Show Correct Icons In Gallery View In Windows OS

I use Windows OS. My image files are showing incorrect icons. How do I make it show correct icons?

To clarify, say you have a folder filled with image or photo files, and you view those files in gallery view (this view option is called Icons in Windows OS). This view allows you to see images of those files in smaller size so that you get an idea of what image each file contains, rather than having to open each file in Microsoft Paint or some image or photo application to view it. The problem is sometimes you see incorrect or stale images. You open the file and it shows correct image. You close it and the icon image is still wrong.

This has happened to me several times before and to my surprise and dismay, hitting Refresh does NOT solve it Later I came across a fix, which is to change the view to List or Details, and then change it back to Icons. With any luck you should now be seeing correct icons.

If not let me know!

Initial Services Installed On Windows 7

Menu
What are Windows Services?
List of Initial Services
Which Services Can I Turn Off?

A couple of days ago I got my new Acer laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium on it and I immediately copied down the initial services installed on it because if I start downloading and installing software then this list will get bigger and I'll have no idea what services are important.. I'd like to share them with you :-) Questions?

What are Windows Services?
A Window service is a program that is registered with Windows operating system as a service, and can be configured to run automatically at system startup. The service, once runs, can stop or continue running depending on its purpose. Some services are critical and MUST run while others are merely additional features or functions that you may or may not want. You don't have to worry about accidentally unchecking critical services because when system starts up it'll automatically run critical services. Questions?

You can access your system's services by click Start -> type "msconfig" then enter -> click Services tab. Once you make changes reboot to have them reflected. You don't have to worry about making a mistake because you can always revert your changes later.

Many people want to know what services are essential and what are not so that we can turn off the unimportant ones to make our computers run faster.

List of Initial Services
Below is the list of names, manufacturers, and statuses of services that come with my Acer laptop. I'll also talk about what services you can turn off to speed up your computer.

