IT Resource

The infamous Microsoft “Blue Screen Of Death”, or BSOD, can of course have many causes, some of which can be fixed up with a reboot. Other BSOD errors may signify a more serious issue related to Drivers, memory or other factors.

Listed below are a few of the most common Error messages that accompany a BSOD, together with explanations of what they may mean.

The error messages take the form of an 8-character hexidecimal code (the last eight characters in the ‘STOP’ message code).

 
STOP: 0×0000000A
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
Indicates that a kernel-mode process or driver attempted to access a memory location it did not have permission to access, or a memory location that exists at a kernel interrupt request level (IRQL) that was too high (a kernel-mode process can only access other processes that have an IRQL that’s equal to or lower than its own).

 
STOP: 0×0000001E
KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
The Windows XP kernel detected an illegal or unknown processor instruction. The problems that cause this error can be either software or hardware related and result from invalid memory and access violations, which are intercepted by the Windows default error handler if error-handling routines are not present in the code  itself.

 
STOP: 0×00000024
NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM
Indicates that a problem occurred within Ntfs.sys, the driver file that allows the system to read and write to drives formatted with the NTFS file system. (A similar Stop message, 0×00000023, exists for the file allocation table [FAT16 or FAT32)] file systems).

 
STOP: 0×00000050
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
The requested data was not in memory. The system generates an exception error when using a reference to an invalid system memory address. Defective memory (including main memory, L2 RAM cache, video RAM) or incompatible software may cause this error.

 
STOP: 0×0000007B
INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE
Windows XP has lost access to the system partition or boot volume during the startup process. Incorrect device drivers typically cause this error although it can also indicate a possible virus infection.

 
STOP: 0×0000007F
UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP
A hardware problem e.g. resulting from mismatched or defective memory, a malfunctioning CPU, or a fan failure that’s causing overheating.

 
STOP: 0×0000009F
DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE
Indicates that a driver is in an inconsistent or invalid power state. This error typically occurs during events that involve power state transitions, such as shutting down or moving in or out of standby or hibernate mode.

 
STOP: 0×000000D1
DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
The system attempted to access pageable memory using a kernel process IRQL that was too high. Typical cause is a bad device driver (one that uses improper addresses) although it can also be caused by faulty or mismatched RAM or a damaged pagefile.

 
STOP: 0×000000EA
THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER
A device driver problem is causing the system to pause indefinitely. Typically, this problem is caused by a display driver waiting for the video hardware to enter an idle state. This might point to a hardware problem with the video adapter or a faulty video driver.

 
STOP: 0xC0000218
UNKNOWN_HARD_ERROR
A required registry hive file could not be loaded. The file may be corrupt or missing. The registry file may have been corrupted due to hard disk corruption or some other hardware problem. A driver may have corrupted the registry data while loading into memory or the memory where the registry is loading may have a parity error.

 
STOP: 0xC0000221
STATUS_IMAGE_CHECKSUM_MISMATCH
Driver, system file, or disk corruption problems (such as a damaged paging file). Faulty memory hardware can also cause this message to appear.

Sun’s ‘Light-weight UI Toolkit’ (LWUIT) has been made available for download under a version of the GPL2 open-source license, which will make it easier for developers to create applications for the Jave ME mobile/smart phone platform.

According to Sun’s Craig Gering: “We are enabling mobile developers to quickly and easily create rich, portable interfaces for their applications,” declared Craig Gering, Sun’s senior director of embedded Java software.

“This software will also help address the mobile industry’s fragmentation issue by enabling developers to create a single interface that will work anywhere Java is found.”

More information: http://lwuit.blogspot.com/

Here’s a handy little list of useful Vista keyboard shortcuts:

• Win + d – show Desktop
• Win + f- search for files
• Win + g  – cycles through Gadget selections
• Win + l – lock your computer
• Win + m – minimize windows
• Win + t  - cycles through Taskbar programs
• Win + u  – activate the ‘Ease of Use’ Center
• Win + x  – cycle through the ‘Mobility’ Center
• Win + Spacebar  – bring Gadgets to the front

Also – if you use the Quick Launch toolbar, pressing the Win key + a number (from the top row of the keyboard) will launch the corresponding application in the Quick Launch toolbar.

e.g. if your first 4 Quick Launch icons are Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint – If you press Win+2, that will start up Word, Win+4 will start Powerpoint and so on. This only applies to the first 10 QuickLaunch icons Win+0 being the last). 

