No Corel VideoStudio Pro X4 for me....yet

I've decided against the upgrade to VideoStudio X4 for now.  In the few days I used it, I didn't really see any benefit over the X3 and X2 combo that I have now....certainly not another $50 worth, which would essentially have put my upgrade at $100.  I'll wait for another sale at Corel that includes the PaintShop Pro upgrade (I currently have X2) as well as VS X4, hopefully for around $70 or $80.

Corel VideoStudio X4...less than a month after I buy X3? Crap!

As luck would have it, Corel released VideoStudio X4 within a month after I upgraded from X2 to X3 for $40.  Hmmm....maybe that's why the upgrade was so cheap!

I've now downloaded the free 30-day trial version of X4 to see how it performs when I run it through it's paces.  I called Corel support and they told me my only option was to by a Tech Upgrade for $50, which gives me a full box copy and a new license, so I can put X3 on a different computer.  It might be worth it...we'll see.

I'm currently capturing some more VH1 Behind the Music episodes with the capture option, so I'll see how that goes.  My initial impressions aren't really that different than X3 in terms of rendering speed.  The fact that the DVD disk creation has been integrated back into the program instead of relying on MovieFactory 7 SE might just be reason enough to plunk down the cash (that and the extra license).  No doubt I will one day have a laptop that can handle video editing, and it would be nice to have an app available to install on it.

Where are all these .event files coming from? The answer is "Corel" and how to stop it (kind of)!

OK, so I was TOTALLY excited to finally upgrade my Corel VideoStudio (Video Studio) to version Pro X3.  After all, I'm running Windows 7 with a 4 core processor with hyper-threading, and the new version would take advantage of all that horsepower!  YEAH!

So I bought the upgrade on a great price from Corel online.  I did the "disk in mail" option because I expected to get a new manual, but no dice on the manual...that's OK, I have the manual from X2, so it will probably work.

So the installation also came with a new utility called DVD Factory Pro 2010, which has backup capability.  I thought I could use the backup utility to burn data DVD's, since I want to get away from using Roxio (although I still use the lightscribe label creator).  So I ran DVD Factory Pro 2010, and it immediately started scanning my system for media files. WHOA!  I have TBs of data, and I didn't want that happening, but there was no way to stop this thing short of killing it in Task Manager.   I killed it and thought, I'll never run that again.

Well, a short time later, I noticed this file with an extension of .event in one of my folders.  Hmmm, I wonder where that came from.  I then started noticing them everywhere..picture folders AND music folders.  The ONLY thing that had changed was the installation of VideoStudio X3, so I had a pretty good idea where they were coming from, and this article at Corel proved it.

Well, I deleted all the .event files in my music folders.  The next day my daughter had a DVD project for me to do, and so I ran DVD Factory Pro 2010 to try and create the DVD.  It didn't work so well (I ended up using MovieFactory 7 SE), but the next day I noticed more of the .event files being created in NEW music folders I was creating.

I knew there had to be a monitor process of some sort running in the background, but Task Manager didn't show any such process with Corel in the description.  I checked for a "service", but there was none that matched the description.

Upon further investigation in Task Manager, I stumbled across processes MLEMonitor and MetadataMgr.   I was able to determine that these are the guys responsible for those darn .event files that are cluttering up my music folders.  They are easy enough to kill in Task Manager, but you must kill MLEMonitor first, then kill MetadataMgr  (otherwise, MLEMonitor will relaunch another instance of MetadataMgr).  It even has it's own folder in the Corel program group > Program Files(x86)/Corel/MLE/.

I was also able to confirm that they are ONLY launched when DVD Factory Pro 2010 is run.  There does not appear to be any way to configure these scanning processes NOT to run, and the program has no Preferences or Settings options.  It appears that they will only scan your configured "Libraries", but since I have 12 folder locations (consisting of over 2TB of data) defined in my Music Library, it's going to scan and monitor them all (hence the reason I was getting .event files in folders I had just created).  I looked for a way to deinstall JUST DVD Factory Pro 2010, but it does not show up in the uninstall list, and it appears to only be runnable from inside VideoStudio X3.

