Dave's Techytips

I don't watch much television, but I've been watching the Big Bang Theory show for years.  I love it because I can empathize with several attributes of the characters and it reminded me of several childhood encounters with my geeky friends.  I though I had found my show , but it turns out that nearly 15 million watch this this top rated CBS show. For the past couple years, I've been trying to get tickets to see a live taping at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank.  The TVTickets website provides audience tickets to the Big Bang Theory taping, but they are not showing because they are "sold out".  The website states: The show schedule and this order form automatically update by 8:30am (M-F Los Angeles time) to display shows scheduled for the next 30 days. Shows/dates that are "sold out" or are more than 30 days from today will not be included in the drop box. So I've been repetitively checking the website.  After a while, I relegated to fact that I

Google Talk services are out across the board.  It all started this morning and was out for several hours; it took a while for Google to acknowledge  that Hangouts and Google Talk were having a service disruption.  This isn't a typical partial network outage either since it affects all users in many regions; although Google didn't formerly admitted to be a service outage. Users attempting to login were stuck in a continuous looping cycle leaving them with the uncertainty that it might be due to their Windows machine.   Rebooting of course didn't work; so some people here thought it was a problem with their station and tried to re-install Google Talk only to discover that it is no longer available.  I too learned this lesson the hard way after having to re-installing Windows due to an audio problem (which incidentally was triggered by Google Hangouts). For those unfortunate soles who thought it was a problem with their computer, I'm proving a  download for Google

Usually hardware manufacturers tools are better than the Windows default equivalent.  In the case of Wireless Network management, I usually find that Windows Zero Configuration Management is more reliable with the exception of a multi-location wireless network I use at work.  In some networks, especially cheap wifi routers (like the Fry's unit in my home) the built in Intel ProSET seems to get disconnected every so often and is very annoying, so for that, I will switch to the Windows built-in tool. Enabling Windows Default in Windows 7 Start/automatic the Wired AutoConfig Properties service. Start/automatic the  WLAN AutoConfig Properties  service. Stop/Disable   Intel(R) PROSet/Wireless Zero Configuration Service , if it exists. In task manager, view processes and sort task name.  Kill the task called Intel PROSet Wireless. For instructions in Windows 8, XP also see the  visual instructions from Aber Univ. Enabling Intel Wireless Configuration Management in Wind

Error in SQL Server Jobs: SQL Server blocked access to procedure 'dbo.sp_get_sqlagent_properties' of component 'Agent XPs' because this component is turned off as part of the security configuration for this server. A system administrator can enable the use of 'Agent XPs' by using sp_configure. For more information about enabling 'Agent XPs', see "Surface Area Configuration" in SQL Server Books Online. Resolve by: sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1; GO; RECONFIGURE; GO; sp_configure 'Agent XPs', 0; GO; RECONFIGURE; GO;

Like a efficient biological virus, spam and online scams continue to evolve and take on new forms that elude even the discerning person. From: "Friends name" Subject: " Vacation Problems... " My Family and I are currently on vacation to Madrid (Spain),and we got mugged last night in an alley by a gang of thugs on my way back from shopping, everything i had on me including my cell phone, credit cards were all stolen,quite honestly it was beyond a dreadful experience for me but looking on the bright side  i was not seriously hurt or injured and i am still alive so that is whats important. I've reported to the cops here and canceled all my cards,it appeared I had acted quickly enough or they almost would have succeeded in cleaning out my bank account. I'm really having some difficulties clearing my hotel bills and also need to pick up a voucher ticket at the counter for us to catch a flight back home in a couple of hours. I was wondering if you could

Recently a friend asked me to take an online course with him.   Although I'm a big proponent of education, I didn't see the value in taking a couple extra classes.  But I begrudgingly enrolled because the classes that seemed interesting in AI & search engines.  I was very surprised at how well done the entire class was, how easy it was to follow each exercises and do homework functioned online.  It was very easy to fit it in my schedule too.  Sections are given out each week at your own pace, so I was able to go through them at various evenings during the week or on the weekend. The courses I took are provide by  Udacity  and taught by Stanford professors that work at Google (Sebastian Thrun & David Evans).  You can learn how to program a search engine, program in python, Javascript and HTML, the finer details of data encryption, or like I did, learn how to  program a robotic car .  The best part is that this is a completely free, 7-week online course; no upsells or