Quick post to tell you about a very useful site (recently ‘wiki-fied’ covering free software for business, development and home use. There seems to be a lot of useful stuff in there and it’s pretty active as well…well worth a look:

It can be found here – Gizmo’s Tech Support Site

It can get extremely frustrating when trying to send a file via email only to find that it’s too big.  Maybe it’s a video, music, or even some images.  I’ve come across this problem myself many times before and in the end, you have no choice but to copy your files to CD/DVD or even a USB flash drive and send it off via post, which usually takes a day or two, even when using the priority/express service.

What if you wanted someone to receive your files within hours, even minutes (depending on the file size) with very little effort at all?  What if I told you that it’s possible and totally free as well?

There are two really good web based file storage and delivery services which I’ve used for quite some time now and never had an issue with either one. Best of all, they are fast, free and very simple to use.

- DropSend
Quick and easy sign up; takes about 15 seconds and you are good to go.  Very simple interface to navigate around.  You can store up to 250MB of files and send up to 5 files per month, absolutely free!  Paid plans are also available from $5 per month.

- YouSendIt
Also a quick and easy sign up process; takes about 2 minutes.  Also includes a simple interface to navigate.  You can send files up to 100MB and have 1000MB of bandwidth allocated to your account each month.

Both of these tools come with plugins and add-ons which will allow you to send files directly from your desktop, without having to log into the website each time, making life even easier.

Simple Machines Forum (SMF) is a free, professional grade software package that allows you to set up your own online community within minutes.

Its powerful custom made template engine puts you in full control of the lay-out of your message board and with our unique SSI (Server Side Includes) function you can let your forum and your website interact with each other.

SMF is written in the popular language PHP and uses a MySQL database. It is designed to provide you with all the features you need from a bulletin board while having an absolute minimal impact on the resources of the server. SMF is the next generation of forum software – and best of all it is and will always remain completely free!

I’ve personally installed, configured and tested SMF and have no problems recommending it to those looking at starting up their own online community.

You can find more information and download Simple Machines Forum from www.simplemachines.org

Some time ago I posted that I was offering free web hosting and cheap .id.au domain names over at IT Resource.  At the time of that post, disk space was set at 30MB and data transfer was set at 300MB (monthly).  As much as I thought people would jump on the offer, no one did, which was a little disappointing.

In an attempt to try and get people to take up this offer, I’ve decided to raise the bar and try once again.  This time, the disk space is set at 100MB (up from 30MB) and data transfer is set at 1000MB (up from 300MB).  There is enough disk space and data transfer (bandwidth) available to get a really good website up and running.

Also included in this package is:

• cPanel Access
• Email Accounts
• FTP Access/Accounts
• Sub-domains
• Web mail
• PHP Support
• MySQL Databases

This is a professional hosting package allowing you to create and host virtually any website you want on Australian based servers.

If you are interested in taking up offer, click here for more details!

Go to: http://www.microsoft.com/australia/vistafacts/fact.aspx

Answer a few obvious questions and you will be sent a free Vista t-shirt at the end of it. You will need to load the site in IE and install Microsoft Silverlight, which takes all of about 20 seconds!

Every day, hundreds of websites and blogs join the millions that already use Snap Shots to upgrade their user experience billions of times. It’s so popular, that volunteers have already translated it into 43 languages!

With Snap Shots, users can mouse-over links to get the most appropriate shot of content for that link.

With a dozen types of Snap Shots and counting, you’ll be able to ensure that your site is always at the leading edge of interactive contextual media by just adding one line of JavaScript. Please be sure to read the Menu of Shots to see how each individual shot works and for what links it is activated.

More information on Snap Shots here!

The swiss-army knife for QuickTime

Perian enables QuickTime application support for additional Media Types:

• AVI, FLV, and MKV file formats
• MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivX, H.264, FLV1, FSV1, VP6, H263I, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), MPEG Layer II Audio
• AVI support for: AAC, AC3 Audio, H.264, MPEG4, and VBR MP3
• Subtitle support for SSA and SRT

Get it from www.perian.org

ClickLink provides fashionable clocks that you can easily embed in your web page. All you need to do is simply copy and paste the generated code ClockLink provides into your web page. The clocks will display the city name of your choice if you choose. You can also choose a time zone for your clock so it will show the correct time.

It is very quick and easy to design your own clock.

You can get your clock from www.clocklink.com