I registered as a user in the Corel support forum so I can reply to that thread with the answer on how to stop the .event files from being created, and will also suggest they modify it so that you can turn off the monitoring.  Most people probably don't even know they have these .event files because they are hidden, but PowerUsers like me turn off all that hidden crap off in explorer.

Windows 7 Explorer error "Could Not Find This Item" when deleting a file...

Have you run into this little Windows 7 Explorer bugaboo yet?  When you try to delete a 0kb file you get an error window pop up that says "Could Not Find This Item".   I had 3 of these little gems hanging around my downloads folder, all of them without extensions, and I couldn't get rid of them...Delete didn't work, F5 to Refresh didn't work, trying to move them to a new folder didn't work, and DEL from the command prompt didn't work.  I thought about booting into SAFE MODE, but I found the correct solution first:

1.  Shift+Right Click on the directory where the offending file resides, and choose "Open command window here" from the menu.

2. Type command DIR /X   (this command will generate a listing slightly different than just DIR, in that you will not only see the "Windows" filenames, but the 8-letter DOS filenames as well, which is the one you want).  In the example, file V.A. cannot be deleted, but the DIR /X command gives me the DOS filename as  well:
[example]  11/10/2010  11:45 AM       0  VA2E96~1       V.A.

3. Type the DEL command, using the DOS filename from the listing: DEL [DOS-filename]   (so I typed DEL VA2E96~1)

...simple as that

Testing Firefox 4.0 BETA

I decided to test out the new Firefox 4.0 Beta.  I've been using the Firefox browser ever since 2004 when IE allowed my system to be mercilously infected with Adware, forcing me to reinstall from scratch.  I've loved using Firefox, but lately I've noticed that Chrome and Opera were much faster.  I was hoping that the new release of FF would do the trick, and based on my early (one day) impressions, it has.  I find it to be much more responsive than before.

What I like:
The built in tab view page
The see-thru (aero?) style of the top bar
Paste & Go right click menu option (finally)
The overall speed...big improvement!

What I don't like (yet):
The tabs being moved above the address bar (I just have to move my mouse further...yuk!)
The status items that used to be in the bottom right hand corner are now part of the navigation bar
When you hover over a link, the destination now appears in the address bar.
I'm used to looking at the bottom of the window for these last 2 items, so it's going to take getting used to looking at the top to see them.

All-in-all, it looks like a huge thumbs up on the FF 4.0.   Hopefully my add-on makers are on the ball so I don't have to wait too long for some of those functions (thankfully NoScript -- a requirement these days -- is already a go).

Overclocking my i7-920...an exercise in "good enough"

Back in January 2009 I built me a new desktop to upgrade from my seriously aged 2.8Ghz P4 system. After much deliberation I decided to go ahead and bite the bullet and go with the latest and greatest that Intel had to offer....the brand new Core i7. The CPUs brought a premium price for sure, but with 4 cores and hyper-threading, I figured I'd be safe for a few years.

Fast forward 2 years and I decided it was time to see about upgrading my socket 1366 chip. Imagine my surprise when I learned that the 1366 did not have a desktop upgrade path. What? It wasn't THAT old?!? Was it? Intel only released one generation of processors for it, switching to the LGA1255 socket shortly thereafter. That SUCKS!

So since I have the low-end 920, it has plenty of head room, right? I read everywhere about OC'ers hitting 4Ghz on this chip...well, the d0 stepping anyway....and of course, because I was a very early adopter, I have the c0 version. More SUCKAGE!

I have the "more than adequate" Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R (rev 1.0) board, so I figured I'd hit a pretty good number, right? I researched several sites that outlined how to overclock that chip on that board, and I made all the recommended adjustments. I even upgraded the fan on my CoolerMaster Gemini II cooler to a 2600 RPM model.