Service	Manufacturer	Status
Acer ePower Service	Acer Incorporated	Running
ActiveX Installer (AxInstSV)	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Adaptive Brightness	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Agere Modem Call Progress Audio	LSI Corporation	Running
Application Experience	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Application Identity	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Application Layer Gateway Service	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Background Intelligent Transfer Service	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Base Filtering Engine	Microsoft Corporation	Running
BitLocker Drive Encryption Service	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Block Level Backup Engine Service	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Bluetooth Support Service	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Certificate Propagation	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
CNG Key Isolation	Microsoft Corporation	Running
COM+ Event System	Microsoft Corporation	Running
COM+ System Application	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Computer Browser	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Credential Manager	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Cryptographic Services	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Desktop Window Manager Session Manager	Microsoft Corporation	Running
DHCP Client	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Diagnostic Policy Service	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Diagnostic Service Host	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Diagnostic System Host	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Disk Defragmenter	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Distributed Link Tracking Client	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Distributed Transaction Coordinator	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
DNS Client	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Encrypting File System (EFS)	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Extensible Authentication Protocol	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Fax	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Function Discovery Provider Host	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Function Discovery Resource Publication	Microsoft Corporation	Running
GameConsoleService	WildTangent, Inc.	Stopped
Google Software Updater	Google	Stopped
Google Update Service (gupdate)	Google Inc.	Stopped
GRegService	Acer Incorporated	Running
Group Policy Client	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Health Key and Certificate Management	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
HomeGroup Listener	Microsoft Corporation	Running
HomeGroup Provider	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Human Interface Device Access	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
IKE and AuthIP IPsec Keying Modules	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Intel(R) Matrix Storage Event Monitor	Intel Corporation	Running
Interactive Services Detection	Microsoft Corporation	Running
IP Helper	Microsoft Corporation	Running
IPsec Policy Agent	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
KtmRm for Distributed Transaction Coordinator	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Link-Layer Topology Discovery Mapper	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
McAfee Anti-Spam Service	McAfee, Inc.	Stopped
McAfee Application Installer Cleanup	McAfee, Inc.	Stopped
McAfee Network Agent	McAfee, Inc.	Stopped
McAfee Personal Firewall Service	McAfee, Inc.	Stopped
McAfee Proxy Service	McAfee, Inc.	Stopped
McAfee Real-time Scanner	McAfee, Inc.	Running
McAfee Scanner	McAfee, Inc.	Stopped
McAfee Services	McAfee, Inc.	Stopped
McAfee SiteAdvisor Service	McAfee, Inc.	Stopped
McAfee SystemGuards	McAfee, Inc.	Running
Microsoft .NET Framework NGEN v2.0.50727_X64	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Microsoft .NET Framework NGEN v2.0.50727_X86	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Microsoft iSCSI Initiator Service	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Microsoft Office Diagnostics Service	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Multimedia Class Scheduler	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Netlogon	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Network Access Protection Agent	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Network Connections	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Network List Service	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Network Location Awareness	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Network Store Interface Service	Microsoft Corporation	Running
NTI Backup Now 5 Backup Service	NewTech InfoSystem, Inc.	Stopped
NTI Backup Now 5 Scheduler Service	NewTech InfoSystem, Inc.	Running
NTI IScheduleSvc	NewTech InfoSystem, Inc.	Running
Office Source Engine	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Parental Controls	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Partner Service	Google Inc.	Stopped
Peer Name Resolution Protocol	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Peer Networking Grouping	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Peer Networking Identity Manager	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Performance Counter DLL Host	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Performance Logs & Alerts	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
PnP-X IP Bus Enumerator	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
PNRP Machine Name Publication Service	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Portable Device Enumerator Service	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Power	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Print Spooler	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Problem Reports and Solutions Control Panel Support	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Program Compatibility Assistant Service	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Protected Storage	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Quality Windows Audio Video Experience	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Remote Access Auto Connection Manager	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Remote Access Connection Manager	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Remote Desktop Configuration	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Remote Desktop Services	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Remote Registry	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
RPC Endpoint Mapper	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Secondary Logon	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol Service	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Security Accounts Manager	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Security Center	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Server	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Shell Hardware Detection	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Smart Card	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Smart Card Removal Policy	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
SNMP Trap	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
SPP Notification Service	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
SSDP Discovery	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Superfetch	Microsoft Corporation	Running
System Event Notification Service	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Tablet PC Input Service	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Task Scheduler	Microsoft Corporation	Running
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Telephony	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Themes	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Thread Ordering Server	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
TPM Base Services	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Updater Service	Acer	Running
UPnP Device Host	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Virtual Disk	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Volume Shadow Copy	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
WebClient	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Windows Audio	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Windows Audio Endpoint Builder	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Windows Backup	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Windows Biometric Service	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Windows CardSpace	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Windows Color System	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Windows Connect Now - Config Registrar	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Windows Defender	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Windows Driver Foundation - User-mode Driver Framework	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Windows Error Reporting Service	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Windows Event Collector	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Windows Event Log	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Windows Firewall	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Windows Font Cache Service	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Windows Installer	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Windows Management Instrumentation	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Windows Media Center Receiver Service	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Windows Media Center Scheduler Service	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Windows Modules Installer	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Windows Presentation Foundation Font Cache 3.0.0.0	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Windows Remote Management (WS-Management)	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Windows Search	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Windows Time	Microsoft Corporation	Running
Windows Update	Microsoft Corporation	Running
WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Wired AutoConfig	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
WLAN AutoConfig	Microsoft Corporation	Running
WMI Performance Adapter	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped
Workstation	Microsoft Corporation	Running
WWAN AutoConfig	Microsoft Corporation	Stopped

Which Services Can I Turn Off?
In general you wouldn't want to mess with them too much because you might turn off a service of a dependency of one that plays sound from your speakers, browses the Internet, prints document, etc. If you are an advanced user you can turn off services that are unimportant judging by their names. In the above list I'd turn off services with McAfee and Google because they are not essential to the operating system. Then I'd turn off services I don't need such as Bluetooth Support Service, Windows Firewall (I use Sygate firewall), Smart Card, Parental Controls, etc. Questions?

One way to absolutely know the minimum services you need simply uncheck one service and reboot and test. If you can hear audio, browse the net, etc., then proceed with unchecking the next service. If unchecking one fails the test check it back.

Any questions or comments let me know!

How I Recovered My Acer Aspire Laptop

When I got my Acer Aspire 7736Z laptop it has Windows 7 installed on it. I wanted to install Windows XP on it because it supports many software applications I like that Windows 7 doesn't support. So I set the laptop to boot from CD in BIOS and popped in a Windows XP disk, and rebooted it. Throughout the process I had so much frustration that I decided to get recovery CDs from Acer and recover my laptop to factory state, during which process I also had massive frustration Read on to find what issues I encountered and managed to resolve.

Issue #1: Blue screen of death
I had the laptop boot from CD and rebooted it and it got to loading files from the Windows XP disk I put in the DVD-Rom drive. Then all of a sudden I saw this blue screen saying something like:

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent further damage to your computer.
If this is the first time you have seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Disable or uninstall any anti-virus, disk defragmentation or backup utilities. Check your hard drive for configuration, and check for any updated drivers. Run CHKDSK/F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.

