Guidance (archived)

Installation CD/DVD’s are not always included when you buy a new home PC (desktop/laptop). However, one day one might need to recover the PC. (Often it is a matter of time.) At that time, it is easily done by using a system image.

System image need to be created early soon after PS has been taking into use, so that the system is still as “clean” as possible. Ideally system image is stored into separate media (DVDs), but storing on the same physical disk is better than nothing (ie. on logical drive D:).

Create System Image

By using Windows build-in tools

• How to Create a System Image in Windows 7
• How to Create a System Image Backup in Windows 7

Some manufacturers, like Packard Bell, include their own tools for the same purpose

• CREATE WINDOWS 7 INSTALLATION DISCS

When you start a new computer, popup windows typically remind you about this important step.

Example

Well, it happened to me, that one day I decided to remove several unnecessary software from my home computer. Unfortunately after reboot, some parts were no longer functioning. For some reason there were several problems related with flash player and ATI graphic card. Finally after failed fixing attempts with flash software and graphic cards drivers, I restored the PC from a system image which had been created 1,5 years earlier, and luckily it worked!

Many of the people investing in shares can manage their investment via tools provided by their Brokers.

In addition, there exist a huge number of software providing latest share prices and all kind of technical analysis data. And even many portfolio management tools are relying on retrieving and updating information from online sources. Especially “Yahoo! Finance” is widely used information source. Jstock and stock-portfolio-manager (no installation required) are open source examples.

Surpricingly there are not many portfolio tools for markets which cover the offline sources. The method presented here is targeted more for markets where online resources are not easily available. Or to situations where one would like to have one simple way for portfolio management. For other situations, one need to perform comparison of tools.

Template by Microsoft

The excel template by Microsoft called “Stock investment performance tracker” might provide base for your own easy portfolio management. The figure below shows an example, with fictious data filled in and the currency symbol changed into Euro.

Freeware Alternative

StockWatch provides a more mature Excel based alternative. The approach is good.

The only minus is the distribution via installation.

Your own

By combining the ideas from the 2 above, one can easily develop your own excel.

Note

As mentioned, these excels are targeted for situations where data is feeded in manually. However, by using Autoit scripting tool one can update share price and history information on these excel sheets automatically!

USB cable is often the replaceable part when connecting devices into computer.

USB cable colors and connector pinout (from wikipedia):

 

USB 1/2 pinout

Pin	Name	Cable color	Description
1	VBUS	Red	+5 V
2	D-	White(Gold *)	Data –
3	D+	Green	Data +
4	GND	Black(blue*)	Ground

However, sometimes the device comes with it’s own USB cable. In case of broken cable, one might need to consider to buy a new device, or to fix the cable itself. Unfortunately a puppy dog happen to bite KVM switch (mentioned in earlier blog), where USB cables are not replaceables. The following slide set shows the flow of fixing it.

The problem:

The new USB plug:
(Luckily the cable was available from a broken headphone set).

Soldering cables:

The end result:
(“Not best and perfect”, but now KVM is working)