. It's smarter than you are. If you're going to open the box and don't want to get shocked, well, just powering off the system doesn't really completely make it safe to open the box; you have to unplug it anyway. So, if Windows used RAM that was effectively nonvolatile, by swapping memory out to flash drives during idle time, effectively you would be able to remove power whenever you're in "away" mode without losing anything. Those new hybrid hard drives can make this super fast.

So now we've got exactly one log off button left. Call it "b'bye". When you click b'bye, the screen is locked and any RAM that hasn't already been copied out to flash is written. You can log back on, or anyone else can log on and get their own session, or you can unplug the whole computer.

Inevitably, you are going to think of a long list of intelligent, defensible reasons why each of these options is absolutely, positively essential. Don't bother. I know. Each additional choice makes complete sense until you find yourself explaining to your uncle that he has to choose between 15 different ways to turn off a laptop.

This highlights a style of software design shared by Microsoft and the open source movement, in both cases driven by a desire for consensus and for "Making Everybody Happy," but it's based on the misconceived notion that lots of choices make people happy, which we really need to rethink.

How to fix "Windows Delayed Write Failed" error

CAUSE
This issue may occur if one of the following conditions is true:
• The "Enable write caching on the disk" feature for your disk is turned on.
• Your Ultra Direct Memory Access (UDMA) hard disk controller is configured in either of the following ways:
• You are using a 40-wire connector cable to connect the UDMA drive to the controller instead of the required 80-wire, 40-pin cable.
• The BIOS settings are configured to force faster UDMA modes.


RESOLUTION
To resolve this issue, turn off the "Enable write caching on the disk" feature. To do this, follow these steps.

Note If you turn off the "Enable write caching on the disk" feature, your disk performance may decrease. Because of this, you may want to monitor system performance after you complete the following procedure:
1. In Windows Explorer, right-click your hard-disk, and then click Properties.
2. Click the Hardware tab.
3. Click the hard disk, and then click Properties.
4. Click the Policies tab.
5. Click to clear the Enable write caching on the disk check box, and then click OK two times.
6. Repeat steps 3 through 5 for each hard disk that is installed in your computer.
7. If the issue is resolved, do not continue with the steps in the "Advanced users section." If the issue is not resolved, continue with the steps in the "Advanced users section."


Advanced users section
This section is intended for advanced computer users. If you are not comfortable with advanced troubleshooting, you might want to ask someone for help or contact support. For information about how to do this, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/ (http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/)

1. Make sure that your UDMA hard disk controller is using an 80-wire, 40-pin cable. For information about how to do this, view the documentation that is included with your computer, or contact your UDMA hard disk controller manufacturer. Test to determine whether the issue is resolved. If the issue is resolved, do not continue with the remaining steps. If the issue is not resolved, go to the next step.
2. Warning Do not change the BIOS settings unless you are very familiar with all the effects of changing BIOS settings.

Make sure that the BIOS settings are not configured to force faster UDMA modes. For information about how to do this, view the documentation that is included with your computer, or contact your computer manufacturer. Test to determine whether the issue is resolved.


Delayed Write Failure
Data corruption may occur if the Large System Cache feature is enabled in Windows XP. This problem does not occur on all systems. The key ingredients that lead to data corruption may include the following:
• System memory that is more than 512 megabytes. (1 gigabyte of RAM is common.)
• Large NTFS disk volumes and multiple large volumes. (60-100 gigabyte hard drives, possibly in RAID arrays.)
• AGP graphics with large AGP resource requirements (More than the default AGP aperture)
• Large file transfers. This problem occurs when the computer runs out of system page table entries. When the computer is started, Windows determines the default number of page table entries to assign, based on how much system memory available.
The conditions listed here all contribute to increasing the number of page table entries that Windows XP must maintain, and in extreme cases the page table entries may be exhausted. To avoid this problem, make sure that the System Cache option is not selected for Memory usage.
To do this, follow these steps:
1. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties to open the System Properties dialog box.
2. Click the Advanced tab, and then under Performance click Settings.
3. Under Performance Options, click the Advanced tab.
4. Under Memory Usage, click to select Programs, if it is not already selected.
5. Click OK.


WORKAROUND
To work around this issue, increase the value for the page table entries. To do this, follow these steps.

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

322756 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756/) How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Locate the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
3. In the details pane, right-click the SystemPages value, and then click Modify.
4. In the Value data box, type the following value, and then click OK:
FFFFFFFF
5. Exit Registry Editor.
Note The FFFFFFFF value is okay to use. However, a value that is more than the default value but less than the maximum value may provide better results.

Resharper survival guide

Great tutorial by Joe White explaining features of resharper 3.1, which is a great plug-in tool for refactoring in Visual Studio.


Resharper survival guide

Visual C# Keybinding reference poster

Wall chart showing useful keyboard shortcuts for Visual C# programming language

Keyboard binding poster