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If you would like to temporarily block SP2 (Service Pack 2) for Windows XP from downloading via Automatic Updates or Windows Update, then you can use this tool:

XP2 Blocking/Unblocking Tool

You may also unblock SP2 from being downloaded via these to sources with this tool as well.

written by Ian Brown

Do you have an old PC that you don’t know what to do with?

Well, in an article by cnet.com, they suggest the following:

1. Use it to protect your home network
2. Turn it into a Linux learning lab [Linux is an alternative Operating System to Windows)
3. Donate or recycle it

The article even includes a video tutorial which will show you how to do Suggestion #1.

I’d like to add an option:

Rebuild It

Many times, rebuilding a computer can be much less expensive than buying a new PC. And you don’t have to do it all at once, either. You can do it piece by piece like many of my clients have done. And just so you know, you can continue to use it in between the upgrades.

Source of article: Thanks, Georgia

written by Ian Brown

If you are having problems viewing your faxes in Microsoft Fax Console, then all you have to do is download a patch and install it.

This is a known issue with Microsoft Fax Console and is caused by installing a third party application that conflicts with it.

Here is the article on this issue.

And you can download the patch that will fix this problem here.

Just click on “Download” on the right-hand side of the page. Once you have downloaded it, double-click it to install.

written by Ian Brown

If you are looking for a free alternative to Microsoft Office, check out OpenOffice. It has every application that MS Office has except an equivalent to MS Outlook.

Go here for a flash tour of OpenOffice (it’s for an older version, but you’ll get the gist of it). Or view a PDF presentation (you need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view it) here.

Download OpenOffice here.

written by Ian Brown

Is CiceroUIWndFrame not allowing you to shut down your computer without you having to manually click “end task”? Well, there is an easy fix for this.

Here it is:

Cause: The Speech and Handwriting Recognition features of Microsoft Office XP

Solution: Uninstall them

Instructions (for Windows XP)

1. START>CONTROL PANEL>Add/Remove Programs
2. Select Microsoft Office XP and click the “Change” button
3. “Add or Remove Features…” should be selected; click NEXT
4. Click the “+” sign next to “Office Shared Features”
5. Click the “+” sign next to “Alternative User Input”
6. Click the disk icon with the down arrow next to “Speech” and select the red X, “Not Available”
7. Do the same for “Handwriting”
8. Click the “Update” button at the bottom of the window
9. After it does its thing, click “Finish” or “Close” or whatever it says to close the window
10. Done!

(click to enlarge)

The next time you shut down, it may give you the message one more time, but after that, you should be good to go.

written by Ian Brown

I thought I would let everyone know that if you are selling something that you think will sell well on eBay, then it is definitely worth it to use their Featured Plus! feature. It only costs $19.95, and it will put your listing on the first page of the search results when someone searches for your type of item. If you’re lucky, it will be toward the top of the first page. It just depends how many other people have their listing in the featured section. However, based on experience, not many do relative to the total amount of people that list the same item. And it will also list it in the regular listings where it would normally appear. EBay claims that it will increase the amount of bids that you get by 65%, on average. And it seems as though their stats are pretty accurate, as I saw this in action (read below).

Another feature that they claim will increase the final bid by 25% is Highlight feature. This feature adds a purple background to your listing, and only costs an extra $5.

They also have the Bold feature ($1), which bolds the text in your listing, and the Border feature ($3), which puts a blue border around the background of your listing.

Just to give you an idea of how well these features work, I helped a friend of mine sell his very valuable comic book on eBay, and the first day we put it up, it only had received 2 bids within the first two hours, and it was only up to $6.05. So, I suggested that he use all of the features that I mentioned above since the book was worth so much. He agreed.

Literally within 10 minutes there were 4 bids, and the bid had jumped from $6.05 up to $910! The reason for this is that after the above features were added (and you can add them even after you have started the auction), his comic book was added to the top section of the first page with the text bolded, the background color changed to purple, and a blue border placed around the purple background. It really stood out, and was one of the first listings that people saw when they did a search for the type of comic book he was selling. It really blew my mind how fast it worked.

The auction is still going on at the time of this writing, so I can not comment on the number of bids or the final price, but I will update this post when it ends.

But if you do plan on selling something on eBay, do yourself a favor and consider the above features. They really work!

written by Ian Brown