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Lenovo Y50 Hinge Problem #1: Screen Lid Screw Posts Came Off or Destroyed

Fri, 17 May 2019 18:10:39 +0300

Lenovo Y50's hinge applies on the screen lid quite extensive load. So, this laptop often has issues with the hinge screw posts inside the screen lid.

One possible way of dealing with this issue is shown below.

The vast majority of screw posts in Lenovo Y50 are made of a plastic post and threaded expansion insert fused together. It's not a big surprise the threaded insert can easily come off due the insufficient plastic quality. In the video fragment you see the screen lid screw posts for the right hinge having this problem:

[read more]

Urgent FreeBSD Installation on Asus A6R Laptop

Sat, 21 Apr 2018 17:53:39 +0300

My Lenovo Edge 430 broke down almost at the end of configuring a Linux server for a customer. I had a backup laptop a friend of mine gave me two years ago: Asus A6R. I decided to install FreeBSD on it for running ssh, so I could finish Linux server configuration... [read more]

Windows 7 Drivers for EPoX-4PDA3I motherboard

Fri, 17 Mar 2017 14:00:40 +0200

If you want to upgrade your old computer built using EPoX-4PDA3I motherboard to Windows 7, you must know EPoX doesn't exist anymore, so it's impossible to download ANY official drivers for it, let alone Windows 7 drivers. In this article I provide drivers needed to install EPoX-4PDA3I integrated devices about which Windows 7 doesn't know:

[read more]

GeForce2 MX400 video drivers for Windows 7

Sun, 12 Mar 2017 19:59:34 +0200

I've just finished installing Windows 7 on a system with an ancient video card – GeForce2 MX400. It wasn't very easy, so I decided to write down my experience to the blog... [read more]

The gallery title in a custom NextGEN Gallery template

Wed, 08 Feb 2017 19:52:33 +0200

When using custom album and gallery templates, NextGEN Gallery plugin doesn't provide any variables with the gallery name to the gallery template:

[read more]

List of exceptions in Java 8

Wed, 13 Jan 2016 00:41:18 +0200

Let's say you are writing a Java-program, and now is the time to throw an exception. Of what type should it be? Does the broad Exception class suit our needs, or it's better to use a problem-specific exception? If the latter is the case, should we write our own exception or take one from the standard Java-library... [read more]

Palm Tungsten T5 battery replacement

Fri, 29 Aug 2014 16:43:56 +0300

The original battery installed in my Palm Tunsten T5 is Samsung SDI PGF523759A (3.7V, 53x33x4 mm). The replacement I've googled is CS-PMT5SL (Part No. IA1XA27F1, 63x34x4 mm). Unfortunately, it wasn't in stock anywhere around... [read more]

Asus Eee Pc 1001PQ: installing touchpad driver on Windows 7 Ultimate

Tue, 19 Aug 2014 13:36:10 +0300

The touchpad driver for Windows 7 on the official Asus site doesn't work properly: the grey icon in the system tray doesn't react on cursor movements and pressing of the buttons. The problem gets worse if KB Filter Utility is installed and you've pressed the Touchpad On/Off button. In such a case, the touchpad turns off and it's impossible to turn it on again until you uninstall Synaptics Touchpad drivers or KB Filter Utility (ATK, functional keys utility)... [read more]

Switching to another language in Colobot: Gold Edition

Mon, 23 Dec 2013 16:34:48 +0200

If you want to play “Colobot: Gold Edition” in a language that is not set as default in your OS, then you can run the game from the command line with language parameter... [read more]

Add / Remove Windows components doesn't work (because of an inf-file)

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 19:59:52 +0300

So Add / Remove Windows components from Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs doesn't open, which is accompanied with the following error:

Unable to open information file custom.inf Contact administrator.
Specific error code - 0x2 at line 2011777033... [read more]

PHP quirks: a caveat with array string keys and an 'array_shift' call

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 01:28:16 +0200

What do you think the following code snippet prints?

// Fill the array (each array element has the same value as a key)
foreach(array('07', '08', '09', '10') as $n){
    $a[$n] = $n;
}

// Delete the first element from the array
array_shift($a);

// Print a value of the element with a key of '10'
echo $a['10'];

If you, like me, think that the element of the array with a key of '10' has a string value of "10", then you're unfortunately wrong. But now you've got a reason to read the article further... [read more]

How to install Windows update files quickly

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 15:59:29 +0200

So, you have a folder with Windows Update Files (e.g. downloaded from Microsoft Update Center):

...
WindowsXP-KB938464-v2-x86-RUS.exe
WindowsXP-KB944043-v3-x86-RUS.exe
WindowsXP-KB946648-x86-RUS.exe
WindowsXP-KB950762-x86-RUS.exe
WindowsXP-KB950974-x86-RUS.exe
...
... (a lot of files)

If you have such a folder, then it's logical to install all the files automatically at once, with a single command line... [read more]

How to remove "Your website URL" field from comment forms in Silverstripe CMS

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 00:03:12 +0300

It's obvious that “Your website URL” field in Silverstripe comment forms is a plum for spammers, so let's remove this field... [read more]

Copying records from one table to another: INSERT from SELECT in SQL

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:09:59 +0300

If you find yourself writing something like the following code, try to stop and think for a while (the example uses PHP Database Objects extension)... [read more]

Silverstripe (Blog module): localisation of Tag Cloud widget

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 14:46:18 +0300

In current version of Silverstripe's Blog module it's impossible to show non-latin tags in Tag Cloud widget — you'll see garbage instead of them: [read more]

Opera 11 won't start on Windows

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 22:35:22 +0300

Today I've faced with a problem – Opera 11 couldn't start on Windows XP and showed the following error:

Opera has failed to access or upgrade your profile. This may have occurred because your computer has insufficient recources available or because some files are locked by other applications. [read more]

Video Camera for Skype: using a video camera as a web-camera

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 04:52:12 +0200

The following works also in other applications (not only in Skype) that use a web-cam and don't work with your video-camera connected to your PC through FireWire (for example)... [read more]

Silverstripe: How to insert Google Analytics code (or any other custom code) at the end of a head section?

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 03:48:43 +0200

By default Silverstripe CMS doesn't have any means to place a custom javascript snippet at the very end of the head section just before "</head>" closing tag. I faced with this today because I wanted to put Google Analytics tracker code there. Of course, I know that technically one can place this code anywhere, but I had problems with my statistics and I wanted to be sure that I did everything as Google said... [read more]

Site Upgrade

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 15:26:07 +0200

The site has been migrated to a new engine. Now it's Silverstripe CMF with the standard skin BlackCandy [read more]