Technical information:
STOP: 0x00000024 (0x00190444, 0x866663A0, 0xc0000102, 0x00000000)

I researched this issue and found it's due to WIndows XP not being able to read a SATA drive. To resolve it simply go to BIOS and set SATA mode from AHCI to IDE then reboot. I did and I no longer saw this blue screen of death.

Issue #2: Infinite loop of booting
So I got to the point where Windows seems to finish the first part of installation, and it's prompting me that it'll restart and finish the last part. When it rebooted, however, it read from CD again and got into Windows XP installation from scratch again. This was happening because the system was told to boot from CD. So I took out the CD and rebooted. Then it just went into the infinite loop of initial Acer screen, a flashing cursor, initial Acer screen, a flashing cursor.

Let's recover my laptop to its factory state
Looks like installing Windows XP is a no go. I decided to get Acer's eRecovery disks and get my laptop to its original state. A few days later I got those disks in the mail.

Those CDs should include one System CD, three recovery CDs, and one language CD. The process of recovering is simple: insert System CD and have your laptop boot from CD, and insert the recovery CDs as prompted by the dialog. Sounds simple right? WRONG!! When I inserted the first recovery disk I got this exact error:

FAIL to format Disk 0 partition 1
I clicked OK and the laptop rebooted and I was back to square one How frustrating!!!

Issue #3: Post Acer Disk Formatter CD ISO Image Does Not Work
I called Acer support again and they asked me to download the Post Acer Disk Formatter CD ISO Image and burned the image onto a CD. This should be the first CD to run and is supposed to format your disk properly. I booted from this CD and followed the instructions from the dialogs and it prompted me to insert the first recovery disk which I did and it gave me the same error:

FAIL to format Disk 0 partition 1
So we are back to square one. Why am I not surprised? There are always setbacks like this hindering a smooth recovery process. That's just a fact of life So back to how to resolved it. I realized that I still have SATA mode set to IDE in BIOS. I popped in my Windows XP disk again and got to the point where it asks me which partition to install the operating system on, and I saw only C drive. I immediately deleted that partition with key D and key L and quit the setup process. Then I changed SATA mode to AHCI in BIOS. Then inserted "Post Acer Disk Formatter CD ISO Image" disk, then 1st recovery disk, and voila! The error is GONEEEEEEEEE Then I proceeded with the second disk, then third, etc. as prompted. And I got my Windows 7 back! Woohoo

If you have a troubled Acer laptop and are trying to recover it to its factory state, chances are the recovery CDs Acer sent you won't work without some finesse. Hope you've got your answers from this post. If not describe your problem here and I'll see if I can help you :-)

Add Labels To A Post Via Google's Java Blogger API

Many bloggers using Google Blogger Java API are wondering how to set the labels of a post via their API, and I found a solution after much trial and error For those who don't know a label is a field of a post where you can put in a comma-delimited list of words that describe this post. In the Blogger admin page it looks like this:



For example this post you are reading right now is about how to create labels for a post through Blogger's Java API, and it can have "Blogger,Java" as the labels. Doing so in the admin page is easy, but what about doing so programmatically via Blogger API?

Here's what you do:

Import necessary Java Blogger API libraries
They include but not limited to the following:

import com.google.gdata.client.blogger.BloggerService;
import com.google.gdata.data.Entry;
import com.google.gdata.data.Category;
import com.google.gdata.data.PlainTextConstruct;
import com.google.gdata.data.HtmlTextConstruct;
import java.net.URL;

Create an entry instance
Use Blogger API to create an entry that simulates an actual blog post.

Entry myEntry = new Entry();
myEntry.setTitle(new PlainTextConstruct("some title"));
myEntry.setContent(new HtmlTextConstruct("some HTML body"));
// set whatever further attributes you want...

Get reference to categories of the entry instance
Set categories=myEntry.getCategories();


Create a Category
Create a Category as follows. Note you need to set label and labelLang to null. And you MUST set scheme properly. I would think if I didn't setLabel and setLabelLang they'd be set to null by default, but it turns out that's not true.

Category category= new Category();
category.setTerm("whatever label you like such as Google Blogger or Java API");
category.setLabel(null);
category.setScheme("http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#");
category.setLabelLang(null);

Add the category to the categories reference
Use the following code to add the category we just created to the reference to categories.

categories.add(category);


To create more categories simply repeat the step above and this step. Do NOT concatenate them with commas and set it via setTerm(). For example suppose you want to add "Java API,Google Blogger" as the labels. You'd create a category for "Java API" (let's call it categoryJavaApi) and a category for "Google Blogger" (let's call it categoryGoogleBlogger) and add them to the categories reference like the following:

categories.add(categoryJavaApi);
categories.add(categoryGoogleBlogger);

Any questions?