I'd been monitoring the thermals on the system prior to any changes, and the core temp at "rest" was around 32 degrees C. Pretty good, so I figured I had plenty of room. However, following all the steps in the tutorials, I was only able to get a stable system at 21X multiplier and Bclk 160 @ 1.375 V, which comes out at 3.3Ghz. Any higher and it would eventually BSOD with a hal.dll error. Oh well, some is better than none, I guess. Running 8 cores full blast, the core temps top out at around 70 degrees C, which is still well below TJMax. I can live with that. I reenabled all of the "peformance" and "energy saving" settings in the BIOS that you disable to find a stable OC, so most of the time, the multiplier drops down to around 12X anyway.

Maybe this will hold me over for another couple of years.

My Isuzu pickup's dashboard lights are finally out

For several years I've been living with the dashboard lights staying on when I started by '92 Isuzu pickup (2.3L). Not only would the dashboard lights stay on, but the internal blower fan would not run, and the windshield wipers would move very slowly. I learned pretty quickly that I could get the lights to go out (and everything to start working normally) if I rev'd the engine to high RPMs, or in the course of normal driving let the RPMs climb pretty high.

Of course, when this first started, I tried to figure out what was wrong. I tested the voltage on the alternator immediately after starting the truck (with the dash lights on), and it was about 12 V, which isn't enough. However, after rev'ing the engine and getting the dash lights to go out, it was 14.5 V like normal. The conclusion....bad alternator. I took the alternator back to the shop where I'd gotten it, and since it had a lifetime warranty they gave me another one. Both units were bench tested, and both tested perfectly. I installed the new alternator....EXACT SAME PROBLEM. The conclusion....not a bad alternator.

I didn't know what else it could be, but I did some research online and found at isuzuforums.com that some others had run into this same problem. One guy fixed his, he swears, by replacing the internal fuse box. Really?...not me! Another found that he had a bad connector going from the alternator back to the battery. I had long since removed that inline connector because it would get dirty and prevent the battery from charging correctly, but I decided to revisit the permanent connection assembly I had put in place there. I bought a heavy duty straight thru connector, restripped the wires, and redid the connections...wrapping it up nice and tidy with heat protection and tape. Still no change....so that wasn't bad.

I was at the end of my abilities and figured I had some bizarre electrical issue, so I just lived with it for the next 5 years, until just recently. It became apparent over time that it was getting more and more difficult to get the lights to go out, and last month it became impossible. All the old tricks that used to work could no longer satisfy whatever condition was necessary to get the dash lights to go out...and hence, the internal blow motor for the heater didn't work. Winter was approaching and I'd already had to experience driving the truck while it was cold outside, and I decided that it was time for this to be fixed.

I did a quick tune up (not sure when the last one of those was done) just to make sure that wasn't it (it wasn't), and took the truck to my mechanic. After some research and work, he determined that this truck has an interesting little electrical system in which the alternator sends an "I'm charging" signal to a relay, and that relay is responsible for allowing the rest of the electrical systems in the truck to start up (including the heater blower and dash light systems). He replaced the relay, but that didn't fix it (naturally). He did some more testing, including grounding the relay, and as soon as he did that, the dash lights went out. The conclusion....the relay is not getting the correct "I'm charging" signal from the alternator.

He did some additional research, including reading postings on some professional mechanics forums, and found that it was pretty common for replacement alternators to not correctly handle the sending of this signal to the relay, requiring the installation of several different alternators before finding one that worked. Before he started looking for a wiring issue leading from the alternator to the relay, he bought a new alternator from O'Reilly Auto Parts (he's had better luck with these than from Autozone or Advance), and it worked. The conclusion...all alternators are not created equal.

So, to recap...

Problem: 1992 Isuzu 2.3L pickup was leaving the dashboard idiots lights on after the engine was started
Cause: The replacement (reman'd) alternator (2 of them) was not sending the correct "I'm charging" signal to the relay that allows the rest of the "optional" electrical systems to turn on
Solution: Install a good alternator that handles this signal correctly (may take a few).

My replacement alternator was about $150, total cost of repair was $250 with diagnostics, labor, and the new relay