iTunes is klunky and slow. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to download your music to your iPod without being aggravated with iTunes? You might be shocked to find there are several options. Here are the top selections for iTunes alternatives.

1. CopyTrans Suite - Manage playlists, rate songs, transfer album artwork and copy songs to iPod. All this in a download that’s under 1MB. This is my preferred software for my new Nano.

2. Banshee - The top choice for Linux users. Mange your music, make CD’s and sync with your music player. Sorry Windows and Mac owners, there is no version for you.

3. Songbird - Built around the Mozilla web browser. Has iPod support with a third-party extension. Many more extensions are available as well as themes, so it can do almost anything you want it to. Available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

These are the 3 that I am familiar with. There are other options that are a bit outdated. Floola seems popular, but you have to run iTunes once and copy a file to your iPod. That seems to defeat the purpose. I remember GKTPOD worked with my old iPod, but the open-source project seems inactive leaving me to believe that it won’t work with many newer devices. Yamipod looks promising, but I haven’t tried it yet. Enjoy any of these. Anything prevent iTunes and QuickTime from bogging down your system right?

I recently had software that was stuck at a point where it was trying to install the Microsoft .NET Framework during the installation. It failed over and over because the installer wasn’t able to remove and reinstall the files it needed to. Luckily I was able to manually remove the .NET Framework 2.0 so that I could reinstall it using these steps:

These steps were written for Windows XP users but will work in other versions of Windows.

1. Hold down the Windows Key and press R to bring up the Run box.

2. Type installer in the Open box, then click OK.

3. Click View > Details.

4. Right-click the Name column header, and then click Comments.

5. Right-click and choose Uninstall on any file that says Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 RTL x86 under the Comments column.

6. Close the Installer folder.

Read more… »

Yesterday, I had two friends email me about their problems with the Antivirus 2009 malware that infected their machine. They both suggested that I make a post about it. This software is apparently a widespread problem. It acts like it’s antivirus software when it’s really a virus itself.

Since the software uses randomly generated registry keys and filenames, it’s difficult to provide instructions on how to manually uninstall Antivirus 2009. However there is software available called Malwarebytes that will scan your computer and get rid of it easily for you. You can download Malwarebytes here.

Here are some notes sent to me from a friend on how he manually removed Antivirus 2009:

Read more… »

When you you try to install iTunes on your Windows PC, you get an error that matches or is similar to the following:

C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\crazynumber\iTunes801Setup[1].exe is not a valid Win 32 application.

To try to fix this issue, preform the following steps:

1. Delete all of the versions of the iTunes installation program from your computer. Then download a new copy. When prompted, Save the file to the Desktop instead of Running or Opening the file.

2. Open Internet Explorer.

3. Select Tools > Delete Browsing History.

4. Hit the Delete files… under the Temporary Internet Files section.

5. Click Yes when prompted. IE will then work on clearing the files.

6. Click Close.

7. Close Internet Explorer.

8. Install your newly downloaded copy of the iTunes setup program from the file on your Desktop.

See also: iTunes: Windows reports that iTunesSetup.exe is not a “valid Win32 application”

I don’t have a CD-drive on one of my Windows XP computers, but I need the ability to view the contents of a new CD each month. I have ISO images available as a replacement. Luckily Microsoft makes a tool available so that I can open and view the files in an ISO file. It emulates a CD-ROM drive on my computer.

1. Download the Microsoft Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel package here

2. Extract the files to your desktop, then copy the VCdRom.sys file to your %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder. For most people, this is under C:\Windows\system32\drivers.

3. Open the VCdControlTool.exe file.

4. Click Driver Control…

5. Click Install Driver then navigate to the %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder and double-click VCdRom.sys.

6. Click Start.

7. Click OK.

8. Click Add Drive. A drive letter will be added under My Computer.

9. Select an unused drive letter from the drive list and click Mount.

10. Navigate and select to the ISO image file you wish to mount, then click OK. UNC naming conventions should not be used, however mapped network drives should be OK.

What if you need to mount and use a DVD ISO image or have a different version of Windows such as Vista? I have had good luck with MagicISO for working with both DVD’s and CD-ROM images files. It’s Freeware, so no worries about having to pay a license fee.

In Google Chrome, you can disable and prevent the Blocked Pop-up box from appearing at the bottom of the window whenever you open a site with pop-ups.