Create this post on your blog via API
// suppose your blog ID is 123456
URL postUrl = new URL("http://www.blogger.com/feeds/123456/posts/default");
myService.insert(postUrl, myEntry);


That's it! If you encounter any difficulty don't hesitate to let me know!

By the way some people are wondering how to retrieve all categories of a blog, with duplicates removed. Here's how you do it.

How to retrieve all categories of a blog via Java API

public static void printAllPosts(GoogleService myService, String blogId)
  throws ServiceException, IOException {
  // Standard way to request the blog given blog ID
  URL feedUrl = new URL("http://www.blogger.com/feeds/" 
    + blogID + "/posts/default");
  Feed resultFeed = myService.getFeed(feedUrl, Feed.class);

  // Loop through and put every post's categories in a HashSet
  Set categories=new HashSet();
  for (int i = 0; i < resultFeed.getEntries().size(); i++) {
  Entry entry = resultFeed.getEntries().get(i);
  categories.addAll(entry.getCategories());
  }

  // Now variable 'categories' contains all unique categories!
}

Questions? Let me know!

Install Cherokee from PPA

Lately I've been researching different options for web servers and I've been keeping my eye on Cherokee. I've been watching it for some time and have seen that the project is very active, but so far I haven't tried it out. After checking that the Ubuntu repositories did not contain the latest version Cherokee I decided to look for a PPA. Thankfully there is an up to date PPA with packages for all the latest distributions of Ubuntu. Here are the steps that got me set up on Ubuntu 10.04:

1. Add the PPA to our sources.list. If you are running 9.10 and above you can run this command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cherokee-werbserver/ppa

But if you are running 9.04 or lower you will need to add them manually:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/cherokee-webserver/ppa/ubuntu UBUNTU_VERSION main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/cherokee-webserver/ppa/ubuntu UBUNTU_VERSION main

2. Now update sources and install Cherokee. It is only necessary to install cherokee. The other two packages are for SSL and server statistics respectively.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cherokee libcherokee-mod-libssl libcherokee-mod-rrd

Once apt-get finishes you should have a fully functioning Cherokee web server. If you fire up your browser and head over to http://IP_ADDRESS_OF_MACHINE/ (e.g. http://localhost/ if you you are using the same machine that you installed on). You should be greeted with the Cherokee default page which is slightly more informative than Apache's "It Works."

Now you are of course wondering how to configure Cherokee right? Well apparently you really shouldn't have to edit configuration files by hand (see picture last paragraph). There is a very well put together web application distributed with Cherokee called cherokee-admin. This webapp can be deployed by opening a terminal and launching this command:

sudo cherokee-admin &

This will launch the webapp and give you the username, password, and URL with which you can access it. It is meant to be launched only when you need it for security and performance reasons. That was as far as I got with my install of Cherokee, but I will be trying out Drupal, Wordpress, and other CMS systems with it to see how well it performs.

Eclipse Install with Lucid

I am merely posting this to give a quick update to the process for installing Eclipse with Lucid. It seems that the Ubuntu repositories have finally caught up with the latest release of Eclipse so there is no need to download the package off of the Eclipse website. Just a few terminal commands will do it:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install eclipse

This should work quite well and it will install Eclipse SDK 3.5.2. You can then proceed as usual with your normal set-up and install of plugins with Eclipse. Enjoy!

how to start mysql on windows

I installed MySQL server but mysqld.exe in the bin directory won't start. What should I do?

The following solution applies to MySQL version 14.7 Distrib 4.1.21 for Win32, but it may apply to your version as well. If you've installed MySQL on windows but when you try to execute mysqld.exe to start MySQL server daemon in vain (the command returns immediately if you run it in a terminal or a window pops up and closes immediately if you double click mysqld.exe) try the following:

* Make sure you are in the right directory: Your default location should be \mysql\bin

* Check your error log at \mysql\data\.err

If none of the above helps you might have installed MySQL as a windows service. In that case go to Start -> Run... -> Type "msconfig" -> Services. Then check the checkbox corresponding to "MySQL" Service. Restart your computer.

Once your computer has been restarted go to Windows Task Manager (right click anywhere in the windows toolbar and pick Task Manager) and see in the Processes tab if you see mysqld.exe or mysqld-nt.exe running depending on your machine and setup.

Hope it helps