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Monthly Archives: February 2011

Meet the Amstrad CPC 6128: My first ever computer

Amstrad CPC 6128This Amstrad CPC 6128 is where it all began for me with computers. Yes this beauty is the first computer I ever owned, the first computer my family ever used, and the machine I used to write my first lines of code in Basic. It was either a very special birthday or Christmas present from my parents, and certainly a gift I have never forgotten. It was a very expensive present given the modest pay my parents were bringing home, and I was incredibly lucky to have loving parents willing to scrape together the kind of money needed to buy it.

The computer boasted a Z80 processor with a clock speed of 4 Ghz, 128KB of RAM, a 3.5″ Floppy drive, and mine was connected to a green screen monitor. For £100 more you could get a full colour screen. I remember a wealthy family my mother used to work for owning the colour screen model, and I was so jealous that their kids could play games in full colour.

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Posted by on February 22, 2011 in Computer Museum

 

How to fix Adobe Creative Suite CS3 installation problems in Windows 7 64-Bit

Installing Adobe Creative Suite CS3 on 64-Bit editions of Microsoft Windows has always been a bit of a hassle, since 64-Bit computing really wasn’t common in the MS Windows world when the software suite was originally released.

When you attempt to install any edition of Adobe Creative Suite CS3 on 64 bit Windows Vista or Windows 7 you’ll be prompted for a missing AdobePDF.dll file. Adobe themselves recommend using some form of cab extraction before you begin installation, obtaining the file you will need to complete the installation. Others hunt high and low for a copy of the file posted on random websites, but that’s always a giant security risk. Thankfully there is a much easier (and safer) way than using Google search for the missing DLL, or following the published method in the Adobe knowledge base.

The Simple Solution:

Install Adobe Creative Suite CS3 from your DVD media as normal, running through the usual install steps and answering questions about the type of install you want to do on your machine.

As the installation approaches the conclusion, you will be prompted to provide a missing AdobePDF.dll file. In that dialog box click browse, move back one directory, and then enter the AMD directory. From within that AMD directory, select the “AdobePDF.dll” file and then continue the installation.

Your installation should now complete correctly. Job done!

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2011 in Windows 7

 

How to quickly fix file/directory permissions in Windows 7

Sometimes ownership permissions get screwed up on directories and files in Microsoft Windows, denying you and your applications access to multiple files and sub folders.

This recently happened to my Music folder. The Zune software didn’t have permission to read any of my music, leaving me stuck playing 30 second clips from the Zune store. I didn’t really feel motivated to manually go in and fix permissions for all the artist folders in my Music directory. Luckily I stumbled across a useful registry hack that fixed all my woes with a simple right click.

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Posted by on February 19, 2011 in Windows 7

 
 
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