Read more… »

I wish that iTunes had a queue next song feature in my playlists. You can’t do this in your normal Library list or any of the custom playlists you make. Instead,  you have to put the songs in your Party Shuffle to queue a song to play next.

The Party Shuffle contains a menu when you right-click a song for Play Next in Party Shuffle.

You may ask How do I add songs to the Party Shuffle? Just right click the song in your normal playlist and select Add to Party Shuffle.

When trying to use Windows Live Messenger (WLM) you get an error when trying to login:

We were unable to sign you in to Windows Live Messenger, possibly because of a problem with the service or with your Internet connection. Please make sure that you are connected to the Internet.

Error code: 81000306

To try to solve this problem, follow these steps:

1. Click Start > Run and type regsvr32 Mssip32.dll

2. Click Start > Run and type regsvr32 Initpki.dll

3. Click Start > Run and type regsvr32 Softpub.dll

Click OK when they are registered successfully.

Restart the computer and see if WLM works now.

I am a heavy user of WordPress. On several occasions I have had a problem where the right-sidebar has fallen to the bottom of the page. I have wasted hours trying to figure out why this happens and on each occasion I have encountered it, I have found different problems. I have gained a bigger understanding of what causes this problem. Here are some steps you can check.

• Happens on only one of the pages that is not an individual post (i.e. main page, category page or any page that uses index.php to display the page)? The problem might be with one of the individual posts displayed on the page. This happened to me when I copied and pasted a post out of Microsoft Word. The post turned out to have an unclosed </DIV> tag because when you use the READMORE option, it doesn’t close it out properly on the main index pages. I’ve found that this is the most common problem when the sidebar falls to the bottom. It’s common in Firefox, but IE tends to not care. Try temporarily setting each post on the page to Unpublished to see which one is causing the issue.
• Does the problem happen if you try to use a different theme? The theme may not be compatible with the version of WordPress you are using. Solution: Change theme.
• Happens on more than one page? Check the Previous Page and individual/single posts. Check different pages that use different templates to display the page. If it does happen on all of your pages, the problem may be with the sidebar.php. This file loads on multiple pages. Perhaps a </DIV> tag is missing somewhere. Also test and see if there is a problem with one of the widgets you have loading in the sidebar. One of them may be too wide for the sidebar. Try disabling all widgets except for the META one to see if you can trace the problem down to one widget. This is a common problem in IE, but may not happen in other browsers like Firefox.
• Happening on individual posts ONLY? If so, check single.php for a missing </DIV> tag or another problem.

Well that’s my experience with this issue. I hope that some of my rambling has clued you in on some of the things to try to solve the problem.

On one of my Mac’s, I had a problem with iTunes 8 where the songs from one album showed as split up as though they were on different albums in Grid View. Here is a screen shot (source).

To fix this problem, perform the following steps:

1. Highlight all of the tracks on the album.

2. Right-click on one of them and select Get Info.

3. Type a space at the end of the Album Artist. Click OK when done.

4. Right-click on the tracks again and go back to Get Info.

5. Take the space out at the end and click OK.

This totally works! It somehow resets iTunes into knowing all of the tracks are on the same album.

When trying to update AVG Anti-Virus 8, you get an error:

Invalid Update Control CTF File

To fix this problem follow these steps:

1. Navigate to:

WinXP: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Avg8\update\download

Vista: C:\ProgramData\avg8\update\download

2. Delete avginfoavi.ctf and avginfowin.ctf.

Now try to update AVG again.

See also: Error “Invalid Update Control CTF File” when updating AVG Anti-Virus 8.0

I accidentally close the wrong tab before I get to bookmark the site all the time. Thankfully, Google Chrome for Windows has the ability to reopen tabs you may have closed accidentally.

Simply press Ctrl + Shift + T, and it will open up the tab you closed last.

You can do this with up to 10 times, and it will repoen the tabs you have closed in order.

How do you clear the cache in Google Chrome?

1. Click the Tools menu. (the wrench in the upper-right corner)

2. Click Clear browsing data…

3. Check the boxes for the types of information you wish to delete.

• Clear browsing history
• Clear download history
• Empty the cache
• Delete cookies
• Clear saved passwords

You can also choose the period of time you wish to delete cached information using the Clear data from this period dropdown menu.
4. Click Clear Browsing Data when ready.

Some people are asking how the heck they get back to Home when using the Google Chrome browser. They ask “Where is the Home button?” It’s not on the toolbar by default. You can enable the it though.

1. Click on the wrench in the upper right corner of the browser window.

2. Click Options.

Google Chrome Wrench Menu

3. Check the box that says Show Home button on the toolbar. Click Close. Done!

Google Chrome - Enable Home button setting

Some of my co-workers weren’t used to the Google Chrome interface and were a little freaked out that there wasn’t a special area where they could manage their bookmarks. They wanted to know where to go to delete or edit a bookmark.

If you click the Other Bookmarks button in the upper right corner, you can right-click the bookmark you wish to Edit, Delete, etc. and the options will appear.

Whenever I start my day, I always open the same web pages across several tabs. Luckily, Google Chrome has a feature that opens them all automatically. Here’s how to enable this feature.

1. Select the wrench in the upper left corner of the screen, then select Options.

Google Chrome Wrench Menu

2. Under the Basics tab in the On startup section, check Open the following pages.

3. Click Add… and type in the web pages you would like to open when you start Google Chrome. You can also select the pages from a list if you wish. Click Close when you’re done.

Google Chrome Options

I’ve always had trouble finding a good, free application to burn my DIVX or XVID AVI files to a DVD under Windows. I have often had to bite the bullet and purchase a program such as Nero to be able to do this. Well, not anymore. I found DVD Flick. It’s a free program that burns almost any video file to a DVD. It’s friggin’ awesome! All you do is drag and drop the file to the window of the application, then click Create DVD.

You’d think that a program that is free might be a bit clunky as far as the interface. It’s totally not. It’s very smooth and responds very quickly, though the actual video crunching and burning process may take a while. It’s also filled with features, however it doesn’t yet have a feature that allows complex menu creation. Still, it’s very cool! Download it here.

DVD Flick Screen

I was playing in a MySQL database and wanted to only view the records that had odd numbers in the ID field. I was able to accomplish this by selecting SQL and using the following code:

SELECT * FROM ‘tablename’ WHERE id%2=1

You can also display even numbered records with:

SELECT * FROM ‘tablename’ WHERE id%2=0

Replace tablename with the name of the table you are using.

A co-worker of mine wanted to view a presentation that was emailed to him. It was a video in AVI format. When he tried playing the file in Windows Media Player, he could hear the sound but the video did not play. This often happens when the correct codec for the video is not installed. The only problem was that we didn’t know what codec the file needed.

Luckily I came across a handy utility called qaviinfo. Here’s how you can use this utility to locate the codec that an AVI video file needs to have installed before you can view it.

1. Download qaviinfo.exe and save it to the same folder that your AVI file is located. Mine is at C:\Downloads for this example.

2. Open a DOS command prompt (Start > Run > CMD) and navigate to that folder. Type CD C:\Downloads.

3. The name of the video file in my case is presenta.avi. So I can now type qaviinfo presenta.avi.

4. A list of information about the file will be displayed. In the Codec column you can see what codec is being used. Here it is FMP4.

5. A Google search on FMP4 revealed to me this link. Which then led me to The Codecs where I found a download for a file that included the FMP4 codec.

Sucess! I could then play the file and see the video.

See Also: How do I find which codec is needed to play an AVI file?

My iTunes was a rickety mess. I had links to songs that didn’t exist on my hard drive anymore, duplicates and a bunch of playlists that I didn’t need anymore. I wanted to start over. I could delete all of this data by individually selecting each item and deleting them, but that’s a pain. There is an easier way. Here’s what I did.

1. Close iTunes.

2. Open My Documents > My Music > iTunes.

3. Right-click iTunes Music Library.xml and select Rename. Give it a name of iTunes Music Library.old. Do the same thing for the iTunes Library.itl file.

4. Open iTunes. Everything should be cleared now. The library, playlist, ratings will then be cleared out. New iTunes Music Library.xml and iTunes Library.itl files will be created.

5. You can now drag and drop your music files you want to get back to the main window of iTunes. The main folder for iTunes music is located at My Documents > My Music > iTunes > iTunes Music. It’s a good idea to organize your music files first before you re-add your music files back to iTunes to avoid duplicates and errant file names.